Over the coming weeks on A Lust for Life our intention is to get as many of you as possible meditating every day, helping you to establish a daily practice. We are hugely passionate about helping you to learn to meditate because we know from personal experience that the benefits are life changing
We have linked up with 1 Giant Mind’s Founder Jonni Pollard, someone who has dedicated his life to teaching meditation throughout the world, and he will help guide your way. All you have to do to get started is download the 1 Giant Mind app on your smart phone or via Google Play right now and start using it. The app is free and it’s really easy to use. It very practically helps you to learn to meditate and asks that you start off with only 15 minutes per day for 12 days. Easy! Will you join us and spread the word? Invite your friends and family along for the meditation ride. Make the decision to commit to it (you won’t regret it) and let us know how you go.
Bressie’s journey with meditation and why we should invest our time in it
After 30 years on this earth, I had a rather timely moment of clarity when it came to the mechanics of my mind and how at times these mechanics broke down and didn’t work so well.
When I was a professional athlete we were continuously warned about the absolute importance and necessity of rest and recovery to let our muscles, joints and bodies rebuild themselves after a physically strenuous period of training or matches. In fact these rest and recovery days became almost more important than the training days.
Think of it this way. If I asked you to get up out of bed and start running and don’t stop until that evening, your entire body would shut down physically. You more than likely would get injured or become beyond exhausted and your body would be in so much pain that the chances of you doing anything for the coming days or weeks in terms of physical activity are at best minimal.
However, we are asking our minds to do this every day, relentlessly and for most, without rest or recovery. From the moment we get out of bed we are bombarding our brains with information and stresses and these only accelerate throughout the day, to when you return from work or school, only to weld a laptop or iPad to your face to expose our minds to even more stresses and information. We simply are on overload and we are doing it to ourselves all day every day and our minds are burning out. The default response can quite often be stress overload, anxieties or low moods, insomnia or a deep uneasiness.
The reality is we cannot avoid these daily tests of our minds but we certainly can look at ways of resting our minds, much in the same way we would have to rest our bodies if under such pressure. This, quite simply is where meditation comes into my life. My mind will remain an ally once I offer it rest and recovery. Once I invest in it and allow it time off from the constant intense exposure of modern life.
Meditation, although testing for me at the start became one of the greatest tools I ever armed myself with, and continues to teach me about myself and allow me have positive inner dialogue with my mind, which for so many years resented and tortured me. In return for allowing it rest, it allows me achieve so much more.
From Susie Q’s perspective, Editor of A Lust for Life
I recently met with Jonni Pollard, the founder of the not—for – profit 1 Giant Mind, in Melbourne. You can watch our chat in the above video. The app which is free to download is a simple 12 step learn to meditate tool for anyone who wants to feel happier, less stressed and more energised. Once you’ve done the first 12 steps (requires only 15 minutes of meditation a day), you’ll then unlock a 30 day challenge, which I’m currently on and loving. The no bullshit approach by 1 Giant Mind just works, and no previous experience of meditation is required.
This is honestly the greatest gift I have given to myself in recent times and the difference it has made in my life already (only a few weeks in) is very real. I had meditated sporadically here and there in the past, but hadn’t fully committed to a daily meditation practice. The results are that I feel more at ease in myself, more present in conversation with others and my husband has noted that I seem lighter and happier. I also have a deeper sense of clarity in my thought processes helping me to make wiser decisions and take better actions.
But ultimately for me, the greatest consequence of daily meditation has been the experience of dropping into a feeling of truth when I meditate, which then allows me to create a more loving experience of being on this planet. I can feel my nervous system calm itself and my heart opens wider, flooding my body and mind with peace. The experience of feeling peace in your body and mind is utterly priceless in a world that can sometimes be overwhelming. I use the 1 Giant Mind app on the bus into work and home again (20 minutes each way), so if you see me with my eyes closed and a smile on my face, you’ll know it’s me…
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing out more articles written by Jonni Pollard for you all, to help you on your learn to meditate journey. Download the app now and give it a lash. You’ve nothing to lose (except a stressy mind), and everything to gain.
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