Imagine if everyone you met today, including the person in the mirror, were grounded and safe — safe for themselves, and safe for others. That would improve your day, wouldn’t it?
Living in today’s world, surrounded by a plethora of distractions — plus all the things our minds throw at us — staying grounded and safe can seem like a full time job.
For those of us who are hyper-responsive to the needs of others, it’s even more challenging. We naturally go out to people far too easily, or let them in too deeply.
Not everything that comes naturally is a good thing.
When we go out to others too readily, we lose our balance, we lose our center, we lose our roots. We go out to others because we want to help them, but what good can we accomplish in this world without roots?
That’s why I encourage you again and again — ok, I nag you — to learn habits of grounding. That’s why I chose to celebrate 25 years of Reiki practice by organizing the Thankfulness Interview series.
The more reliably you ground yourself in yourself, the happier and healthier you will feel, and the more effectively you will be able to help others.
And the easier it will become to meditate. Not what you expected?
Meditation is the mother of all healing (including Reiki practice), and the key to developing wisdom. Through meditation, we extend beyond our limitations to find inspiration, inner knowing, and compassion.
Meditation drew me to India many years ago. It was a move that moved everything. It changed my understanding of the mind and enabled me to see in a more holistic way. It also freed my mind to be more logical. Go figure.
That’s what happens when you give yourself to spiritual practice, whether it’s meditation, Reiki, yoga, or in my case, all three. The effects show up where you least expect them. And they keep showing up for the rest of your life.
I realize not too many people can schedule two years to live in an ashram in India immersed in spiritual practices.
That’s why I asked Sharon Salzberg and Sally Kempton, two of today’s most respected, effective meditation teachers, to bring meditation to you.
Sharon Salzberg teaches lovingkindness meditation. Lovingkindness is an accessible, deceptively simple (sounds a lot like Reiki…) meditation practice that has special resonance for Reiki practitioners. Lovingkindness requires no greater effort than becoming more mindful of what you are doing already — wishing others well, wanting people to be happy and healthy.
Simple practices, while readily accesible, arguably take longer to truly master; the skill of not doing is more challenging than any technique, no matter how complex it might be.
Learning from experienced practitioners is a great advantage. An experienced teacher helps us reach not just the low-lying fruit, but also the ripest fruits buried in the thicket of the mind. Sharon Salzberg has been teaching lovingkindness meditation for 30 years. Sharon’s new book Real Happiness leads you through the process of starting your own meditation practice. Click here to read excerpts or purchase.
Sally Kempton’s book Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience delivers everything the title promises. Sally shares generously from her 40 years of meditation experience to help you connect with the most subtle essence of your own being, that inviolable core of beneficence that is the goal of all spiritual practice.
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