Meditation helps to support Mental & Emotional Wellness

George Herman House has developed a very successful lifestyle model for our residents. Good Food, cooperative household management, access to holistic and alternative healing modalities and the encouragement to mediate, be present and just be.

Everyone involved with our Transitional Home is encouraged to mediate. Residents, staff, board of directors, management and visiting supportive family. I meditate, I’m one of the Board of Directors.

Early Hindu traditions, Veda, Taoist China, and both early Buddhism and early Judaism; had meditative practices that were recorded in antiquity. During the Middle Ages Islamic mysticism & Hasidic Kabbalistic religions involved reflection and study. And then along came Christianity with its homage to prayer.

Meditation is simply to read, ponder, pray, contemplate and to be still within yourself.

Even though our minds wander, we can train ourselves to counteract this so we repeat mantras or comments in an attempt to zone ourselves out - as in transcendental meditation. I personally have repeated; heal me, nurture me, love me, soothe me... show me the way. Meditating does not come naturally to us and we often try guided meditation by listening to a leader in a group setting, recording or memorized script. Millions go on magical trips into dwellings, the seashore, or the heavens in search of guidance. I know I have.

Some people meditate to experience the healing benefits; decreased blood pressure, lowered cholesterol, reduced production of stress hormones and more efficient oxygen use. Research shows it decreases anxiety, depression and insomnia, it improves the immune system. All valid reasons. Its good for you. In fact, you don’t even have to do it in the lotus pose, I mostly lay down comfortably and close my eyes.

You see our brains are mysterious things, with meditation, neurotransmitters can release benefits that no pharmaceutical drug can ever replicate. It just takes time. Time alone.

That’s the key to mediation - Be Alone. We’re prone to rehash the wrongs we felt have been inflicted upon us, we question why someone cannot express reciprocal feelings, we doubt our choices, we dwell. This isn’t what interferes with the mediation process, but what makes us human.

I have tried to receive spiritual messages, open and cleanse all my chakras, heal my ailments and apologize to myself. The time I have allotted to myself in mediation is akin to solitary confinement. I have wept. I have known humility. I have taken the time to question other people’s sense of entitlement and I ask repeatedly, just to be loved. Everyone just simply wants to be loved.

I think some people meditate just for validation from themselves. No spiritual essence of yourself will ever judge you and I believe, if you really want to get to know yourself - be alone.

Meditation helps to support mental and emotional wellness. Just do it.