Meditation 24 x 7 (#14)
There is no doubt that meditating for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening is extremely beneficial, but what about the other 23 hours and 20 minutes? All meditative techniques have the potential of putting you in the position of being the Witness of your mind's thoughts, your bodily sensations, and your emotional feelings. Here are a few suggestions of what you can do to be at one with the Witness while not "sitting in meditation".
1) Before every action, there are words, and before all words, there are thoughts. Make it a habit to Witness your actions, and if you recognize that they are not of a peace-bringing nature, cease doing them. Similarly, if you see that your words are tension producing, stop them. And then examine your thoughts. If you Witness them being troubling, change them to ones that bring you serenity, or cease them entirely. This can be done by using a meditation technique that you have found brings you peace, or by praying, dancing, physical exercises, or whatever.
2) Check your body for physical tension. Make it a habit to stop several times a day to scan your body mentally for areas where you are tense. Command them to relax. You will quickly learn where you keep your tension and when you command that area to relax, your whole body will melt away it's uptightness like chocolate melting in the summers heat. Similarly, start taking a breath break. All you need to do is spend a minute or two doing a breathing exercise. It can be as simple as just inhaling and exhaling deeply, or it can be a pranayama (breathing) method that has a more complex pattern. This will always produce a calming effect.
3) Say a prayer or affirmation several times a day. Something simple like "Higher Power, guide, protect, and bless me", or "I receive and fill with wisdom and love with every breath", can produce uplifting physical, mental, and emotional changes. What all these have in common is that you are paying attention and are acting instead of just being in a reactive rote mode. Most importantly, you are at one with your Witness, your Real Self. To phrase this in a 21st century, computer age way; when these peace producing actions become your default setting, more and more you increase your potential to live happily ever after.
