Meditation

How to Meditate While Driving and Be a Better Driver

photo credit: Bristol Motor Speedway & Dragway

Last year I was involved in a minor car accident. No one was hurt (except my pride). It struck me at that point how bad I was at driving. Not through a lack of skills or reaction times, through a lack of concentration and focus. I would continually take my eyes off the road to admire the pretty sights around the city.

That crash changed me and the way I drive. In this post I want to show you how to meditate while driving and why this will make you a better driver.

How to Meditate While Driving

The phrase “meditate while driving” might seem a little dangerous to some. It might conjure up images of a monk sitting behind the wheel in the Lotus Posture with his eyes closed crashing in to anything that gets in his way. It’s not like that though… don’t worry.

Meditating while you are driving is, in fact, the safest way to drive. I would go so far as to say that if you don’t meditate while you are driving you are a dangerous driver. The reason I say this is because the ultimate meditation is all about being present. It is about being right here in the present moment and concentrating on the task at hand.

What I used to do while driving
Before my accident my time in the car was distracted. I would listen to the radio, play CDs, look at people walking down the street, watch the different buildings go past, etc. My time in the car was relaxing and fun but it was characterized by distraction. This is what lead to my car accident – I turned in front of another car that I simply did not see, even though I looked.

What I do now
Now my time in the car is characterized by concentration. I realized that I need to be more present in the car and focused on the act of driving. I now become aware of my thoughts when they try to distract me from the art of driving and refocus on the driving itself. An emergency kit with jumper cables, flairs, and a hand held tire inflator can help to make you feel safe and secure, knowing that you are prepared should something unexpected arise while on the road.

You see driving is a great meditation. You can improve your mind quite a lot by simply concentrating when you drive. Think about everything you have to do when you are in the car: check your blind spot, indicate, slow down, stop, don’t tailgate, defog the windows, watch that dog on the footpath, watch the speed limit, recheck your blind spot and so on. It is a long list of things. Staying focussed on all of these things is quite and effort and it takes a lot of mental discipline.

The art of driving meditation, as I have now termed it, is all about staying focussed on what you are doing. This is not a meditation on the breath or a meditation on some deity, it is a meditation on the present.

Why this makes you a better driver
Being aware on the road is the most important thing. You could be the best driver in the world in terms of skills but if you don’t focus and concentrate while you are doing it you are doomed to harm yourself or someone else.

Meditating and focusing in the car will improve your skills and reaction times. If you are fully present you will be able to react to a physical situation much faster than if you were daydreaming or writing a text message. What’s more, focused driving can protect your pocketbook. All around the country, the government is cracking down on distracted driving with the aim of reducing the number of deaths caused by distracted drivers. Besides being ticketed, the insurance penalty for distracted driving is up nearly 8,000%. That alone is enough incentive to change your habits.

In the state I live in the Government has a driving safety campaign aimed at reducing the number of deaths that occur due to distracted drivers. The campaign slogan is:

“Good drivers just drive.”

I think this slogan is also an excellent mantra for us.

Originally posted on August 22, 2008 @ 1:02 am

Give Up Coffee: How To Quit Coffee With Meditation

Give Up Coffee

“Is the cup half full or half empty?”

For a long time I have been addicted to coffee. Three to four cups a day addicted. After struggling with many different methods of giving up and quitting the world’s most popular drug I realized that my basic training in meditation could be the solution. In this post I want to talk about how I am going quit coffee using some simple meditation techniques. If you feel like you are drinking too much coffee then read through this post and apply the techniques to your own life. The meditations are basic and anyone can do them.

Why Quit Coffee?

Coffee is full of caffeine and caffeine is a drug. Like any drug it is addictive and this addiction is a negative thing for the body and the mind. Why? Because it makes you want more. You get a nice wake up jolt from the first cup but after a few weeks one cup is not enough and you need two. Then the same thing happens and after a year of drinking coffee you are on 4+ cups per day. I think it is called escalation.

Many studies have been done on the effects of coffee. Some studies say that coffee is a good thing and that it has many health benefits. For example, one study showed that drinking coffee lowers your risk of getting bowel cancer. Other studies, however, have painted coffee in a negative light. It is difficult to trust these studies because there are so many and they seem to come up with a different result every time.

So what do you do? What is the answer?

As far as I am concerned the best thing to do with coffee is weigh up the pros and the cons. You look at all the positive aspects of drinking coffee and then put them next to the negative aspects and see which column is bigger. In my mind the negative is bigger than the positive.

The Cons of Coffee
Here are some negative aspects of drinking coffee:

It is addictive: Anything that is addictive is bad for your mind. It makes you become a very dependent person because you feel like you cannot function without it. How many people do you know that have to have a morning coffee before they feel human? A lot.
It leads to other negativities: The other thing about addictive substances is that they lead to other negative substances. For example, when you drink a lot of coffee you will undoubtedly have sugar in it and sooner or later you will probably want more sugar. Another thing that coffee drinkers do is have a snack with the coffee. The more coffees the more snacks you have.
It is expensive: If you are like me and you buy your coffees from the local cafe or Starbucks then chances are you are spending a lot of money. Let’s assume you buy one coffee everyday and each coffee costs $3.00. In one year you will spend $1095 on lattes. Perhaps you drink more than one per day – after a while this adds up.
It makes you anxious: If you take a look at this post on foods that make you stressed you will see that I think that coffee is one of the main things that we consume that makes us stressed and anxious. When we drink coffee it speeds up our mind and then we have a crushing low afterwards. This is the main reason why I want to quit coffee.

The Pros of Coffee
Just to be balanced I thought I would include a few reasons why drinking coffee is a good idea. Seeing as this is a post on how to quit coffee it might be a good idea to skip over this section if you are a real caffeine fiend. [Read more…] about Give Up Coffee: How To Quit Coffee With Meditation

Originally posted on June 24, 2008 @ 12:56 am

How to Use Your Work as a Meditation Tool to Change Your Life

If we wish to make our time at work meaningful the best thing we can do is meditate while we are there. This does not mean we have to sit down in the lotus posture and chant “OM”. Rather, meditation can be done while you are working. Here is how to turn your work into a meditation tool.

Why meditate at work?

We spend most of our lives at work. Some of us will have the same job we have now til the day we die and we will be there from nine til five every single day. If we do not use our work time carefully we will waste a significant portion of our existences doing something that we resent.

The way to change that is with meditation.

Meditation has many notable benefits. It can reduce stress, increase levels of happiness, increase your capacity to retain information and so on. One of the most important benefits, however, is that meditating at work allows you to take your work from an ordinary daily pursuit to something that can truly change who you are and the way you live your life.

What EXACTLY is meditation?

I want to share with you the Tibetan word for meditation: “gom”. Gom literally means “to familiarize” and this translation gives us a great insight into what meditation truly is. It is about training the mind, beating bad mental habits and developing and nurturing positive qualities that are already present within us.

How to meditate at work

In this post I want to take a look at a few ways that you can use your work as a meditation tool. All of these techniques are simple and effective. They can be used by anyone in any type of job.

1. Focusing on the breath

One of the most simple and ancient forms of meditation is a mindfulness meditation that is focussed on the breath.

How to do it
The idea is simple. When you are sitting at your desk or walking around the office you want to bring your attention back to your breath. The aim is to count up to ten rounds of breathing. A round of breath is one inhale and one exhale. If you lose count then simply start again until you reach ten. Try and do this several times a day.

The benefits
The goal of this meditation is something called “single pointed concentration” where a person is able to focus their mind on one object for as long as they want. To achieve this is very difficult and takes many years of serious practice but we can still extract some of the benefits.

For example, by practicing breathing meditation we will be able to increase our levels of concentration for our work. We will not be distracted as easily. Furthermore, breathing meditation will help us get our stress and anxiety in order and stop the torrent of excited thoughts from washing over us all day long.

2. Mindfulness

photo credit: Irene2005

“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future; live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Originally posted on April 15, 2008 @ 8:40 am

The Best Activities to Quiet the Mind

Meditation is often referred to as a practice, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that mindfulness is a way of life. It is a state of mind. It is something you can do while doing other things. There are many activities that shut off the noise and bring you to the present moment, but they might not all be for you. If you’re into complicated activities, that will turn off the mind. But so are simple, tedious activities. Below are the best things to do that quiet the mind. [Read more…] about The Best Activities to Quiet the Mind

Silencing the Noise Within and Without

In a world where we are constantly bombarded by a variety of stimuli, silence is getting harder and harder to find. Not everyone craves silence though because the sound of silence can be deafening as much as it can be a refuge from the storm.

Outer Noise

The demands of daily life mean little time to ourselves. And even when we are alone, technology has all but ensured that we are truly able to experience peace and quiet. Non-stop notifications pop up on our phones telling us to answer an “urgent” email, that the product in our shopping cart is on sale, that people are liking and commenting on our posts and tweets, and that we basically need to have our phones on hand 24/7.

There’s the sound of arguing people, honking cars, music in the other room, the clicking of your keyboard, and barking dogs. The noise is incessant, and all of these contribute to what is called outer noise.

Outer noise, however, is not just what you hear. Outer noise refers to the stimuli you receive from your environment. This includes the flashing lights of an ambulance passing by, window displays and billboards that tempt you to buy whatever it is they are trying to sell, the smell of garbage in an alleyway, and even the muggy polluted air that makes it hard to breathe.

Noise is everywhere, leaving most of us over-stimulated.

Finding Quiet Time

Finding some quiet time to spend alone with your own thoughts and to recharge is vital to your well-being – not just your mental well-being but to your physical health as well. Our brain NEEDS more quiet time.

Find peace in silence. Find yourself in silence.

Finding peace and quiet can be tricky, especially if you have children or are extremely busy, but it is still doable. You can schedule quick pauses throughout the day to find some moments of silence. Simple things like shutting off your phone, doing yoga, meditating, or even just eating your breakfast in silence.

Inner Noise

If you truly want some peace and quiet, it shouldn’t be a problem. As they say, when there’s a will, there’s a way. The bigger problem though is not in finding ways to escape outer noise but in keeping that scary inner noise at bay.

To shut off outer noise all you need to do is go to your bedroom, close the curtains, turn off the lights AND your phone, put on your comfiest clothes, and drift off. But as everyone knows, sleep can still elude you even in the quietest of rooms. It is almost impossible to get a good night’s rest when you are experiencing inner turmoil when you cannot turn off the inner noise.

Girl screaming with eyes shut — The noise within can be louder than the one without

Inner noise makes it difficult to be alone. It nags us, reminding us of our long to-do list. It is our thoughts and emotions sweeping over us, filling us with sadness, loneliness, anger, anxiety, and fear. It leaves our mind racing and drains us emotionally, physically, and mentally.

Inner noise is insidious because, unlike outer noise, it lives within us and with us everywhere we go. It is something that has started to prey on our minds from the moment we experienced our first hurt as a child and continues to grow with every negative thought and experience.

As hard as it may be to shut off outer noise, it is even harder to escape inner noise.

Finding Solace in Silence

The fear of having to listen to our inner voices, when the voices are filled with pain and fear, is perhaps one of the biggest reasons why people embrace the noisiness of the world. Having people around us, doing things non-stop, and relying on instant and constant entertainment helps drown out the inner noise. Dealing with outer noise all the time can be irritating and exhausting, but facing our inner demons is much harder.

Sure, you can go on about your life ignoring the inner noise as much as you can. You can fill every waking moment with music, TV shows, going out with friends, running after your kids, working yourself to the bone, or even throwing yourself with passion into helping others. In fact, you can do much good in this world by being constantly on the go, but in the end, all the “outer noise” both good and bad, will not be enough to truly silence the inner noise.

Keep the lights and the sounds on unless you want to hear the inner noise.

The only way you can find true silence is by filtering out the outer noise and learning to listen to what your inner noise is trying to say. The internal turmoil you feel does not exist just to torture you; it is there to tell you something.

If you are to find solace in silence, the first thing you need to do is understand where all the inner conflict and negativity are coming from. You have to face yourself, spend time in silence, and learn from it. There will still be days when it will be hard to find peace but those are the days when you need to seek silence most. Just keep at it, and take the time to reflect and meditate. Sooner than later, you will find that moments of silence will turn into a source of comfort and encouragement instead of moments spent in unease with yourself.

“I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.”
― Chaim Potok, The Chosen

Practicing the Power of the Pause

Mindful living. Slowing down. Power of the Pause.

What ever you call it, the idea of taking a pause – a break or time off – to renew oneself is not new. However, interest in the topic saw a boom in the last decade with the publishing of the book, The Power of the Pause: Becoming More by Doing Less, in 2011. It is so popular that you will find resources on it everywhere. You can find Harvard Business Review articles to TEDx videos that explain how it can help you in various aspects of your life, from career change to connecting with your inner self. This is not surprising given how we all need to take time to pause, whether it be for a few seconds of deep breathing or a two-year sabbatical.

Meditation and the power of the pause

Mindful living encompasses all aspects of our lives. It is a way of being.

The power of the pause, on the other hand, is a tool that can help us live in a more mindful manner. It is central to the practice of mindfulness, because it is the first thing we need to do each time we meditate – stop.

Mindfulness and the power of the pause go hand in hand.

In practicing mindfulness through meditation, we try to focus our attention or awareness to the present moment. However, to be able to be fully present on the now requires that we stop and let go of everything. This means letting go of the past, even that past that was just five minutes ago; the future, from our to-do-list to aspirations; and anything else that ties us beyond what we are experiencing at that very moment. It is the ultimate pause.

Of course, anyone who has ever meditated knows that thoughts and feelings that do not belong in the present invariably creep in. They distract us from focusing on our breath, the droning sound of the fan, and the feeling of peace that has just started to settle in our being. At that very moment though, mindfulness still prevails if we acknowledge those feelings and thoughts without judgement, learn to accept that they are a part of us, and let them go so that we can move on with our meditation practice. With every second that passes, we need to stop to be able to take stock of what is to truly be in a state of mindfulness.

Harnessing the power of the pause beyond meditation

The power of the pause, as in mindful living, goes beyond the practice of meditation. You need to take a pause regularly to avoid burn out, be more effective in the different roles you take on, and live in a manner that nurtures your whole wellbeing.

Taking a pause for self-care

In trying to live more mindfully, harnessing the power of the pause for self-care is essential. You can incorporate little breaks throughout your day, and in your weekly and monthly routine. Little breaks can mean getting up from your desk and stretching your back for a few counts, spending a minute for quick mindfulness exercises, or taking a power nap after lunch. It can mean having a cup of coffee while everyone is still in bed, putting on headphones to tune the world out while doing your bedtime routine, or going out for a walk with your dog.

Pauses can also come in the form of what others may see as self-indulgence. It is more than just taking a short break to keep your sanity. It is much needed self-care, and it does not matter what the activity is, as long as you get away from the hectic pace of daily life and spend some time with yourself enjoying something you love to do. Things you can do for your special alone time can be anything from scheduling a weekly massage and trip to the nail salon, a monthly museum or fishing trip, or even a dinner date with yourself.

Taking a pause for self-growth

Taking a pause does not always mean doing nothing. Instead, one way to harness the power of the pause though is by doing something else that will help you grow.

Take time off from what you do on a day-to-day basis and push yourself out of your comfort zone. As the saying goes…

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.“

Remember though that one of the key things in pursuing personal growth is that pushing yourself to do more and be more all the time is not the healthy way to go about it. No one can do everything all at once. You have to be mindful of what truly matters to you.

Take a pause from the things that drain you physically, mentally, and emotionally and then focus your time and energy on those that take you another step closer towards your personal goals. You need to stop doing things that do not add value to your life and invest your time in those that you will help you achieve your goals.

You can…

Take a pause from binge-watching and sign up for daily yoga/art/cooking/language classes – whether offline or online.

Take a pause from tumultuous relationships and go on a journey of self-discovery “Eat, Pray, Love” style.

Take a pause from excessive online shopping and start investing your money in something more meaningful.

Take a sabbatical and pick up where you left off on that passion project that you thought you have given up on.

Take a pause from social media and take time to nurture relationships face-to-face, one-on-one, in real time.

Remember, pauses may be quick or long, temporary or permanent, but in the end pause is a must if you want to get where you want to be.