Meditation, the practice of loving awareness, is bedrock for overall health and wellness.  Individually, we sustain health by attending to the state of our mind, body, emotions and spirit as one intimate reality. Health and wellness therefore, develops in an environment of gradual awakening to and caring for each relational aspect of our being. Meditation, a practice as old as time, is an exercise used to acquaint ourselves with what is happening on all levels of our being and with proper and regular practice enables us to enjoy optimal health and wellness.

There are many benefits to meditating.  First and foremost meditation is the opportunity to notice what is happening here in the present moment. Typically, we live hectic lives filled with noise and ongoing movement.  It is not unusual for us to spend our day multi tasking and running from one errand to the next attempting to cope with the demands of modern life. Time, our most valued yet demanding resource requires us to adapt to lifestyles which increasingly tax our health and overall sense of peace.  We no longer have time to ponder, to prepare a healthy meal and to linger with family and friends over a dinner table. Often our lack of time makes it difficult to make sense of what is happening in the present moment.  Without the opportunity to stop, still and silence ourselves, we become lost and a sense of disconnect and meaninglessness encroaches upon us. 

As important as noticing the moment is, so too is the capacity to contain or hold our experiences so that we may be informed and potentially transformed by them. This sounds simple but is actually difficult to do!  Everything in us is used to movement and noise and this is not just in the outer world but in the inner world as well. When we first meditate we become aware of just how much is going on for us and how out of touch we are.  Suddenly, we notice the aching shoulder, the negative thinking, the wounded heart and everything else significant and seemingly insignificant. The impulse, often enough is to move away from what has been noticed - to escape into familiar routines, compulsions or addictions. We tend to grasp after that which is pleasurable and avoid that which is unpleasant.  Our tendency is to escape the simplicity of the moment.

Meditation is one tried and true antidote for the denial of reality. As we meditate the layers of our being are revealed to us.  At first, we encounter the superficial or more immediate aspects of our being; later, this process becomes more subtle as our unconscious slowly breaks through and makes apparent that which is in need of healing or care.  The aching shoulder may have something to tell us about how we have been treating our bodies or about an emotional blockage.  The negative thought might be the result of years of damaging judgments about oneself and others, a tendency born of having been criticized too soon and too harshly.  The wounded heart may be about a lost love, many lost loves, or something totally surprising.  We discover ourselves when we allow the still, silent mind to work its magic.  And, in the process we learn we can indeed tolerate all experience in a noble, compassionate sort of way.

Health and wellness is the ability to be ourselves in a unified, open, dynamic and loving way.  Meditation is a path to such realization.