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Author:
Hayley Jo-Anne Kenwright

This is the third segment in a series of six, during this particular segment we will be learning the basic technique, which I’ll refer to as ‘The Breath of life’.

The breath of life
If you’ve read the previous two segments in this healing meditation course, you’ll now have a basic understanding of what meditation is and how it can be used for healing. Healing meditation is an ancient art that has been used for centuries. Tibetan monks use mantra meditation to manifest their thoughts and take time out to contemplate life in search of answers, Native Americans use meditation to go on spiritual journeys in search of ancient wisdom, Ancient Sanskrit use meditation as a way of prayer. All these practises require one important focus point, the intent on life in the physical and in the spiritual. The way that is achieved, is with the breath and by realising how alive they truly are, they become masters of awareness through their extremely advanced and disciplined techniques. Although we are just starting out on our journey of meditation, it is possible to achieve great results with the basic meditation practise of “The breath of life.”

I’m sure, if this is your first time with meditation, your almost certainly wondering what it will feel like within a meditation, will you be able to come back to normal reality?

Well, for most, being in a deep meditative state feels as if your sleeping, dreaming almost. It is quiet the enjoyable experience and as we’ve covered in earlier segments, has a lot of healing benefits. It’s easy to see why, when we take on a more accepting outlook on different levels of reality, where it’s possible to connect to an array of celestial beings and our true inner self. It’s also important, before you meditation, to feel safe and to know that you can always come back. I always advise that you can find your way back to the normal state of mind, by wiggling your toes, fingers and then movement of other body parts. Finishing with a glass of water and a small snack, those actions are putting focus back to your physical functions, that’s why they are so effective!

Breathing to the rhythm of your heart and life
Establishing our breathing, along side our heart beat, is a strong reminder that we are alive. It’s only when we focus on the breath or heart beat that we are reminded of this. Through biology studies, we know that when we breathe, oxygen is taken into bodies and released into our blood stream. Blood, is then pumped through our beating heart and then we are able to release toxins such as carbon dioxide through our exhale and our lymphatic system. But on a normal day to day routine, it is not often that we stop and say, “I can feel my heart beat, I am alive and I am here for a truly wonderful reason!”, or “I am breathing life into my body!”
The breath or the heart beat are two wonderful ways we can focus our attention to living and both are excellent aids to relaxing into meditation. The breath is a much more ideal way to be reminded that we are alive, because we can control the rhythm of the breath, as we put our focus on being truly alive. Breath control is important in meditation work, as you control and slow your breath down, the brain also slows down. This allows your body to recognize it is time to meditate and helps slow down your physical body. As you breathe in, it’s believed that not only are you breathing in air, but also that your lungs are being filled with “chi” vital life force energy. It is through the lungs that the “chi” is released into the nervous system.

As we know, when we are meditating, our body slows down to a near stop but our mind continues to work in a more harmonious level, integrating the left and the right side of the brain to work together. (And control of the breath is a good return, if focus is lost during meditation)
So, what does that mean? Integrating the left and the right side of the brain, brings your intellectual and your creative thinking together to be combined, to work better in normal waking life as well as in dream and medative states, another reason why meditation is so very holistic. To think that none of that would be possible if we did not control the breath to slow down to prepare for meditation, as our mind and our body would not be able to process the idea of meditation as well as being reminded of the miraculous fact that we are living and here for a reason.

Beginners “Breath of Life” exercises
A simple way in which most people start to get to grips with meditating is to just breathe. The act of focusing on the breath and controlling the breath is a good antidote for putting the spring back into your life! Here’s two small exercises to help you build up to the practise of meditation, use the information from previous segments one and two, to combine with the below exercises to help get you started on the meditative journey of self discovery and to feel the "zing" of life!

Exercise one
Within each day, whatever you are doing, whether it be the washing up, or making a cuppa during tea break try this:
Stop what you are doing, without prior planning or warning. Just stop what you’re doing to breathe. Stop all activity, close your eyes, breathe and listen.
Listen to your heart beat and to your breathing. Breathing in, holding and releasing. Repeat five times. It should only take a minute.
Try to do this exercise once a day, not only is this good practise for your breathing technique, but also it brings about focus during the day.
This is an excellent exercise for getting the beginner use to the quiet feeling and to slowly think about meditation.

Exercise two
As well as the above exercise, also fit in, ten minutes of planned *focus on the breath* meditation. During which time you can lie down, relax and enjoy your favourite music. This is a good place to start, allowing thoughts to float in and out of your mind because blocking any thoughts is a wasted exercise when your just starting out, this is something that you slowly build up as you get more practise at having a ‘still mind’.
In this planned “Focus on the breath”, please allow your brain to function and to think. The trick is, not to focus on what you’re thinking about and to allow it to float out of your mind as quickly as it came in. As thoughts pop into your mind, register them and release them. You may find you have moment’s in-between the thinking, moments of quiet and stillness. Congratulations, this is when your mind is in meditation. Please don’t worry if you don’t find you have those moments, it takes some longer than others to master the quiet mind, follow the two exercises for a few weeks until you “feel” ready to take meditation to the next level…

In the next instalment, I will discuss taking the breathing exercise further, to slowly build up the mind for future segments that will include the benefits and practise of twenty minute healing visualisations and contemplative meditations. The last segment will be on how to make creative visualisations work for you.

Hayley Jo-Anne Kenwright is presenter of 'Meditation Time at spiritual connextions.com radio. Every Friday and Monday evening (GMT)

Having now contributed articles to leading magazines such as Rainbow News, Chat Its Fate, Take 5 and PS magazine, Hayley Jo-Anne has been interviewed on the radio about her spirit and healing work and even has her own psychic column with the exciting new woman's magazine 'Skylar'. For more information please visit the following site http://www.exorcisms.co.uk (team member Hayley Jo-Anne) and http://www.myspace.com/hayleyjoanne

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