If you have ever attempted to sit in meditation, you know how challenging it can be. The mind rushes from one thought to the next, taking you from past to future events and back, in a relentless chatter; the body goes from one discomfort to another, and even the slightest external noise grabs your attention. Before you know it, you are so distracted by your thought processes that meditation seems not only impossible but also a futile endeavor.
Most people give up meditation because they are unable to quiet their mind; or maybe I should say because their mind convinces them that it is more powerful than they are and so it feels like a lost battle from the start. They think that meditation means controlling the mind, and that in order to meditate they need to suppress it somehow. Meditation, however, is really not about control as much as it is about discipline and focus.
When you sit in meditation, your mind is doing exactly the same thing it always does, which is to create thoughts. This is inevitable because it is the nature of the mind to create thoughts. The only difference is that when you sit and expect it to be quiet, you realize how active and noisy it is, but when you are out in the world, or your attention is on the world, it doesn’t bother you because you don’t expect it to be anything it is not: your mind and the world are one and the same when your attention is focused outward.
If you think about it for a minute, life is no different than meditation. As within so without. You have a desire or a goal, and off you go, trying to accomplish it, filled with enthusiasm and hope. Yet before you can even realize how you got off track, you find yourself tangled up with thoughts, emotions, obstacles, or relationships that distract you and take up the energy you were supposed to put into fulfilling your desire.
Manifesting Your Goals and Desires
Some of my clients find manifesting what they want a very challenging prospect; they tend to get discouraged because they don’t seem able to reach their goals; and they are quick to start questioning their desires or purpose altogether and allowing their fears to take over.
Courage takes a lot of energy; believing in yourself and your goals also takes a lot of energy; and maintaining the focus on your purpose takes a lot of energy as well. It is mental and emotional energy that I am talking about here. So if you can relate to some of my clients, I would say that you do not get discouraged because you cannot reach your goals; you cannot reach your goals because you get discouraged, in the sense that you lose steam: you don’t put enough energy and focus to create enough momentum for anything to manifest.
In other words, you cannot see or create the “big picture” because you do not believe that you can, or you do not believe that you deserve it—or both. If you have a desire, rest assured that its manifestation is ready for you to perceive: it is the other side of the same desire; but if your mind takes you from desire to self-doubt to fear, back to desire, and then back to self-doubt, the energy gets diffused and you are not able to perceive and manifest what you want.
You may have started with much enthusiasm, but before your desire is ready to get actualized in life, you may have gotten distracted with something else; or maybe you are unable to perceive it because you don’t believe it is possible; or you are not open enough to receive its gratification due to some hidden belief that creates a blockage instead and pulls your attention in the opposite direction.
Like meditation, manifesting desires requires mental and emotional discipline and focus—the discipline to remove what prevents you from perceiving what is already there, and the focus to increase and direct the energy it requires. Remember that wherever your attention goes, there goes your energy as well, along with your creative power.
Meditate to Empower Your Life
If you want to go beyond a simple relaxed state and achieve a true meditative state, where the mind is quiet and you get lost in your true nature as you slowly merge back with the Self, then you require the discipline to focus your attention one-hundred-percent on whatever technique you use—your breath, a mantra, an image.
Likewise, if you want to accomplish your dreams or goals, you need to focus your attention and energy one-hundred-percent on them, without allowing any distractions. If something comes along and sets you off track, you get back on focus and continue without questioning it, or doubting yourself, or giving up.
This is why meditation is such an important practice. Not only does it allow you to create a silent space within to gain clarity and insight about who you truly are, but it also gives you the discipline to master your life in spite of the challenges and obstacles you may encounter along the journey.
You cannot control life; you cannot expect your mind to be of a different nature either; but you can definitely choose what you focus on and where you direct your energy. And this is the key to accomplishing your goals and desires, as well as achieving higher states of consciousness through meditation. So don’t lose focus!
© 2012 Yol Swan. All rights reserved.
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Yol Swan is a Soul Guided Life Purpose & Business Coach offering her intuitive and healing gifts, plus over 28 years of experience exploring the mind and psyche, to empower spirit-led women, Indigo adults, and conscious entrepreneurs to claim their personal freedom and creative power, to shape a joyful and abundant life in alignment with their soul purpose.