What I learned from Meditating One Hour Per Day for One Month

Ommmmmmm…….

This past month has been remarkable for me. It was the first time in my life I was able to have the discipline to sit on the cushion and meditate for one hour each morning.

And wow.

What a transformative change that small little habit brought to my life, and my mind.

Who would ever think that sitting on a cushion in silence for one hour could end up being the most transformative and life changing catalyst.

So how has my life changed?

For starters, I feel happy.

You know how it goes. You are just going about your life and then you get some idle time to stop and think. And then what does the mind do? It fills you with thoughts of worry, inadequacy, fear, thinking about the past, thinking about the future.

Why am I such a failure at life?

Why can’t I save enough money?

What if this happens? My life will be ruined.

What if things don’t go according to plan?

What if I have to interact with that person?

And the thoughts just keep sticking around day after day.

Even if you achieve something great for yourself, soon afterwards those limiting thoughts return.

Meditation has gotten rid of that voice inside my head.

I’m finally here. In the present moment.

And what a blissful experience it is, to just be here.

Not a second in the past nor a second in the future.

Just here, right now.

What a beautiful place.

It’s from this place where you can do anything. This is the place that you can actually control, right here. You don’t have to wait for it to come.

Just do it now.

Do whatever is in your power to do in this very moment.

And if you can manage that simple shift in consciousness, the worries disappear (thinking about the future) and so does the depression (thinking about the past).

You become free to recognize that this is all there ever was. This was the only thing that was ever available, and somehow you let it just slip by you for years.

Now.

The power of now.

It’s so powerful to be here now.

That’s not to say forget everything about the past or the future.

I’m just saying that if you can act and live from this moment, taking what is readily available and the options that are immediately present in your moment to moment experience, you don’t need to worry about the things that are beyond your control (past & future)

You simply have to do you best with what you have now.

Simple as that.

Yet they’ll never teach you that in school. No doctor would ever prescribe that medicine. No government would even dare to suggest such a thing.

We must be filled with fear and worry ALL the time! If not, who is going to buy our products? Who will use our services? Who would go to war? Who would keep grinding away in a system best described as modern day slavery?

You bet it won’t be me.

I’ll be fishing out here on the river.

Smelling the crisp winter air.

Waiting for nothing.

Because I’m already there.