Meditation: Learn to Respond Rather Than React

When we have something happen in our life and we just react out of habit we are giving up our freedom because we are not making a conscious decision to act – we are acting in a conditioned way.

stimulus

• react with an automatic response

With self-awareness training we can become aware of these automatic reactions that rule our lives and learn to put conscious effort into deciding for ourselves before we act.

stimulus

• take the time to think
• make a rational decision
• respond with a purpose

Meditation is the only way I know to learn this new thinking strategy. If you don’t know about how meditation can help you become more self-aware, or if you think meditation is not for you or your child, watch this video by Andy Puddicombe:

Here is a taste of what Andy has to say:

And this is an extraordinary thing, right? We’re talking about our mind. The mind, our most valuable and precious resource, through which we experience every single moment of our life, the mind that we rely upon to be happy, content, emotionally stable as individuals, and at the same time to be kind and thoughtful and considerate in our relationships with others. This is the same mind that we depend upon to be focused, creative, spontaneous, and to perform at our very best in everything that we do. And yet, we don’t take any time out to look after it. In fact, we spend more time looking after our cars, our clothes and our hair . . .

The result, of course, is that we get stressed. You know, the mind whizzes away like a washing machine going round and round, lots of difficult, confusing emotions, and we don’t really know how to deal with that, and the sad fact is that we are so distracted that we’re no longer present in the world in which we live. We miss out on the things that are most important to us, and the crazy thing is that everybody just assumes, well, that’s the way life is, so we’ve just kind of got to get on with it. That’s really not how it has to be.

Mental Fitness and Education

Most people are concerned about their children’s physical fitness and so go to great lengths to take them to sporting events and training. They are also concerned about their own physical fitness, even if they don’t always get around to doing anything about it.

BUT . . . most people never stop to consider their child’s mental fitness, let alone think they need to do something about it.

If you want your child or yourself to excel in education, the first step is to get the mind into a receptive and focussed state. The easiest way to do that is to use recordings of Guided Meditations. We offer a self-paced, online course in Meditation suitable for children and adults it contains lots of Guided Meditations which you will be able to use for the rest of your life. Click on the link to the Course below and try out a few of my Guided Meditations with your child before you sign up.

Getting Your Child to Meditate

The first step is to listen as a family to at least one guided meditation per day for a few weeks until you all feel that you would prefer to meditate alone.

Meditating with other people provides role models to you all – this will help you get into the habit of regular meditation.

Even children as young as 3 will benefit from the experience – for young children, sitting quietly and calmly with other people for a period of time is a great skill to learn.

Also, I can’t stress (sorry about the pun) the importance of becoming a regular meditator yourself.

Imagine how much more effective you will be every day when you don’t have to say to yourself:

• “If only I could stop thinking about . . . ”
• “I have so many things in mind I can only concentrate for a few minutes.”

Most importantly, meditation will give you the ability to stop reacting automatically to things in your life by giving conscious awareness of your thinking process so you can choose your response to situations as they arise.

Chris Brooks
Principal
High Performance Learning

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