In recent years, we have all heard the important benefits that meditation offers us in the peace of the mind and in our daily lives.
Working for many years as a chef, that job offered me generously me many moments of pressure, tension and stress. At the same time, perhaps not accidentally, as life often knows better than we do what we need, it gave me the opportunity to attend my first Yoga class. It is certain that we have all experienced the same feelings of anxiety and stress regardless of the profession we have chosen to do.
Years later it was the time when almost nothing was manageable for me. There were a lot of “signs” that something was wrong, that I needed a change right away. I ignored them many times like most of us. Somehow this is how the first overwork came about and this is how the time came for a significant change.
Yoga has always been in my life, maybe not as intensively as it is now but it has always been there. I started attending my first Teacher Training and my life started to change significantly. But the biggest change came when I became more involved in the practice of Meditation. Meditation for me was the greatest gift I could give myself! As in all parts of Yoga, so in Meditation, practice is everything. The truth is that it is not an easy path, but when you start taking your first steps on this path, only then will you realize its true value.
We are trapped in thoughts about the past and the future, losing the essence of the present moment. The first thing we can do is really very simple. What is this? Let’s close our eyes for a moment and focus our observation on breathing. Let’s observe if we are really breathing, how we are breathing and if there is anything that might be bothering us in this natural function of the body. Many of us may never have done it, because we just take it for granted. But the way we breathe is a way for the body to show us what we are in at any given time. The mind works non-stop and we have to give it moments of rest and relaxation.
Just a few minutes during the day when we stop doing what we do, and turn our attention to our breath is a huge step towards a calmer and more conscious daily life. These few minutes with systematic practice, along the way will increase and will now be almost essential for our daily lives. It will be our personal time. The time to relax, to rest, to unwind. However, the challenge does not stop there, on how long this observation of the breath will last. The issue is to make it a new way of life. I notice what is happening around me and what is happening inside me. I notice how the facts are really are and not that many times the mind misunderstands and interprets them.
There are many meditation techniques that will definitely suit us, so let’s not rush to give the answer “Meditation is not for me”. Meditation is for everyone as long as it becomes a daily practice. Personally, I saw and experienced the results, in how I treat myself first and then in those around me, in how I deal with everything that happen every day. We are human beings, with weaknesses and passions and we have the right to make mistakes, but meditation, observation, is the tool that will bring us back to reality. It’s a way to get to know yourself better and answer the question “Who am I?”
Train Your Mind teacher training was created for this very purpose, to learn or to remember what it is like to live in the present moment. Just like when we were kids we didn’t care or worry about anything. We have all experienced it at some point in our lives and it’s time to remember it! So let’s train the mind to live more consciously in each of our moments and to enjoy it as it really deserves. Let’s become better people so we can make and live in a beautiful world because we just deserve it!
Dimitris Gkioulos
