Mind Calm by Sandy C. Newbigging Read Free Book Online Page A

tired I would be the next day. Now, knowing that my body and mind get huge rest from meditation, I lie in bed meditating. Sometimes I fall asleep and other times I have an amazingly clear and calm meditation. Irrespective of what happens, knowing meditation rests my body and mind has liberated me from worrying about whether I’m getting enough sleep or not. So there’s no need to count any more sheep to get to sleep; instead, you can gently drift off into the best night’s rest with meditation.
Benefit 3: Helping hand to heal
    Two of the most widely proven strategies for aiding physical healing, discovered by the scientific community and regularly recommended by modern medical professionals, have also been practised for thousands of years by ancient civilizations and are simply:
Reduce stress
Increase rest
    They are also, as you’ve just learned, two of the major benefits from regular meditation. If you see your medical practitioner, you may get a diagnosis or a prescription medicine, but more often than not you will be recommended to go home and ‘get some rest’. This is because the body heals best when it rests.
    Prolonged chronic stress can lead to living in a perpetual state of fight or flight. In such a state, assimilation, digestion and elimination of food is compromised, along with manyof the maintenance and repair projects undertaken by the body when at rest or sleep. By taking time out to meditate, you dramatically improve the physical functioning of your body and, in turn, promote your immune system and aid the healing of any physical conditions that require attention.
Benefit 4: Calm + contentment
    Angst, unease and discontentment are common by-products of a busy mind and, as you’ve already discovered, resistance to life is one of the most common hidden causes of an array of ‘negative’ emotions. Meditation can help you rise above resistance and cultivate a healthier habit of acceptance. Through regular practice, you learn to let go of having to fix, change, improve, manage and manipulate everything in accordance with how your mind believes it needs to be for you to be OK. You start to find that you can let things be. You can change what you want, but don’t need to resist life, throw a tantrum if things don’t go your way or force your opinions onto others or life. You ultimately learn through your experience that the less you resist life, the more peace you naturally enjoy. It becomes the obvious choice to let things be.
    ResistanceMind Calm
    Contentment is also a common by-product of the move away from resistance. You discover that discontentment happens whenever you find fault and want the moment you’re in to be different in some way or another. You see that discontentment can creep into your experience of life if you are focusing too much on the gap between where you are now and where you would rather be. Withmeditation you can find yourself appreciating what you already have, and as a natural consequence, feel more contented with the way things are, right now.
Benefit 5: Unconditional confidence
    Low self-esteem and a lack of confidence are often the result of relying too heavily on the opinions of your mind and/or others. People experiencing low confidence can overly compare themselves to others, find fault in their current incarnation and wish they were different, better or improved.
    Meditation helps you to move your attention away from the opinionated voice in your head. You no longer rely on, or need to wait for, your mind to tell you when you are deemed good enough. Instead, you accept the person you are now - warts and all. As you move into a more unconditional acceptance of yourself, you let go of conceptual criteria-based: I’m good enough and loveable because x, y or z . Naturally your levels of self-love increase along with your confidence and belief in your abilities.
    Furthermore, as you learn to rest more into the gentle yet powerful