We tend to rush around doing things, rather than just being. Are you able to just sit? Can you focus on what is in front of you right now, without your mind wandering to wishes and desires about the future?
Because our egos tend to want things to be a certain way, sometimes it’s challenging to enjoy what we’re actually experiencing, without wanting it to be different! We need to ‘love what is’ not try to make it into something else! This means overcoming resistance and being willing to accept things as they actually are. Magically, as soon as we do that, transformation becomes possible! As soon as we accept how things actually are, we have the power to change them. Until then we are just trapped in illusion, wants and longing.
All there is in our little lives is the now. What else is there? Where else can we live? The now. This very moment. I’m sitting in Singapore writing to you. It’s early morning. Very quiet. Feeling peaceful. How’s your now moment, for you, right now?
The now is actually a very peaceful place to be. When we’re stuck in the past we are disempowered – there’s nothing we can do! It’s over! When we are in the future, there’s nothing we can do – it hasn’t arrived yet! When we are in the present moment we can bring all our being and power to bear in creating what we want. We can also just enjoy what is! That’s the place to be!
Meditation for coming into the now
Feel your feet. Actually get hold of them with your hands. How do they feel? Feel your legs. Get hold of them with your hands. How do they feel? Continue feeling parts of your body and asking yourself ‘how do they feel’.. knees, hips, belly. Continue up the body until you reach the eyes, the top of the head.
Allow yourself to feel whatever feelings come up. If there’s a ‘negative’ feeling like anger or sadness, just give yourself permission to feel it. Allow it all.
Place your hands on your heart. Say hello to yourself. Say out loud ‘Hello (your name) I love you. It’s safe to be here in the now’. And now contemplate spans of time (freely, like: One second, one day, five days, a year, ten seconds, twenty years, a hundred years, a thousand years, ten thousand years (make it up until it feels complete).
Place your feet on the ground. Notice how they feel. Place your hands on your heart. Feel what you are feeling in this present moment. Keep feeling it and notice how it is. Now allow yourself to follow that feeling!
Relieving the head chatter
The mind is a dried and wizzened pea in comparison to the great halls of other parts of our consciousness. Unfortunately, though, it tends to have a compelling story which can keep us ‘in the head’, thinking about things, when actually, we need to be in the heart ‘feeling about things’.
Meditation is a great way of creating a quiet space so this can happen. It’s not actually possible to stop the mind chatter, so don’t try! Rather, in meditation, we learn to keep the conscious mind busy, by focusing on a mantra, while we merely aim to notice or witness the mind chatter. This then creates a gap into which new and more creative thoughts and feelings can appear. It is deeply relaxing, beneficial even for only ten minutes, and can be done anywhere, so why not try it in this now moment!
How to Meditate
Sit comfortably. Pull the spine up straight yet relax the shoulders, relax the entire body. Tuck the chin slightly. Breathing is through the nose. Close the eyes and focus at the third eye, as if you are looking out through the centre of your forehead. Take a deep breath, notice everything that got you to this point today, and breathe out letting it go. We’re going to use a mantra ‘sat nam’, sanscrit for ‘truth is my name’.
(A) As you inhale, think ‘SAT’ at your third eye, as you exhale think ‘NAM’. Continue inhaling ‘SAT’ and exhaling ‘NAM’. Notice any thoughts that come in, and release them. Notice and let them fly away like leaves. Continue with SAT NAM. If you forget the mantra and go off into your thoughts, allow that, simply notice, and return to SAT NAM. Continue to repeat instructions from (A) above.
Practise this regularly and you will drop into the gap in your thoughts and find yourself in a place where your deeper wisdom becomes available to you. Keep a notepad and pencil nearby to jot down what comes to you (saves the stress of trying to remember it for later!).
Enjoy being and feeling who you are!
NEXT ISSUE: Loving Yourself
Jelila is a gifted natural intuitive based in Seminyak.
She sings you back to health and harmony using her heavenly
voice and the natural vibration of crystals. Contact:
The Holistic Centre (behind Dijon, Kuta Roundabout):
0361 766259.
Jelila welcomes comments and may be contacted on:
Email: jelila@jelila.com
Website: www.jelila.com or www.imagine-retreats.com
