How to avert a twitter war ….

From the US to Australia, this week has been a lot. Unless you're off the grid or somehow have managed to ignore the news, what's happening right now is probably affecting you. Almost every newsletter that lands in my inbox, no matter the industry, refers to the upheaval which is the pandemic, US social unrest and politics, and the economic downturn, in almost doomsday-like terms. My friends in Melbourne talk about the immense impact the extended lockdown is having on their mental health. Just one of these issues alone could be read as existential.

The coming weeks and months are going to be just as intense, with the looming US election, the ongoing pandemic and the affects of global warming such as wildfires and hurricanes.

Given the ever increasing challenges, I think it's a good time to remember how Vedic Meditation is a key tool in looking after ourselves. I believe that we can physically and mentally prosper even in the face of tremendous upheaval, but we have to make our wellbeing our first priority. And key to this is meditation.

Get a plan

So, now is a good time to ask yourself whether your meditation practice is where you'd like it to be. If it's not, what's your plan for remaining calm and measured, rather than unhinged and ready to mount a twitter war as events intensify? That last bit about twitter was my own personal reminder, but seriously who doesn't find themselves saying things you later regret, when under pressure? One of the reasons stress is such a problem is that it affects not only ourselves but how we treat others. And the only way we are going to meet the massive ongoing challenges is through collective, unified action. No one person or government is going to save us. We need to work together which requires understanding, openness and empathy. These qualities are within us all

As a 12-year meditator, I'm aware that how well my mind processes challenges is directly in proportion to how well I'm looking after myself. Central to this is meditating twice a day. How did I reach this conclusion? With tons of research. When I first learned meditation I practiced consistently twice a day for a year. After 12 months I became less committed and finally my practice dropped away entirely. It took a few months but eventually I became anxious and depressed again.

Once I acknowledged what was missing, I picked up where I'd left off, meditating once a day.

It helped. I felt a bit better.

But it was only when I moved to a twice a day practice again that I began to feel significantly different.

What changed was that I finally accepted that developing a meditation habit sometimes requires accepting the parts of the practice that don't always feel amazing. Yes we all love the deep meditations, the one where we forget time, and peace envelops us. But yet all Vedic Meditators are taught that a significant part of the practice involves thoughts in meditation, which are the products of stress release. Another way of looking at this is, thoughts in meditation signal the body is detoxifying itself.

How stress affects the body

When our brain interprets an event as dangerous the resulting uncertainty, fear and anger send the hormones cortisol and adrenaline coursing through our nervous system. This can be useful, but mostly it's the opposite. When your body is in a state of flight, fight or freeze caused by a perceived threat, the hormones which help you escape a bear or avoid a car accident, can play havoc with the nervous system. Under stress our higher-order emotions like compassion and empathy are likely to be suspended. Our access to good judgement is limited because our pre-frontal cortex is inhibited. Our digestive and reproductive systems are secondary functions in this scenario, so their work is hindered. Basically anything that isn't needed to flee the bear, goes offline. So our blood pressure increases and heart rate and breathing intensify. We're ready for action! The problem is, this physiological set-up can be triggered by events that don't require a drastic biochemical response.

How Vedic Meditation counters stress

But if you’ve learned Vedic Meditation you have a supreme stress-reduction tool at your disposal. When you close your eyes to invoke the mantra, your mind begins to move inwards. As the mind settles, the body relaxes. Relaxation allows the body to move into rest and repair mode, which means it throws off the accumulated stress.

In effect, it detoxifies.

Relaxation, triggered by the mind moving inwards, causes stress to be released. This reaction provokes your mind to think. Yes, thoughts indicate that something important is happening. You are releasing stress. This is only ever good. It may mean you don't get the deep quiet meditation you hoped for, but the meditation you get is invariably the meditation you need.

If you are meditating twice a day and your meditations are busy, ask yourself, is my life better than it was?

If it's not, give me a call or come to group meditation and we can work out what is going on. But most will find, if you are meditating twice a day, even with "busy" meditations, your life, or at least, how you respond to life, is better. Mostly you will find you get a mixture of experiences in your practice. It's useful to consider that our physiology has an innate intelligence. It's up to us to look after ourselves to allow the body and mind to do what comes naturally.

And be aware that the busy-ness of your meditation may increase during this time of personal and collective upheaval.

There's a lot going on so there is a lot of stress to process.