© Lubaina Choudhury
Living Life Consciously - how meditation can help identify and remove key blocks in your mind
Just like we take care of how physical body by taking baths and showers and cleaning, we need to take care of our internal environment, our minds. Meditation is a practice that can help us clean our thoughts, our minds, our inner world. We are all striving for a healthier, more productive life. Everybody wants to be more happy, more fulfilled. Sometimes it might seem like no matter what we do, we get stuck and can't move past a certain point. A key reason behind this, are unconscious patterns in our minds that we are not aware of. Habituated ways of thinking that eventually translate into habitual actions that hold us back.
Since these patterns are unconscious, they are what we don't know that we don't know. So how do we work with these patterns? When we allow ourselves to relax and calm our minds and connect to ourselves in a fuller more present way, we can then unlock the door of what is behind these habitual patterns and in doing so bring awareness to them. As we become aware of what the real block is that is holding us in these unconscious behaviors, we can create release those blocks and create real, and long lasting change.
I will share an example from my own life. I have a habit of procrastinating (something I'm sure no one else can relate to ;) ) and sometimes I will put things off for no apparent reason, until it absolutely needs to get done and I have more of a sense of urgency. And for the longest time I was not able to break this habit, until I started implementing a mindfulness practice like meditation. Only then was I able to understand the unconscious motivations, even fears behind this pattern (fear of failure being one of them) and then I was able to change this pattern of behavior I had developed and create a new one. I have also been able to stay conscious of this old pattern when it comes up again, so that I can shift it and it doesn't govern my actions.
Meditation is a way for us to explore our inner worlds. I have a friend who when we first met, had never tried meditation. He thought it was something like yoga, a way to zen out and feel relaxed. But he was interested in learning because he had read that meditation could help him with his sleep problems, something he had struggled with for almost his entire adult life.
I explained to him that while one of the benefits of meditation was surely stress reduction, there were deeper applications than that. I recommended for him to try a simple meditation technique which involved focusing on the breath and staying aware of any sensations in the body. When he went home and tried it, he called me in a state of half excitement, half fear. 'I tried what you told me to do', he said. 'But once I sat down quietly and focused on my breath, there were so many thoughts that kept coming up in my mind that I felt anxious and stopped'. Now what I explained to my friend was that he had just identified his baseline. These thoughts and feelings of anxiety were always there, like an undercurrent. During his daily life, he had many distractions such as work, duties and responsibilities that kept him occupied and thus he was unaware of what was going on inside of him.
Science tells us that every time we think, neurons fire in our brains and thinking about an action creates a response in the brain that is similar to actually performing that action, and the more times these neurons get fired, it creates stronger neural pathways in our brains. This is why if you take the same route to work long enough, you can be on 'autopilot' and take that route without having to think deliberately about doing it. So imagine then that your brain gets 'wired' for repeating unconscious unhealthy patterns that hold you back and the only way to get past this is to program your brain differently.
What a mindful practice of meditation can do then is:
a) Help you identify your unconscious patterns that hold you back
b) Find what holds these patterns together, so you can break them
c) Help you create new healthier patterns that allow you to live life with more joy and fulfillment
Living a more conscious life through these practices, allows us to connect to a deeper sense of well being and purpose, so that we can feel more alive and empowered!
Do you want to be the best version of your self? Do you want to break through your subconconscious blocks and live life with freedom? Learn how to meditate with me today!
Since these patterns are unconscious, they are what we don't know that we don't know. So how do we work with these patterns? When we allow ourselves to relax and calm our minds and connect to ourselves in a fuller more present way, we can then unlock the door of what is behind these habitual patterns and in doing so bring awareness to them. As we become aware of what the real block is that is holding us in these unconscious behaviors, we can create release those blocks and create real, and long lasting change.
I will share an example from my own life. I have a habit of procrastinating (something I'm sure no one else can relate to ;) ) and sometimes I will put things off for no apparent reason, until it absolutely needs to get done and I have more of a sense of urgency. And for the longest time I was not able to break this habit, until I started implementing a mindfulness practice like meditation. Only then was I able to understand the unconscious motivations, even fears behind this pattern (fear of failure being one of them) and then I was able to change this pattern of behavior I had developed and create a new one. I have also been able to stay conscious of this old pattern when it comes up again, so that I can shift it and it doesn't govern my actions.
Meditation is a way for us to explore our inner worlds. I have a friend who when we first met, had never tried meditation. He thought it was something like yoga, a way to zen out and feel relaxed. But he was interested in learning because he had read that meditation could help him with his sleep problems, something he had struggled with for almost his entire adult life.
I explained to him that while one of the benefits of meditation was surely stress reduction, there were deeper applications than that. I recommended for him to try a simple meditation technique which involved focusing on the breath and staying aware of any sensations in the body. When he went home and tried it, he called me in a state of half excitement, half fear. 'I tried what you told me to do', he said. 'But once I sat down quietly and focused on my breath, there were so many thoughts that kept coming up in my mind that I felt anxious and stopped'. Now what I explained to my friend was that he had just identified his baseline. These thoughts and feelings of anxiety were always there, like an undercurrent. During his daily life, he had many distractions such as work, duties and responsibilities that kept him occupied and thus he was unaware of what was going on inside of him.
Science tells us that every time we think, neurons fire in our brains and thinking about an action creates a response in the brain that is similar to actually performing that action, and the more times these neurons get fired, it creates stronger neural pathways in our brains. This is why if you take the same route to work long enough, you can be on 'autopilot' and take that route without having to think deliberately about doing it. So imagine then that your brain gets 'wired' for repeating unconscious unhealthy patterns that hold you back and the only way to get past this is to program your brain differently.
What a mindful practice of meditation can do then is:
a) Help you identify your unconscious patterns that hold you back
b) Find what holds these patterns together, so you can break them
c) Help you create new healthier patterns that allow you to live life with more joy and fulfillment
Living a more conscious life through these practices, allows us to connect to a deeper sense of well being and purpose, so that we can feel more alive and empowered!
Do you want to be the best version of your self? Do you want to break through your subconconscious blocks and live life with freedom? Learn how to meditate with me today!