Real life meditation benefits

“Some things cannot be taught; they must be experienced. You never learn the most valuable lessons in life until you go through your own journey.” - Roy T. Bennett

As meditators it’s not that you will never feel stressed again, life will still offer up plenty of lessons and demands. And these lessons don’t always come in the way or form you expect or hope they will. Sometimes they come as a gentle friendly nudge leading you in the right direction, but other times lessons are unexpected, challenging and shake up your life. You can’t choose how you learn and grow… however one of the biggest benefits a daily meditation practice can give you is the change in response to these challenges, the ability to adapt rather than react. 

`Below I share a little experience I had this week as I found myself in a ‘stressful’ situation...

Within 2 minutes, our dreamy, exciting road trip was literally going up in smoke as my new car began to clunk, overheat and came to a holt in the middle of nowhere, hours away from home on the roads in South Australia. Initially my body was in a fight or flight state but pretty quickly i could feel myself relaxing (years ago it would have taken me much longer!)

To cut a long story short I found out my car needs a whole new engine costing me thousands of dollars. This was definitely not part of what we had planned or budgeted for. It was certainly not an ideal situation but it also gave me the chance to reflect on how I handled it...

🌻 I felt relatively calm and I was able to think clearly

🌻 I didn’t get caught up in fearful thoughts and what if’s

🌻 I could still smile

🌻 I knew it would work out ok

🌻 I could let go of the expectations I had of this trip

It’s in these day to day moments that we all experience that I’m incredibly grateful for my consistent meditation practice.