On the 10th of October, people all over the globe celebrated World Mental Health Day and I decided to share some thoughts on how to keep a calm mind and a clear perception of reality. I have struggled with this since teenage years because my mind was thinking non-stop about mistakes I have done in the past meanwhile worrying about future decisions, which are about to be made. I found a cure to this sore, which was just closing my eyes and maintaining deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, or simply - meditation.
Gena Qarchava
First of all, I do not want you to think, that I am sitting in the lotus posture for 10 hours, making some strange sounds and placing my hands on my knees, as a monk (but I wish I could one day). In recent years, mindfulness has become a narrative, which is appearing everywhere, with dozens of meditation apps, courses, coaching, and stuff. It is not what the media is trying to demonstrate to us, meditation is way easier and more accessible for people, does not matter, where you are living and what you do. Just sit comfortably in a quiet place and have an intention to help yourself. My path to meditation was a bit weird and long, thankfully, I am devoting time to mindfulness on a regular basis for around a year now, and it has changed my life completely.
I discovered meditation by going through a series of short videos on Netflix, which were created with Headspace. After going through a couple of them, I thought it was a waste of time because my mind could not understand how breathing can help to overcome all those stress-generating ideas, memories, and worries. So, I dropped that thing for like 2 weeks and just kept going through my daily routine.
One day, I came back home from my evening walk in the park, fell on the sofa, and just clicked Netflix. The recommendation system asked me to go through the 3rd episode of this series, which was called "How to fall in love with life". Looked like I needed an answer to this question and I pressed "play". Since I watched the 3rd episode up to this point I have meditated for more than 1000 minutes (~17 hours) and my biggest regret right now is that I started it so late in my life.
Since I started meditating on a daily basis, I have gained 3 main qualities of mind:
- Clarity - mindfulness helps to turn off useless and bothering ideas for a moment and make your thought process clearer
- Calmness - meditation turns your overwhelmed mind into a place of quiet and peaceful thoughts process when you accept uncertainty and look not at a problem, but through it
- Presence - taking 5-10 minutes a day to meditate, makes you more present in this particular moment, and you genuinely start to feel happier and appreciate everything, that is given to you
Meditation can not solve your problems, it will not pay your bills, help to move your mom out the hood, or find a partner, who loves you, but... it can definitely make your mind state clearer and help to become more optimistic in a rational way. I used to find myself in such a mental state when everything felt senseless and my life at this moment was just existence. Now, when I am facing difficulties and non-pleasant situations, it is still stressing me, but with a much lower intensity. Sometimes such situations pass by, so I don't even catch this moment when I could start overthinking, all thanks to meditation.
How to start meditating and get more context on how it works:
1) Recommend you start with this Youtube video of Headspace founder Andy on TED, describing meditation in simple words. Here is the link
2) His book on meditation and the road to mindfulness, can check here
3) Headspace app, which I use to meditate every day, is a subscription worth buying, trust me. Here is the link for IOS devices and link for Android
Guys, this is not any kind of promo or whatever it may look like (come on, I have 16 subscribers right now😂). I like Headspace and thank their team because they are helping me to keep up with all the negativity which is dropped on our heads daily. It's great when you can find inner peace when stuff is blowing up all around.
So far, so good, thanks for reading this post, I truly believe, that starting meditation will help you to get the most out of every day and feel better mentally. Remember, a calm mind equals the right decisions, have a nice day, fam😎