Why I meditate.

y husband has recently become interested in meditation. It’s been fun to have conversations about what meditation is, why anyone does it, how it has changed my perspective and the actual mechanics of it. It has helped me come back to a beginner’s mindset in my practice which is always helpful and refreshing.

The why of meditation for me is ultimately spiritual awakening. Which really just means that I experience more peace, more freedom, more love in my everyday life. And as I do, I can see more clearly what are not those things. I become aware of the habitual, conditioned and often unconscious beliefs I carry and emotions I feel that don’t align with peace, freedom and love. This discernment is not about good and bad or right and wrong. It’s simply about truth. Love feels true to me. When I experience peace or freedom, I feel relaxed in my being. When I’m in shame or fear or anger, I feel constricted. Meditation has helped me come into awareness of what I’m experiencing in any given moment and develop ways to navigate those moments with greater clarity, compassion and wisdom.

As a meditation teacher, I invite people to let go long enough to start loosening their grip on the limited ideas they are carrying of themselves. I heard a spiritual teacher say recently that we don’t need to be afraid of the unknown because all that is there is just more of ourselves. Meditation helps me know myself more and be myself more. It’s an infinite unraveling into the experience of me. It is a practice of surrendering again and again into the mysterious depths of my becoming. And I truly have no idea where this practice will take me. How exciting is that?