Welcome once again to Meditation Monday, the weekly series that examines some of the common types of meditation practices, as well as some of the common issues associated with meditation. Today, we are talking about what happens away from the meditation cushion.
I say this as someone who practices mindfulness meditation. While there are many other types of meditation with many other benefits that occur while away from the meditation cushion, this post is specifically about mindfulness and mindfulness meditation.
And one of the benefits that happens when not meditating is that one hopefully becomes more mindful in all aspects of life. Ask just about any meditation teacher, and they will probably tell you the same thing. Mindfulness meditation is meant as a practice, a training if you will, for the rest of the time you and your mind are wandering about. Riding the elevator, why not bring some of that mindfulness you’ve been working on into the elevator with you? Why stress yourself out about the meeting you are going to when you can do a quick body scan to recognize what areas are tight and what areas aren’t.
Yes, meditation practices help sort these thoughts, they help us make sense of them, but the practice of mindfulness meditation can do so much more. The more mindful we are in our day to day lives, the less heavy lifting we might have to do during our specific meditation practices, and the more our minds can be free to explore other things that we should be applying mindfulness to.
It is a challenge. I will be the first to admit that. It is absolutely challenging. Sometimes I am able to succeed when I am driving to or from work. Outside of that though, there are so many times that my mindfulness practice gets away from myself, at which point I treat myself with a little self-compassion and simply begin again, just as you should.
So in summary, meditation is an extremely beneficial practice, but the more you can incorporate it while away from the meditation cushion, the better your specific results will be.
And as always, thanks for reading.
The Dark Tales Project 