5 Lessons From Mindfulness Meditation That Can Make Your Life Better Today

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters — Epictetus

For a long time, I struggled with negativity, anxiety and anger. They consume my life.

It got to the point where my anxiety controlled all my decisions, it defined who I was. I missed out on many opportunities because I was afraid of the unknown.

Always thinking something bad was going to happen no matter what I do.

Everything changed one year ago when I started meditation.

A passionate teacher taught me mindfulness meditation, I ended up healing myself of anxiety, negativity and anger issues by doing meditation and went on a great journey of self-discovery.

I discovered five powerful lessons through meditation:

Handling uncontrolled situation

In the past, I used to spend most of my time worrying and overthinking about things I have little or no control over.

By doing this, I end up feeling very uncertain, overwhelmed, stressed, powerless and creating negative situations in my mind that don’t exist. I began to understand that worrying is a waste of time. It doesn’t change anything.

It just messes with your mind and steals your happiness. If you cannot control or change something, why worry about it.

The fact is that almost all of the things you worry about don’t even happen.

Through mindfulness meditation, I identified what I can and cannot control. It shifted my mindset, I started to choose how I think about things and spend less time worry and focus on the things I can control: my attitude and actions.

Remaining in silence in an uncontrolled situation

I discovered the power of silence, the ability to be present, be non-judgment and let things be.

When we turn our thoughts and focus inwards and gain power, we can refuel our minds. Our ego is temporarily switched off or at least made to be quiet for a bit and we start to see the real world as it should be.

Sometimes our thoughts get in the way of our reality and we don’t see the beauty of the world around us.

When there’s silence there is time for introspection and to allow our true self to speak not the ego or the conscious mind, but the true self-connected to the follow of energy around us.

The power of forgiveness

Forgiveness is the act of compassionately releasing the desire to punish someone or yourself for an offence.

It’s a state of grace, nothing you can force or pretend. The healing power of forgiveness changes one's mindset. It allows you to see the perspective of other people. No person is innately bad.

What they have are deep unhealed wounds, and so do the rest of us. Whenever you feel hatred for someone, you bless them with love. Even though you might feel the hatred for others in your heart, this practice will eventually help to ward off the wounds from your heart.

Moreover, mindfulness meditation helped me understand the importance of optimism.

Mindfulness meditation makes our brain more active

During the early days of meditation practice, it looks absolutely pointless on the surface.

The real magic of meditation happens on the inside. Mindfulness meditation completely reprograms our mind by creating new pathways in the brain. Meditation practice increases the blood flow to our brain, decrease anxious thoughts and allow us to better handle stress.

It makes our brain younger by increasing the brain’s grey matter and help our mind defragment its thoughts.

Sometimes, I assume that doing a particular task will consume so much energy and time. But then after practising meditation for 10 minutes or more in the morning, will make m complete the task with the minimal amount of energy and time.

Through my experience, meditation made me work smarter, instead of just harder.

Taking rest to work smart

During my college days, I use to work for a long time. I thought that working hard for long hours will be the right way to attain success.

My spiritual teacher was completely against this concept.

He asked me to meditate for 1 hour in the morning and night. Initially, I thought it was just a waste of time. Despite my unwillingness, I meditated. My inner wisdom made me realise the profound effect of resting the body and mind.

If I meditated morning and evening for 30 minutes or more, I was very productive in my studies and work. Usually, if I take 2–3 hours to study or to do some work, after practising mindfulness meditation, I was able to complete in an hour. This was something I discovered through meditation.

By taking small breaks during work hours, for example, work for 25 minutes and then take a 5-minute break, will not only help to rest the body and mind but also rethink the strategy I’m are working on.