Meditation Will Save Your Life

A friend recently told me he had coughed up blood due to stress. He discovered the harmful effects that can be caused by holding on to stress, anger, frustration and other negative emotions.

The best way to solve this problem is meditation.

I could write about the scientifically studied effects of meditation: reducing stress, pain, anxiety, aging, depression, feelings of loneliness and inflammation at the cellular level.

Or how it increases your immune function, positive emotions, emotional intelligence, compassion, ability to regulate emotions, ability to introspect, grey matter in key areas of your brain, focus, multitasking, memory and creativity.

But instead, I would like to write about the most important benefit that meditation gives us.

The Ability To Let Go.

We are always our own worst critics. I label almost everything I do as “not good enough” no matter how many people tell me otherwise.

We all judge our bodies, habits, careers, intelligence, and lifestyles more than anyone else ever could. We beat ourselves up so much and the worst part is that we think it is normal.

When we aren’t holding grudges against ourselves, we are holding on to all the negativity the world gives us.

Something makes us angry in the morning and it ruins our day, or something stresses us out and we can’t let go of it. We hold on to anger, sadness, envy, stress, regret and so much more.

Our mental well-being is one of the most important building blocks to a happy and fulfilled life. If we don’t have a healthy mind we can never get near our full potential.

We are robbing the world of the beautiful gifts we could be sharing, just because we can’t seem to let go of any of the things that do us no good.

When We Meditate.

We focus on the breath. It might not seem like much, but it is hard.

Thoughts will come up and we will get trapped in them for minutes at a time before snapping back and re-focusing on the breath.

We will have thoughts about the things that have angered us recently, the things we dislike about ourselves and the world; all the automatic and vindictive thoughts that circle in our brain on a daily basis.

When we practice snapping out of these thought patterns and focusing back on our breath we are constantly exercising our ability to let go of the thoughts that only hurt us.

Over time we get quicker and quicker at this until our negative knee-jerk reactions can no longer drag us down the rabbit hole.

When We Are In The Real World.

After practicing meditation and letting go, we become experts in daily life.

When we see someone more popular, richer and better looking than us, we get jealous. But we’ve practiced for this, and so we immediately let go and go about our day without a second thought.

When someone cuts us off in traffic, instead of letting the anger build and ruin our day, we let it go. When we have thoughts that put down and hurt us, we let them go.

We let go of everything that does no good for us and we never look back.

That is what meditation gives us, a second chance after every negative thought, every unhealthy emotion, and every harmful event.

In practicing meditation, we practice letting go. And when you let go of the bad, you make a lot more room for the good.

 

Guest Post: A Tale of Two Losses

I have the honour of presenting another guest post today! This comes from Dignified Anonymity. She is a stellar writer covering a variety of topics. You can check out her blog here! http://dignifiedanonymity.com

As always, I welcome all guest posts. My hope is too one day have this blog as a massive self-help/advice forum for the WORLD to use. This my aspiration and I know it will come true! So please, do not hesitate to contact me to have your work featured here! So without further ado, I give you “A Tale of Two Losses.”

 

A Tale of Two Losses

Before everything else, here’s a confession: when I pitched the guest post idea to Leroy, I was talking about something like “5 important life lessons”. But alas, I found it absurdly hard to create a numbered list based on my story. So I decided to change the approach a little bit, and came up with a recap of two unforgettable events that happened in my lengthy history of more than twenty years.

Loss #1: Dumped by a guy after being together for one month.

The guy and I met at a part-time job. He said it was “love at first sight”; though I had never believed in that sort of stuff, it still sounded flattering. The relationship started one week after we met, and ended one month later. Well, actually it should have already ended when the guy started to disappear on me after two weeks, but I refused to accept the truth right away. It wasn’t my first love really, and the most intimate thing we had ever done was nothing more than kissing (on the cheek). But since he vanished, I still cried every single day as if it was the end of the world, until everything was washed away by the tears.

Lesson learnt: Give time, some time.

During the aching course of self-healing, I performed some strange rituals. I watched the entire Sex & the City DVD deluxe collection all over again (which includes all six seasons and the two movies), chatted with random strangers on Bazoocam, and deleted all characters on Diablo 3 to start from scratch again. By distracting myself with these time-consuming activities, I started to get better.

And I began to realize that no one is obliged to love us except ourselves. Just like the change of seasons, the feelings and preferences of humans will hardly be static. That’s why no matter how good a relationship is, it still has a chance to reach an end some day. And if it’s meant to happen, the only best thing we can do is to let go. There’s really no use to cling onto the past. Don’t underestimate the healing power of time; give yourself and time some time, and magic will start working. Believe or not, “this too, shall pass” is more than a common proverb.

Loss #2: Got laid off by a company.

Ironically, the layoff happened two days after my birthday. Things were perfectly normal in the morning, until that email arrived at the inbox of mine and a few other colleagues who were on the same boat. Yes, an email – the boss didn’t even bother to talk in person. The “reason” for the layoff? “Company restructure.” When a colleague demanded an explanation, the boss immediately picked up his bag and left. I was shocked, devastated, and totally caught off guard. I did not know how to tell my family and my friends about it. “How are they gonna judge me? Would I be labeled as a loser?” These thoughts alone had made me feel completely broken and even ashamed, to the extent that I would secretly doubt whether I would be able to survive the storm.

Lesson learnt: Predict and prepare for the worst before the storm actually comes.

In fact, I could sense that shadows were stirring, and a lot of the symptoms emerged before the storm actually hit. Missed revenue goals? Check. Risky pivots? Check. Shady boss? Check. But I chose to ignore them. I thought that I would become an idiotic victim of self-fulfilling prophecy if I kept thinking about those negative signs. So instead of properly preparing myself for the worst, I only wished that those symptoms would magically disappear, that they were only my illusions, and that they were merely the products of “overthinking”. But apparently, I was WRONG.

In the recent times of economic instability, it’s always better to prepare for anything, including the worst. Regardless of what your skills are, get really good at them and stay updated. At the same time, expand your toolbox through learning and exploration. The better you are equipped, the fewer worries you have; even if you were hit by a huge tsunami, you would find your lifeboat.

Last words

While no one wishes to enter the realm of agony, there’s always a time to lose in life.

And if those dramatic plots are already written on my scripts, it’s always better for them to happen sooner than later. I am no longer the same person I was before all that happened after all; “I made it through somehow, and I’m so much stronger now.”

One Habit That Will Change Your Life

If I told you the simple act of making breakfast made me who I am today, you probably wouldn’t believe me.

But it’s true.

Let’s hop in my time machine and go back nine months for a moment.

I’m depressed. I have no energy and no motivation. I usually never show any negativity at work but my coworkers can sense something is off. I’m not my normal self at all.

She used to take care of me but she is gone now and I feel like my life is falling apart. I barely wake up in time for work every morning and I can’t focus on anything.

My stomach is killing me. My body hates me. I don’t know how to cook anything so I’ll eat something that can barely be considered food once a day.

I have no plans for my future so thinking ahead hurts. Thinking back doesn’t provide any solace either. But all I can feel is my stomach.

I decide that no matter what the future holds, I need to care of myself right now. I need to start eating or I’ll rot away from the inside. I decided to make sure I ate before work the next morning.

Little did I know that I had found my keystone habit.

A keystone habit is one habit that has the power to create a chain reaction, causing a snowball effect that changes other habits as it grows.

Eating breakfast was my keystone habit. Your keystone habit might be quitting drinking or smoking, going to the gym, writing in a journal every night, getting up early or even reading.

By the end of this post you will know the three things to look for and expect from a keystone habit.
Let’s do it!

1) A keystone habit offers the feeling of small, reoccurring wins.

Everyone loves a win. It feels good. Imagine getting a win everyday, or five, or ten!

Every time I ate something in the morning it was a win for me. I would think about how I accomplished my goal before bed that night.

Having this sense of regular small wins can snowball and cause you to believe you can achieve those bigger wins. Maybe I could learn how to cook and eat healthy?

If you are trying to quit smoking everyday that you don’t smoke, is a win. If you don’t like the cold turkey method, everyday that you don’t go past a certain number of cigarettes it is a win.

Better yet, every three hour period that you don’t have a smoke is a win.

Set small, very achievable goals and allow yourself to get as many wins as possible.

Make sure you are congratulating yourself on these accomplishments!

With a hundred small victories at your back, you will not only believe that the major victories are possible, they will feel inevitable.
Which brings us to our next point.

2) A Keystone habit will snowball your confidence and energy.

When you integrate or change a keystone habit, you are improving something that is deeply meaningful to yourself. Pick something that you care about.

If you have been trying to quit smoking, go to the gym, or eat healthy for years and now you can see real tangible progress toward your goal, you will feel good about it.
I guarantee it.

When I started eating breakfast, I felt great. Not just because my stomach was no longer at war with me, but because I was starting to believe that I could change my life in a meaningful way.

With reoccurring small wins and your newly found confidence and energy, you come to point three.

This is where you start to see major changes in all areas of your life.

3) A keystone habit acts as soil from which other habits grow.

In the beginning I just wanted to eat every morning. I was at war with every part of myself and I wanted a truce with my stomach at the very least.

At first I would just eat a banana, but after a while I wanted something bigger so I would wake up a little earlier and make scrambled eggs.

I was terrible at cooking so I started watching Gordon Ramsay YouTube videos while I ate.
Ps: I am NOT a F**king donkey, Ramsay!

Once I learned how to make a half decent breakfast I realized that I loved learning and being creative in the morning.

I was now excited to wake up every morning. This lead to researching how to make myself an early riser naturally without effort.

These were new habits naturally growing from within me.

We all need a catalyst to change our lives, but it doesn’t have to be a near death experience.

The simple habit of eating something every morning gave me small wins, which lead to confidence and excitement, which lead to a whole spring of new habits I never thought I could integrate into my life.

I am a completely different person than I was nine months ago. It’s funny that I write this at the nine month mark because I do feel like I am reborn.

I am begging you, don’t try to change your whole life at once. Change one deeply meaningful thing about yourself.

Change one thing you do daily, and you’ll change your whole life.

Surprise Guest Post: The Power of Social Anxiety

Morning EVERYONE! I have the pleasure of presenting you with a surprise guest post today! It comes from my friend Rayven who is an incredibly talented writer. She is able to paint a picture in your head with her words (something that I am not so great at). She has an amazing writing style that reaches out to the readers.

Check out her blog at http://moonstruckmicrocosm.wordpress.com for more of her work. She posts everything from personal stories, advice, and poetry! She is very talented, so check her out.

Lastly, my eventual goal for this blog is make it a massive self-help/advice resource for everyone to use. I want more guest posters with unique perspectives on life. If you would like to write on my blog, I would LOVE to have you! Please contact me via Ask a Question page and I would love to hear some of your ideas.

So without further ado, I present to you her article!

Social anxiety became the friend I always needed.

Frustration lingering in the air,
tastes bitter but I cannot sweeten it with my voice.
The perception of reality dissolves around me,
and I become trapped within myself.

For a time, writing was the only thing that made me feel heard. It was the only time I wasn’t afraid to speak. I mean really speak. I was silenced everywhere else, and the worst part about the silence was that it was predominantly caused by an internal source.

I couldn’t be myself; I was trapped in a cloud of anxiety, constantly worrying.

Social anxiety (or social phobia) made me afraid to be who I was, even to people I had known for years. The crippling doubt and fear I felt when I tried to speak was enough to keep me curled up and hiding within myself.

On the outside I was smiling, but self-hatred was swimming around in my head.

Being shy meant needing a bit more time to adjust; having social anxiety meant adjusting was not an option.

Blushing, heart palpitations, tunnel vision, sweating, dry mouth, and more would be a constant reminder of how incapable I was. If I knew I had to talk about something, I would spend hours rehearsing what I was going to say. After the conversations, I would painfully replay them in my head, picking them apart and berating myself for every mistake I thought I had made.

And I always walked away from interactions thinking I looked a fool.

Luckily, social anxiety is not who I am. It’s not who anyone is. We so often attribute the flaws in ourselves to who we are as people, but that is not the case.

After struggling for years and after my doctor convinced me I had to seek help for myself, I sought a therapist through my university. I was lucky to have her as my guiding light. I set myself free in that room and it seeped into everyday life.

Social anxiety became a challenge rather than an inherent part of who I was. By seeing it as external I could fight it without shaming myself in the process. The burning in my face when I spoke in class was a source of pride rather than humiliation, because it meant I was dealing with it rather than letting it hold me back.

I still struggle with it sometimes, but I am a much more confident person and the progress I have made keeps me fighting.

You are not your depression, or your anxiety, or anything else that seeks to suppress you. Think of them as friends who need love and care, as you do. Embrace them and accept them, help them rise above, but always allow for mistakes.

Mistakes lead to lessons. Each time you try, whether it leads to success or failure, you are laying down a new brick in your path. You are always making progress, just be sure to fight for the progress you want.