Do You Meditate?

By David Spero Last Monday, I went to my first meditation class. For years, I have heard that meditation reduces stress, increases energy, and improves focus. It might also open the doors to spiritual growth. I'm finally giving it a try. Perhaps I was inspired by Scott Coulter's article about living in the moment, on this site last week. So I found a class on Meetup.com. That's a great site — you just type in the kind of activity or group you're looking for, and there's a good chance you will find it not too far away. You have to pay to start your own group, but finding a group and joining it is free. The class I joined is called Lighten Up Meditation. It's meditating to music. Surprisingly, it's not soft, gauzy New Age music. They use rhythmic, up-tempo Celtic music. The energetic music surprised me, but Lisa, our teacher, explained that meditation is not for relaxing. It's for focusing. The music reminds you to focus. Lisa had us focus on one of two places in our bodies. First was the heart (fourth) chakra, which I gather is in the center of the chest. We did that for ten minutes, twice. Then she had us focus on the third eye (sixth) chakra, which is one finger width above the center of the eyebrows. I don't know anything about chakras, but Wikipedia says they are "centers of life force... Chakras correspond to…major [connecting points] of arteries, veins and nerves." They seem sort of like the meridians in acupuncture, points and pathways through which our ...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs