Benefits of Meditation
I want to pass on the benefits of meditation that I’ve come to enjoy. It can bring so much more peace to your life.
My energy dips at 3pm. Meditation renews my energy for several hours. I don’t get cranky because my nervous system is so calm. Meditation helps me heal from illness. It eliminates pain. It heightens creativity. I’ve been meditating at least five days a week for most of the last 46 years.
There are many types of meditation.
Guided meditation is easier for many people. It gives our minds something positive to focus on instead of the monkey mind chatter.
I created a guided meditation CD called “A Journey Into Wholeness.”
It helps you relax, calm your nervous system, build self-esteem, strengthen your spiritual connection and heal difficult emotional experiences. Click here to read the full description and listen to an audio sample.
Here’s the story of how I learned to meditate.
You’ll find this story in my book, The Gifted Highly Sensitive Introvert: Wisdom for Emotional Healing and Expressing Your Radiant Authentic Self.
The paperback and eBook are available on Amazon.
When I learned to meditate in college, I did it twenty minutes twice a day every single day. I was amazed that I was able to memorize minute details like names, dates and places. I was able to understand complex ideas that were previously incomprehensible.
The following story was my first remarkable experience with meditation.
I was in a social philosophy class. For three months, the professor and one other student carried on brilliant dialogues that none of the rest of us understood. Three weeks before the end of the semester, the professor assigned a written report and an oral report that were to be completed the last week of finals. Half our grade depended on these reports.
We could choose any philosopher we wanted to study, and I picked Kant. Trying to read Kant was like trying to read Greek. The night before I was to give the oral report, I still didn’t understand this philosopher. I hadn’t written the report. My imagination began to show me scary pictures of what would happen the next day if I couldn’t give my report. I could see myself turning beet red and fumbling over my words.
I meditated to see if it would help me because nothing else was working. I read Kant again, and to my amazement, it was all crystal clear! So amazingly clear that I spontaneously wrote the report in one hour. I read it one more time and totally understood it.
I had one more hurdle to overcome. I hated public speaking. I had never taken a course in it, and I never wanted a course in it! I disliked feeling on display where everything about me could be judged. Highly sensitive people can be like that.
The next morning, instead of fretting, I meditated again. When it was my turn to give my presentation, I was nervous. Although my face turned red, the words flowed effortlessly. I was well-organized and poised in a way I never thought possible. After the class, students exclaimed to me, “That was the first thing we’ve understood all semester!”
How was it that meditation had helped me learn so easily? I couldn’t explain it. I had discovered a door into the part of my brain that gave me access to higher intelligence. This door opened only when I was deeply relaxed. Before this, the only way I knew to succeed was by putting a lot of effort into learning, and as I’ve said before, dyslexia made studying difficult for me.
Little did I know that 40 years into the future, neuroscience would provide plenty of evidence of how meditation not only calms our nerves but also stimulates creativity, lowers blood pressure and increases wisdom and productivity.
Meditation also helped me heal and recuperate energy that was easily drained from my highly sensitive body. I was able to unwind and rest instead of being so stressed all the time. I could ward off colds and the flu. My life became so much easier as I soothed my anxiety and opened to what experts call “the flow.”
Meditation wasn’t a cult like my parents thought. No one was trying to dominate me. I proved to myself that I had good instincts for trying unusual paths that led to success. As I look back on my life, I am proud of my 20-year-old self who had the courage to follow her own heart even though her parents disapproved.
To have the fulfilling life you want, self-care must shift to the front burner of your daily life. Meditation is a key part of good self-care for highly sensitive introverts.
Your health will improve, your relationships will be more harmonious, and your work will be more creative.
I recommend meditations that take you into such a deep state of relaxation that your busy thoughts vanish. I particularly like theta brainwave entrainment music that is engineered to help you enter this extremely peaceful state. You’ll feel like a wet noodle and be refreshed afterward.
Guided meditations are also useful to reprogram negative thinking and to heal and enhance creativity.
Click here to listen to an audio sample of my guided meditation CD, A Journey Into Wholeness. It will help you cultivate clear thinking, strengthen self-esteem and manage your emotions.
There are many forms of meditation, and it’s important to find the ones that work for you. If you’d like to discuss this, and other forms of meditation please contact me for a complimentary 10-minute phone interview.
Benita A. Esposito, MA, is a licensed professional counselor with office in Atlanta and Blairsville, Georgia, USA.