Many people think the practice of meditation is only good for the mind but it is not so.
Why meditate and why add meditation to your yoga practice
Within the yoga community as well as many other Eastern disciplines, the body is thought as nothing but the gross manifestation of the mind and the latter is the subtle manifestation of the body. So, the mind and body are closely related.
This correlation can be easily observed whenever you're stressed out or worried about something. Observe what happens to your body on these occasions? You become more rigid, often occur back and neck pains, digestive tribulations, self-doubt to name a few imbalances.
Another way to look at the connection between mind and body is to feel your mental state at the end of a physical activity. You will feel more relaxed, at ease, balanced, as if you had been given the opportunity to work things out internally. Obviously, these are just two examples that demonstrate the close correlation between body and mind, but over the years so much has been documented on this subject.
As we see and recognize the mind-body correlation it is becoming more and more apparent that working on the mind through meditation will not only support your yoga practice, have amazing benefits on your body, but also give you an unquestionable edge on your daily life task (i.e.: Job, Nutrition, Relationships, and Sexual Connection to name a few).
Meditation and the increases of body awareness
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the body is alive and continuously sends signals, but to implement them it needs to develop awareness. Awareness can be developed through meditation.
When you're alone with your body, your feelings, your sorrows, and thoughts you're in a nutshell training to develop a greater awareness of your body. Being aware is an innate quality that we all have, however, most of the time we're so overwhelmed by the “noise” of external things, that we lose sight of the warnings our five senses are trying to communicate to us.
Over time we lose the ability to listen to our body and often feel very disconnected. With meditation you can reverse this process and learn to hear and feel all that is communicated to you by your body as during a meditation practice a withdrawal of the senses called “Pratyahara” is formed, allowing you to better hear everything that goes on within yourself. Start with just a few minutes a day to yourself, breathing, connecting and feeling. With just those few minutes spent on daily meditation, you will overtime find the listening skills you thought you had lost and feel a great sense of peace within as well as with other throughout your day, regardless of the outside elements that come your way.
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