Facing Your Inner Demons: Meditation

As humans, we tend to go through life keeping busy by looking outside of ourselves for satisfaction. While these distractions bring a temporary respite, sooner or later, our inner demons come knocking at our door wanting to be noticed. It is up to us to learn how to face them and to conquer them. There is no better time than now to start.

What Are Inner Demons?

Inner demons on the monsters hiding under our emotional beds. They are the fears, despairs, frustration, disappointments, and heartache that we carry within ourselves. Feelings and personal issues which reside in is, that bind us, torment us and keeps us prisoners of our own minds.

Practicing meditation helps you to realized and get to know all aspects of yourself, including the sides that you didn't even know existed. It helps you to come face to face with your inner demons.

We have two choices when it comes to handling out inner demons. We can confront them face-to-face, or we can attempt to 'run away' and hide from them.

Because our inner demons are hidden aspects of ourselves, no matter how hard we try, we can never hide from them. To attempt to do so is to sentence yourself to a life of fear and bondage.

How To Face Your Inner Demons

Before you can successfully move deeper into meditation it is important to lie with your past grievances and let them pass through your body and mind.

Old nagging memories linger in the unexamined mind. They rot and fester there and manifest themselves as addictions, uncontrollable reactions such as anger, and anxieties.

The inner regions of our mind are not governed by reason or logic. You can only pretend not to notice its total presence. In this mysterious place lies a multidimensional wilderness full of life and death, decay and flowering plants. This place functions best when one practices and applies balance.

When internal troubles are neglected they become like a wildfire and begins to consume your life.

Facing the inner demons within yourself will mean that you relive every traumatic experience, no matter how minor or severe, and accepting all aspects of yourself.

Every traumatic experience that was never dealt with bat the time created a side if yourself that you may not like. It is important that we understand, accept and love each of these extensions of ourselves. We can do this once we have forgiven and let go of the past.

A good place to start would be to go about your normal meditation routine. Once you have reached a place where you are relaxed and your mind is clear just observe. If you find thoughts creeping in don't fight them off. Don't engage in them either, just observe them. If things become too much to handle you may stop your meditation at anytime, but understand these inner demons will never go away until you face them. You will more than likely be overwhelmed with different emotions, sadness, anger, fear. Your senses will react too. You may feel, taste, smell things as well. Don't fight them. Recognize the side of you that was created during this past event. You will now have to face that side of you that you never knew existed until today. Embrace this side of you and love this side of you. Let go of the past trauma with a greater sense of understanding about yourself. Feel the warm blanket of peace consume your body completely. You have now freed yourself from that inner demon. Whenever you are ready you may open your eyes and end your meditation. Take as long as you need and don't rush it. You don't want to be left with the feeling of unfinished business.

As fearful as this may seem, understand that you are never given more than what you are able to handle.

This process will happen again, many times over until you have freed yourself from all that holds you back in life.

This life is a beautiful journey to be enjoyed and experienced in every way. Don't allow yourself to be held back.

Meditation: A healthy and Natural Way to Relieve Physical Pain

Recent studies have proven meditation for pain relief is a powerful and effective way to relieve pain. One study even claims that meditation can have better pain relieving effects than morphine.

There are many reasons and causes for feeling physical pain such as an accident, depression and even blocked chakras. When one or more chakra is blocked it causes a disruption of the energy flow within our body which can cause illnesses and physical pain.  To learn more about chakras and what they do click here. For more information on unblocking your chakras click here. 

How Meditation Reduces Pain

The science behind why mediation relieves pain is complex, but here is a brief summary.

Pain is something that is made worse by our emotional state, and a natural pain relief can be achieved through changes in our emotional state.

Meditation enables us to better handle distress and helps us to be able to regulate our emotions. It also improves our coping skills.

Meditation provides a natural pain relief by changing the way our brain processes information. It also brings us into a relaxed state, providing a distraction and helps the pain feel less intense.

Paradoxically, meditation can bring pain relief by paying attention to the pain experience rather than ignoring it. A meditative state helps a person achieve something called 'detached observation', which is when the physical pain is separated from the emotional experience of the pain, resulting in pain relief.

Meditation helps people to transcend their pain by improving awareness and acceptance

They physical changes that come along with meditation contribute to the relief of the pain. Part of meditation is to gain an awareness if ones physical state. This awareness can lead to a change in our behavior that involve taking better care of our body. Activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, also called the 'Relaxation Response', results in a number of physical changes such as decreased muscle tension and even the release of pain relieving neurotransmitters.

Over all meditation have been proven to be successful as a method of pain relief. Here are some techniques to help you achieve pain relief through meditation.

How To Meditate to Relieve Pain

Begin by finding yourself a quiet place to sit or lay down away from as much noise and distraction as possible. Take a few deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth. When you are ready you may close your eyes.

Once you have closed your eyes, bring your attention to your breath. Don't try to breathe a certain way, allow it to happen naturally. Don't think about breathing at all, just breathe and observe. Notice your chest and your stomach raise and fall with every breath.

Notice your physical body. Feel the floor, couch, bed or whatever you are sitting/ laying on beneath you. Observe the way your clothes touch your body and then bring your attention back to your breathing.

It's OK if your mind begins to wonder. Allow yourself to observe your thoughts as they pass through your mind. Let them go and slowly bring your focus back to your breathing.

Then bring your attention back to your physical state. Preform a 'body scan'. Start from your head and work your way down to your toes. Be aware of how you feel. Your focus will be drawn to spot of tension in your body. Focus on those spots and feel the tension and your pain leave your body with every breath you take. Once you have finished bring your attention once again to your breathing. Observe it and embrace the feeling of complete relaxation. When you're ready, slowly become aware of your surroundings again. Reach your arms out in front of your body and stretch, then reach above your head and stretch again. Once that is done you may open your eyes.

This meditation can be done any time of day and can be completed within 20 minutes, although the recommended time is your age converted into minutes, for example 30 years is 30 minutes.

The 7 Chakras: What they do and how they work

Chakras are the energy centers located in the midlines of our body. 

There are 7 within us and they govern our psychological properties. The chakras on our lower half of the body are our instinctual side, while the upper ones our mental side.

Here is a quick summary of the 7 chakras: 

1: Root Chakra
associated colour: red

The root chakra represents pur foundation and feeling grounded.

It is located at the base of the spine in the tail bone area.  If opened, you will feel well balanced, sensible and secure. You will feel very connected to you physical body and feel present in what's happening now. 

2: Sacral Chakra
associated colour: orange

The sacral chakra represents our feeling and sexuality.

It is located in the lower abdomen, about 2 inches below the navel.  If opened you will feel the ability to express yourself without being over emotional as well as passionate and outgoing. You will also have no problems based on sexuality.

3: Solar Plexus Chakra
associated colour: yellow

The solar plexus chakra represents our ability to be confident and in control of our lives.

It is located in the upper abdomen in the stomach area. If opened you will feel in control and have a good feeling of self-worth and dignity. 

4: Heart Chakra
associated colour: green

The heart chakra represents pur ability to love and show compassion.

It is located in the center of the chest just above the heart. When it is opened, you appear strong and compassionate, and hold a strong sense of love towards all. 

5: The Throat Chakra
associated colour: light blue

The throat chakra represents our ability to communicate and self express.

It is located in the throat. When opened expressing your self is easy and if often done through the art form.

6: The Third Eye Chakra
associated colour: blue

The third eye chakra (also known as brow chakra) represents our ability to focus on and see the bigger picture.

It is located on the forehead between the eyes.  When opened, you will have excellent clairvoyance and you tend to dream a lot. 

7: The Crown Chakra
associated colour: pink

The crown chakra is the highest chakra. It represents our ability to be fully connected spiritually.

It is located at the very top of the head. When it is open you experience a greater awareness of the world and its connection to yourself.

What is 'Higher Consciousness'

Welcome to the beginning of your journey to higher consciousness!

You have already taken the irst step by trying to learn and discover what higher consciousness is. Maybe you just stumbled across this and stuck around out of curiosity, but believe nothing happens by accident. You are here because you are ready to start your journey. Let's begin by gaining a better understanding of what 'higher consciousness' is.

Higher consciousness has many different names: collective consciousness, Christ consciousness, Buddha consciousness, superconsciousness, and God consciousness. (Just to name a few).

Higher consciousness is a spiritual or energetic awareness that transcends the minds 'normal' preoccupation with past and future. As you raise your consciousness you weaken to the eternal, unlimited nature of your being.

Higher consciousness is ever-increasing awareness of the meaning of existence; your spiritual essence; and of the energetic or spiritual nature in all things.

As humans, we believe we are separate from everything else, alone and vulnerable. But are we?

At the higher levels of consciousness, we no longer feel separated. We feel, know, and experience total and complete oneness with the universal energy field.

You may find yourself wondering if it is possible to achieve a higher consciousness given the truly exceptional nature of the of the people we associate with it: Jesus, Buddha etc.

The answer is yes!

The great religions of the world came to be because if this innate human desire to rise above the temporary, chaotic physical existence. Deep down we know we are much more...

-Stick around for my next post where I will be discussing how to achieve 'higher consciousness'. -