Petra's Healing Journey

I’m getting the hang of this blogging malarky, bit by bit. I have a WordPress Webinar next week, so prepare yourselves for things getting funky around here!

If you’re as old as I am, which is a funny thing in itself, because technically I suppose being over 50 makes me fairly old, but I feel very young. I barely feel like an adult most of the time. But anyway, if you’re around my age, you might remember a program on TV called Record Breakers. It was, as you can probably guess, a program where people came on TV to break and set new world records. The last line in the theme tune’s lyrics were, ‘Dedication’s what you need – if you wanna be a record breaker, yeaaaah!’.

Since my awakening, I hear this song in my head nearly every day of my life, but instead of ‘dedication’, I hear MEDITATION! And I believe with every iota of my being, that meditation is what every living soul on this planet needs.

Meditation is how we connect to our inner being, our soul, our higher self, the collective consciousness, the unified field, source energy, the field of intention, our spirit guides, our guardian angels, God and all that IS. I may not feel like it, but in truth we are all connected. Our souls are all little tiny fractals of God. It’s not an easy concept to get your head around, but when I had my awakening, that was one of the many things that I suddenly knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt.

In my opinion, there is no greater gift or purpose than meditation. I totally get why these monks and yogis dedicated their whole lives to meditation. There is possibly no greater purpose an individual could have to benefit the world as a whole. Meditation has been proven to have a incredible effect, not only on the people doing it, but on everyone else as well. They’ve done experiments where a large group of people meditated together and the crime rate has dropped significantly in the surrounding area.

It brings us into balance with who we really are at our core, it is our path to joy, and the truest love and deepest happiness and fulfillment you will ever find. Meditation allows us to relinquish stress and worry and anxiety, and be present in the moment, where there is really nothing we can’t deal with. It’s only our thoughts and fears that give us the problems, in reality there is really nothing we need to worry about. Life has a way of working itself out, and worrying about what has happened or what may happen is a completely pointless exercise that only creates unnecessary suffering, for you, and for the people around you.

Society is geared up in a way that we a bombarded with distractions at every turn, constant advertising and marketing strategies designed to make us spend money and be constantly reaching for ‘things’ to make us feel more satisfied with life. We are programmed to think that we have to be constantly working to make money so we feel we have security in this uncertain world. We spend much of our time thinking about the past and the future, questioning everything, going over things we think we could’ve done better, or said differently to produce a better end result, when in reality, it’s impossible to change anything so it’s a complete and utter waste of time. And when we aren’t thinking about the past, we’re worrying about what lies ahead, imagining scenarios that will probably never happen. It’s no wonder we tie ourselves in knots and end up stressed out, worried, anxious and often end up turning to some sort of escapism to numb ourselves, by opening a bottle of wine, or going to the pub, or smoking, or taking drugs or gorging ourselves on chocolate or junk food.

Learning to detach from overthinking is like most things that are worth doing in life, it takes practice to get good at it. Meditation is the best way to do this. Nearly every time I speak to anyone about meditation I get the same response. People nearly always say that they want to meditate but they cant switch their thoughts off. Well, here’s the good news. You don’t have to. It’s pretty much impossible to do anyway. It’s not about switching them off, it’s about learn to become an observer of your thoughts and not get involved with them. When a thought comes in, and it definitely will, you just acknowledge that a thought has arisen, and then you let it go. I imagine its like a bird coming in to land, and when you notice it, you release it and let it fly away.

There are many different types of meditation. The most common is mindfulness meditation, where you focus on your breath. A thought comes into your mind, you notice you’re thinking about something, and then you just let it go, and return to focusing on your breath.

At the moment, I’m doing Japa meditation, which is recommended in the book I’m reading, The Power of Intention, by Dr Wayne Dyer, it’s about ‘getting in the gap’ between thoughts, it uses the lord’s prayer, imagining the first and second words and then focusing in the gap between them, and then on to the second and third words etc, and making an ‘aaaaah’ sound while you’re in ‘the gap’. It’s a good form of meditation for people who are struggling with intrusive thoughts when they meditate – which is EVERYBODY at some point. I doubt that anybody found it easy at first to stop intrusive thoughts popping in left right and centre. But it does get easier. If you practice, I guarantee that regular meditation will benefit your life in a myriad of ways. It helps you sleep better, it reduces anxiety, depression, improves your energy levels, stops you worrying, increases creativity, allows you to focus much more easily, there are loads of benefits, but overall, what I will feel more than anything is that I am happier. You will be able to be present in the moment, and experience joyful moments, both when you’re meditating and during the course of your day. There are times during meditation that you enter into a state of utter peace and bliss, and emerge feeling energised and often inspired to take action, and this action comes from direct communication with your inner being and should ALWAYS be followed!

After my awakening I did a course in Transcendental Meditation, with a little old lady in Granton, who had lived for a year in India with the Marahishi Mahesh yogi, training to be a transcendental meditation teacher. In TM, you go through a ceremony and are given a mantra by your teacher (which you can never repeat out loud as it is only ever spoken inwardly). Instead of focusing on the breath during meditation, you repeat the mantra over and over to yourself in your mind. She used the analogy of our minds being like an ocean, with lots of waves and boats and activity going on at the surface, but when you dive deep down, everything becomes calm and still. We have our monkey mind, chattering away on the surface, and then when we meditate, we dive down to the stillness and calm where we can experience true peace and tranquility, which gives us a feeling of tremendous serenity and well-being.

Daily Practice

After my awakening, one of the things that I suddenly knew was that I needed to meditate every day. I’d be a liar if I said I’ve meditated every day since. I’d love to be able to say that, but I can’t. It’s a bit like going to gym or doing yoga, you know it’s good for you, and you’ll feel better afterwards, but for some inexplicable reason, sometimes you let procrastination or avoidance get the better of you, and you don’t do it.

So having a daily practice is really important. The best way to do that is to go to bed an hour earlier than you’re used to, and get up and hour earlier, and do your daily practice before you start your day. When I wake up I start my day by thinking of at least 3 things I feel grateful for. You should check out Louise Hays morning gratitude meditation..

My daily practice takes 1 hour (or just under). I do 15 minutes of yoga (usually sun salutations or kundalini yoga)..

Followed by 10 minutes of breathwork (Wim Hoff breathwork)..

Followed by a 20 minute meditation,. YouTube is rammed full of meditation music and guided meditations, which are a good place to start when your starting out in your meditation journey. There are loads of apps you can download that can be really helpful too.

When I do that every day I feel invincible. Nothing can touch me. If something doesn’t go to plan, it doesn’t phase me, I’m able to take everything in my stride. It gives me a sense of achievement, it makes me feel really positive and strong, it prevents me from having (long-standing) shoulder issues, and I feel joyful. I walk with a spring in my step, smiling at everyone I meet. I love it when I see people in the street and they smile at me, so I make it my business to be one of those people. ‘Be the change you want to see‘, is one of my mantras, I believe it was Ghanaian who said that 🤔

One day I would love to teach meditation. One day I will, when I have my retreat in the countryside, and we will start our days with yoga and breathwork and meditation 🧘‍♀️

Until then, if anyone would like to come and meditate with me, whether that be in person or ‘virtually’, I’m up for it. There is no such thing as meditating too much. And if we can’t find 15 minutes in our busy schedules to nourish our souls, then we really are in trouble.

I will post again very soon about my treatment, but I felt that meditation deserved a post of its own.

With light & love ❤️

Namaste 🙏