The power of meditation

Since the beginning of the year, I am back to meditating everyday, so now over 40 consecutive days. In another post I'll talk about how to create an habit (which is hugely helpful) but on this one I want to talk about the benefits of meditation and what it's doing for me.
Basically at the hear of my return to meditation was the book 'Full Catastrophe Living: using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain and illness' from Jon Kabat-Zinn.(Full Catastrophe Living)
The book basically reminded me of the benefits of meditation and since I had a very stressful year last year and want to cope better this year, I decided to get my practice back into shape.
Basically I started by doing 12 mins of meditation each morning. Started by normal sitting meditation and lately have been doing also lying down body scans.
What has it done for me:
- really helps lift the cloud of obsessive thinking... very often I can get stuck on thoughts and worries about work (eg what if this happens? or oh, I need to do that task). Meditation puts things in perspective
- helps me relax. While I meditate, I become aware of tensions I am carrying in my body, and by just becoming aware of them, I already relax it a little. Also by 'looking' into them with my breathing, I can relax them further
- helps me more in the moment. This is very closely linked to the 1st point, of escaping the incessant thoughts. Without this cloud of thinking, I can actually pay attention to what is happening and respond adequately. And this has immediate impact: for example in sport, I find that my reaction times are better and I am also able to use my instinct much more and therefore perform better
- by being more aware of the moment, I engage more in conversations with others, that are then more pleasurable and rewarding!
- by being much more in tune with my body, I am now much more aware of what my body needs. For example, usually after work I would get home and try to wind down by doing a number of things, sometimes even pushing myself to do them, like watching tv, reading a book or playing a game. Now, sometimes I understand that I just need to lie down and go to bed earlier... or that a walk would be great... or yes, a book would be very nice. I can listen more to the body and give it/me what it needs. And this has impact on my energy.

Of course somedays it is really difficult. My mind is just going everywhere at the same time and it can actually feel stressful to meditate. But even then (maybe even more so then!) meditation helps. It makes me aware of this. And every time I become aware that my thoughts are somewhere else, I just pull them back into the breathing or into the body scan, and that in itself is helpful.

1 more interesting point that I am finding is now the need to do it for longer than 12 minutes in the morning. After 12 minutes I put the alarm for at least another 6. And often I start meditation and only start the alarm after 2 minutes of settling down. In the last week or so, I've also meditated for a bit at night... my body is now craving it. From fighting it, the body now feels the need for it.


It's really healthy and good for me. I'm over the moon that I am doing it again - and I think setting the habit up was the trick that helped me the most. So more to come on that, on habit setting.

Feeling in control

In the beginning of the year, I approached everything with a great sense of energy: my work, exercise, etc... all the things for which I had spent some time crafting my objectives for the year!
I kept going strong for months! Motivated, energized and it showed.
After 3-4 months of hard work, I started getting swamped... too much to do. And I started to forget to look at my objectives, didn't remind myself of them as often...
Slowly (I only realized that much later) my energy had dropped. Significantly. Noticeably.

I think that for a human being, it is key to feel somewhat in control. You need to feel you are going in the direction you want to go. It's demoralizing to feel that you are drifting with the current, going where things take you... You feel without a sense of control, with no impact on what happens, powerless! And that will drain your energy.

It's key do define your objectives: what you want to do, what you want to have, what you want to experience, have a vision of who you want to become. Of course it's important that this list is real, that it reflects what you really want deep down - but to be honest, if you're not sure, still do it anyway! A step in a defined (by you) direction is better than no step. Revisit these objectives frequently - at least once a week!
Have yearly ones and then break them into monthly ones (this works best for me). Than figure out what you will do that week to achieve your monthly goals.
Just this, just doing this... will give you a great feeling of control. You know where you want to go. You will look at things that happen to you (there will always be things happening to you, that you can't control or choose) and you will see how they can fit or help in your objectives. When you have spare time, you will know what to do with it, rather than just wanting to rest and recharge from the rat race. You will be working towards what you want.
That is motivating. That will prevent loss of motivation and loss of energy. That will keep you going. That will keep you positive.

In love

Absolutely enjoying myself in the new job, that I am doing covering someone else's maternity.
Love it.
Why?
- because it is about categories and brands that I've known and worked with for years, and grew to love;
- because there is a lot to learn, lots of interesting stuff;
- because the situation is appealing to me: we are suffering a bit, market going down, loosing share and people are not expecting a lot... I am the guy who can come from behind and unexpectedly deliver great stuff (the underdog! I love being in this position);
- because the guy who is my boss has a great depth of knowledge and is taking a very didactic approach, taking opportunities to teach his team;
- because also it is a good situation, not a lot is expected from me (just covering a maternity) so the pressure is relatively low;
- because there is a very visibile lack of knowledge in the rest of the company in this category... I am really a goldmine with the depth and wealth of insights and learning I have from having worked (through different jobs, functions and regionalities) with these categories and brands
- because I have colleagues! It's a team of 5 of us, reporting to 1 guy. We are all around the same age and experiencing the same things! Being in the senior team, I am also quite respected by the younger managers which is something I also appreciate... And also the young managers are cool, intelligent and nice (also to look at!:) )

And... I am loving it so much that I am finding huge ammounts of energy, I am amazingly much more positive and... contaminating everybody around me with this energy! I am also a lot more confortable taking and making decisions and... coming up with a lot more cool ideas.
It's amazing the difference it makes when you actually are enjoying a lot what you are doing. When you are passionate about it.