Can meditation make you more beautiful?

  The first step   Developing the right mindset is essential for you to find success with your meditation program. Having the right mindset means to have a clear understanding of all of the mental and emotional realizations and transformations that are needed in order to have a fulfilling practice and reach your goals with the training. When beginning your meditation planning the first and very important step is to clearly understand WHY you are taking up this practice. What is it that sparked your interest? What benefits are you working towards? And what is your vision of how things will be when you have achieved success with your practice? This is important because it is so easy to become distracted and lose consistency when starting anything new.   By having a clear understanding of your “why” or what your purpose is will give you positive momentum to stay strong with your development? What is it that is driving you to follow through with your goals remember to be clear and specific?   To experience internal motivation and keep your momentum moving forward through the ups and downs it is crucial to have a meaningful “Why”. Coming back to this purpose will often give you the strength needed to achieve what you set out to do. If you have a […]

      Sometimes people start a meditation practice thinking that it will fix all mental and physical problems magically. This could not be further from the truth. Everything has a learning curve. Whether you are learning to ride a bike, sing a song or pick up salsa dancing when you start you do not immediately reap the benefits of the activity. A common problem that many people have is that they will try something once and if it is not easy they will start looking for a list of excuses as to why they cannot do it.     I don’t have the time I am distracted too easily I can’t relax because… I have never been able to do that They can do that because… I am not like them And the list goes on.   It is easy for people to come up with reasons why they fail or are not good at something. This gives them something to blame rather than looking for the solution making it easier for them to accept.   Meditation Practice does not just make all of this go away…       This is ok. Meditation is expanding your awareness and opening up your minds to see things from many different perspectives. Remember when you were a child seeing things from […]

This is a great active meditation practice to learn and add to your meditation toolbox. Exercising the lungs is important for maintaining good health. If you do not actively exercise the lungs they become stiff this lack of activity can lead to disease. Then average adult uses about 10% of their lung capacity in a single breath. This is called tidal volume, which is about .5 liters of air. But the lungs have the capacity to hold about 4-6 liters of air, which is close to 10 times the tidal volume or average breath. This will vary from person to person depending on their health, level of physical activity, gender, size, age, smoking habits and even will vary according to the elevation they live in. If you work at a desk for example and spend 8 hours a day hunched over a computer with poor posture and no regard to your breath you are suffering whether you see it or not. If this is you this exercise will be life changing for you. By having poor posture in a stationary position such as this you will only be using the front side of your lungs and a small percentage at that. This can lead to respiratory disease, allergies, asthma and even lung cancer. To begin this practice start by establishing a deep relaxed breath expanding the lungs and stretching the lung tissue.  Inhale and bring in as much […]

I was having dinner with a couple of friends the other night. The conversation, food, atmosphere was all great. I truly enjoy good quality time with the people I value and care about. The reason I bring this up is right next to us was a large table of eight young twenty somethings probably in college. A good part of their evening I noticed was spent with their faces glued to their cell phones. Now I know we all have times where we need to be connected, but I remember going out with my friends in college laughing, talking and building strong relationships and bonds many of which have lasted over 20 years.   I am not trying to say that we were any better than anyone else, but I do think often the youth of today is getting lost in technology and further away from true personal connections and deep relationships. Here are few important things to think about in order to build and maintain deep meaningful relationships: 1- Realize that there are great people everywhere. You should never feel the need to settle for anything short of true happiness. 2- Be clear about your future expectations. Who would you like to be connected with? What direction are you moving towards with your life? What are your core beliefs […]

Are your days fulfilling? I do not mean did you run ten miles, meditate, put out fires at work and respond to all of your emails. If this sounds familiar it may be time to take another look at what is really important to you and your happiness. Of course we all need money to survive and work is often a necessity, but you are not identified by your job and your daily to-do’s. If those around you can only describe you by your work and what you have accomplished with your career you are never going to have deep fulfilling relationships. All to often we get caught up in our careers and neglect those around us thinking that we are doing what is best for ourselves and our loved ones but in reality we are slowly drifting apart.   So why is this so common? Why do so many of us neglect what we are truly passionate about? Do past failures haunt you? Does tomorrow’s uncertainty make you worry? Or do the problems of today overwhelm you?   If left unattended living this life style will eat you up and leave you with little to smile about. This is why it is so important to have actionable practices that keep us in check. If you do not have the […]

What is “Identification”? MEDITATION IS MEANT TO BRING you to a state of watchfulness or witnessing. This means that you are a bit like someone on the sidelines. Things go by but have nothing to do with you. You do not interfere or question (whatever is) happening. You watch and, maybe, even enjoy everything that passes by. What has this to do with the term “identification?” In meditative practice, there is a very lengthy story of a man with a fine home. It catches fire and burns uncontrollably. The man despairs of not having sold it to the many interested buyers. He is saddened by the fact he now owns a worthless ruin. As the fire burns, one of his three sons approaches and tells him not to despair for the home was sold the day before and at a good price. Click Here to learn More About Meditation! The man is suddenly no longer identifying himself with the tragedy and watches calmly as the fire continues to rage. The second son asks how the father can so peacefully watch the home disappear in the flames. His father reassures him that the home has already sold for a large sum. The son corrects him and says that the buyer had not fully committed to the purchase and that the house […]

Kan and Lii Kan and Lii have been an important part of qigong training for many generations. Kan represents water and Lii represents fire. Therefore kan is yin, lii is yang. It is believed by qigong practitioners that everyone has excess yang energy and this is why there are so many yin oriented qigong exercises. The exception is if someone is sick then they may have excess yin. Excess yang is thought to play a large role in the aging process. If you can prevent excess yang you can slow down the aging process living stronger and healthier life.

In the fast pace society we live in today it is easy to become distracted and lose our awareness. So many of life’s hidden treasures come from the subtle often over looked gifts that we are presented with daily. Through teaching meditation anxiety, depression, stress and other negative distractions will fade and have less of an influence on our emotional states. As adult’s we understand that these distractions occur and have the intelligence to make adjustments to help keep them at bay. Children however often do not understand when they are stressed or distracted and this can lead to misbehavior, poor performance and unhappiness. Teaching Meditation is one of the best solutions for this problem. It will allow them to increase their awareness, focus and concentration giving them a clear mind to be happy and present. A school district in San Francisco started teaching meditation programs to help troubled teens. The goal was to have them using meditation for short periods to help them reduce their stress levels and build their focus in hopes to improve their performance at school. The results of the program were awesome. The attendance rate of the students increased by 98% and there was a 79% decrease in suspensions. There was also a noticeable improvement in the students grade point average at the end of the […]

How does meditation differ from concentration and other states of mind?