The Wonderful World of Meditation Pt. 1 "Life isn't about what everyone else is doing"

Hey Friends

Today I wanted to do a post regarding an idea that has entirely shaped my life into what it is today, and can help you achieve your goals and live a successful life true to yourself. This radical concept I speak of is the idea of truly believing in yourself. I will be doing a three part series of posts on this topic to help people in the #steemit community achieve their potential and live a happier lifestyle.

These posts are meant to raise you up and help you understand your true potential by seeing things from someone else's point of view who has been through this type of thing and practices it daily, and in no way are these meant to make you feel bad about yourself. I am sharing my own personal perceptions and experiences that have influenced my life and the type of person I am today.

Now most people won't admit it, but a majority of people struggle with this concept of believing in themselves. Some people will say that they do, but deep down when the going gets tough they don't and they'll potentially give up, rely on someone else to help/solve things for them, ignore the issue, or maybe just try something else because things were hard. This isn't because they're a failure or incapable of doing whatever that thing is, but could actually be the result of their environment. It may be due to a number of different things effecting them in their life such as repeat failure, negative feedback and doubt from others around them, or even the way they were raised. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't always believe I would be able to do anything in life that I wanted to simply by putting my mind to it. Probably because of the way my environment impacted my life. It wasn't until about 3 years ago that I came to the realization that I truly could achieve any goal I set for myself if I dedicated the time, persistence, and will power towards it.

I come from a regular middle-class background with a good family that does what needs to be done to take care of everyone inside of it. My whole life the educational system and society I lived in was training my mind to be ordinary and conform to a middle-class lifestyle. It's not like you don't see this if you look hard enough. It's built into our social constructs such as our educational system. I mean we're raised to believe that to be successful you have to go to high school, graduate, then go on to graduate college from a good university, and then maybe you can get a great paying job that will help support the family you're going to have growing up. But in actuality all that system does is condition people to be like everyone else. In that scenario all of the noise and reinforcement we get from our parents, the government, and even our friends puts us in a position to make a decision to either do all of that and get a job that you work at for the rest of your life, or take a risk and branch out into another scenario of life where "they" usually make it very difficult for you anyways.

Most people graduating college in the US today have overwhelming college debt when they get out. That's no coincidence. Universities are businesses just like any other business. They market their products to individuals and turn a profit from people attending classes there year after year. I mean you either have the option to go to school and put yourself in debt and get a good job that can pay that off over time, or you just skip school and get bombarded by bills and taxes and adult life without the advantage of a college degree when applying for a job. It's like they want to keep the people in this country down?

But somehow nothing is being done about our broken education system that sets you up to be debt free after college in 10 years if you're lucky. By that point you're older and probably don't have the same drive and desire to strive for big goals as you do when you're young. This leads to complacency and people living lives and working jobs that they may never have dreamed of working once they first started out. (If you do hate your job, these posts really can help you) There's really nobody to blame for this happening, but just the way the United States is built quite honestly. The classes in our society stick together and help each other out. People born into rich successful families are raised and expected to become rich and successful themselves, just as people born into middle-class usually stick with a middle-class lifestyle. This is why it is much more difficult for someone born into the lower-class to reach upper-class by adult-hood because everyone else around them is essentially doing the same types of things together. (That among other things like racial inequality but that's not for this post) There's nothing wrong with following through with these expectations as long as you're living happily and enjoying yourself though. The most important thing in life above all else is true happiness after all. But the problem is that a lot of people end up not being happy in these circumstances, and ultimately not reaching for those goals they may have originally set for themselves, or not even know they have yet.

This is where things can be tricky.

For it is the actual environment you have been raised and lived in that may be the reason you might not have achieved/set those goals yet. Maybe nobody told you they believed you could do it. Or maybe they even told you that you couldn't do it no matter how hard you tried because they themselves deep down believed they couldn't. Or maybe the system our society has built just gradually lead to where you are now. Whatever the reasoning may be, I'm here to tell you that you CAN set and achieve any goals you set for yourself if you're willing to put the work in and make a change. You can change this entire scenario by simply starting with your mentality and the way you approach each day. Now I'm not gonna sit here and sell you some magic book or product that's gonna help you or tell you how to achieve these things though like some other people might do...but I am going to provide useful and positive content that I personally know from experience helped me become the person I always wanted and knew I could be.

It All Starts With Meditation

Meditation by definition means to engage in mental contemplation or reflection. Meditation is simply the act of relaxing your mind and thinking about different concepts. This could mean sitting down with yourself outside by a beach and just thinking, or maybe just in your room at home before you go to bed. Some people even do it throughout their work day to release tension. I personally enjoy meditating in my room with my lights off before going to bed. It helps me reflect on my day, think about what's ahead, and just relax. You may wonder how something as simple as meditation can change your entire life and existence as you know it...

"What're the benefits of meditating?" You might ask

In due time you will come to realize in practice that you will get more out of meditation than you had hoped for, and you only get out of it what you want to get out of it. If you go in with the mindset that it's pointless and won't help you with your problems at all then it most likely won't. Conversely, if you go in expecting to gain something from it you most likely will find what you're looking for in this journey. This list of benefits is not exhaustive as these are just a few that I've experienced or are aware of and know can be obtained through meditation. Everyone's different, and to say that one person will get the same benefit out of this as the next person would be kind of ludicrous.

For starters, it assists in clearing your mind of busy thoughts and can be a vehicle to exploring creative thought. In today's tech-driven world we live in it can be extremely healthy to have time away from your phones, computer, tablets, tv, etc. and just think freely with no influence on your thought process. This can lead to new ideas or concepts that you might not have ever thought of prior to meditating. Some of the world's greatest minds and innovators admit to meditating regularly! This first benefit is crucial in providing you the necessary creative thought time to change your current life standing. If you never allow yourself time in a day to think about things you don't like and want to change how do you expect them to change? Things don't just magically fix themselves or make themselves better because you want them to. That is why meditation is so useful. It allows you to have the playground to explore your options and challenges freely in your own mind without any interruption or say from anyone else. Nobody to influence your decisions, nobody to tell you what to do, just you, your thoughts, and a good relaxing feeling.

Another benefit of meditation can be decreased anxiety and depression. One of the reasons for this is because you feel more in control of your mind after meditation because you reflect and solve problems mentally. I actually have multiple friends who have anxiety and depression, and after introducing them to meditation they greatly decreased these issues severity and felt better about themselves. This actually leads into my next point very well. Meditation can increase self esteem and self confidence!😊 This is one of my personal favorites because whenever I introduce someone to meditation they always end up feeling better about themselves over time if they practice regularly.

Furthermore, meditation can help with the healing process. To clarify, by healing process I mean anything that causes you discomfort such as a death of a friend or family member, a lost friend, a financial loss, or any other discouraging or discomforting experience you might encounter. I'll admit that recently in my life I lost a very significant friend of 9 years and was faced with the task of bouncing back. She was my best friend, and we dated for a majority of those 9 years. Now without meditation and deep thought I would never be able to be resilient enough to recover from this loss knowing that I was the reason she left my life. I made mistakes in the past that lead to our eventual falling out. I know people that never recover from incidents similar to this because they feel constant guilt and fear of hurting people again. But, through my meditation and persistence I was not only able to heal from this, but I actually realized the error of my ways as well. Due to allowing myself ample time to process and think about what had happened in a relaxed state of meditation I discovered a new sense of ME. I found qualities of myself I never knew I possessed, and was able to eventually forgive myself and move on. It would have taken a significantly longer amount of time, if ever, before I recovered from this without meditation.

This is what #meditation ultimately helps with

Self Growth. The process of improving yourself and becoming a better you. Actively making that change in your life to live happier, get what you deserve, and achieve your goals. There's soo many more benefits I didn't list that you may discover yourself through your own practice. Life's always going to try to bring you down and kick you when you get there. But when things get tough, and you might feel like all you have is yourself, just take an hour or half an hour, or even 10 minutes, and allow yourself to be fully immersed in meditation and discover your true strength. Because you are strong. We all have strength inside of us, but sometimes we just don't understand how truly powerful we are until we're by ourselves thinking about anything and everything...drowning out the entire world and noise that distracts us day in and day out.

I'll leave you with that intro to the beauty of meditation and will return in a few days to continue on this three part series with The Wonderful World of Meditation Pt. 2 "I want to become a better me".😁

Until next time,

CryptoZ

Leave a comment or story below regarding your own meditation practices!🌞 👇