Discover the Power of Meditation – Part 3

May 6, 2024

By Helena Keenan, Day Spa Manager at Polynesian Spa

To review the previous two parts I described the steps to create a calm and peaceful place to begin your meditation practice and the importance of attitude to bring to your practice.

Read Part 1 here: Preparation
Read Part 2 here: Relaxation

I discussed the benefits for relaxing your body as a prelude to lead your mind into meditation. Our body follows the mind, and our mind follows the body. If one is relaxed the other follows.

Developing our awareness about how our body feels helps overcome the obstacle of tension both mental and physical that affects the ability of someone to move into meditation.

This is where Mindfulness of our body and body sensations plays a very important role. I have had the experience of leading a group in meditation and noticing one of the participants sitting with their arms stiffly straight, hands clenched into fists and a serious deep frown on her face. It was obvious that this person was unaware of the position of their body or the expression on their face. Focusing on our body and where we are feeling tension so we can consciously relax that tension, or changing the expression on our face so that we have a slight smile, completely changes the experience of learning to practice mindfulness.

Seriousness in meditation often accompanies expectations of what we hope to achieve, and these expectations will create struggle and self-judgement (and judgement of the class or the teacher). My teacher describes the uncomfortable feelings that arise, or boredom and restlessness as a form of physical and emotional withdrawal from the constant overstimulation of our mind. Giving up when you feel overwhelmed by these old habits of behaviour is not going to take away the uncomfortable feelings. Developing the practices of mindfulness will be the way to learn to manage unhelpful intrusive thoughts.

We have several mindfulness practices to develop our awareness that help us to manage the resistance our body presents when we attempt to learn to be still and quiet our mind. Focusing on our breath, our thoughts, our emotions, the physical sensations we feel in our body can all be done individually or altogether in a single practice of focused relaxation.

In the next blog, I will discuss these areas of focus specifically.