Part 2 – Introduction To Meditation
Section Lessons
1 – What is meditation?
There are so many different types of meditation that it’s not always easy to determine what it actually is. The reason for this is that the practice of meditation has been tied into a lot of other ideas and practices that can make it confusing. Practices such as religion, spirituality, personal development, and health & fitness, among a few.
2 – Myths & Misconceptions About Meditation
To many people, meditation is a mystical practice of which little is known. Because of this, many myths and misconceptions have arisen which can prevent people from giving meditation a go. In this section, I will address some of the key myths and misconceptions that are around.
3 – Scientifically Proven Benefits to Meditating
There are so many benefits to meditating. There was a time that meditation was thought to only be for the spiritually enlightened. Thanks to many scientific studies in recent years, we now know that everyone can experience these numerous benefits when meditating regularly.
4 – Other Benefits to Meditating
There are plenty of other benefits to meditating that as yet do not have scientific studies to back them up. I’m sure in the future many of these will make there way up to the previous list.
5 – Benefits of Meditation Research Papers
There has been a lot of scientific research conducted on meditation and its numerous effects on both mental and physical health. Here are a number of research papers if you want to delve even deeper into the subject.
6 – Types of Meditation
If you consider any type of mindfulness practice as a form of meditation, the types of meditation are almost endless. There are, however, a number of formal styles that you may wish to consider once you’ve learned the basics. All offer different approaches and set different intentions. None of them are any better or worse, it comes down to each individual’s personal choice and what you find works best for you.
7 – What style of meditation is this program?
What I teach is a very basic stripped-down version of a Focused Attention Meditation. In its simplest terms, to focus on breath and hold a thought or visualisation in the mind. These are the basic skills for almost all other meditation types. Once learned, you will be able to easily seek out and give other styles a go.
8 – Thought & Voices – What is thought?
Thought is a strange thing indeed. A thought can be like an idea, memory, opinion, belief, a picture or sound, even a feeling or other senses, and sometimes something completely indescribable.
9 – Thought & Voices – Thinking in Voice
Before I go on, allow me to ask you some questions. Do you have voices in your head? When you read, is there a voice reading the words? When you have a thought, is that thought voiced in your head? Is it your voice or someone else?
10 – The importance of Breathing in Meditation
Breathing is a big part of meditation and there are good reasons why it is a focal point.
11 – Breathing – The First Meditation
One of the simplest meditations one can do is to focus all of your attention on your breathing. This is called a ‘focused attention meditation’
12 – Deep Breathing
So often when asked to take a deep breath, many people simply take a big breath at the same depth as a normal breath. Big and deep are often confused as the same thing when actually, they are very different.
13 – Breathing – It’s all in the pause
Usually, when someone has never actively controlled their breathing before, I have found that their breathing is continuous; in, out, in, out. The next step in breath control and awareness is to add a pause.
14 – Visualisation in Meditation
When it comes to following guided meditations, more often than not, you will hear the term ‘visualise’. Visualisation is something we can all do although the term itself can be a little misleading. This can result in some people thinking they are unable to visualise.
15 – The Apple Visualisation Exercise
This exercise will help demonstrate how to visualise even if you think you can’t.
16 – Understanding Stress and the Importance of Relaxation
When learning the art of relaxation we must first gain a deeper understanding of what stress is. The main purpose of this program is to help you to understand and use meditation as a technique to gain the relaxation that may be missing from your life and let go of stress. But what exactly are stress and relaxation and why are they important?
17 – Benefits of Relaxation
There are many health benefits to relaxing. Relaxation is actually the opposite of stress. It is a natural response system designed to relieve the body of stress…
18 – The Different Levels of Relaxation
There are several levels of relaxation from fully alert and awake, all the way down to deep sleep. Each of these levels is represented by the brainwave frequency associated with it and has its own set of characteristics…
19 – The Power of Suggestion
The unconscious mind is the part that monitors and controls every aspect of you. Your thoughts, your beliefs, your actions, all the functions of your body and even what you perceive and how you perceive what happens in the world outside of you.
Your Teacher
James Cole
I believe that education on personal development is such an integral part of human growth that I simply cannot justify making it unavailable to people by charging extreme amounts of money for it. In my opinion, this stuff should be taught freely at schools.
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Wishing you a most beautiful day,
Empowering Meditations
