Meditation

Getting to know your inner self

The goal of writing a post on meditation is to come back to it after a few months and see if my thinking and writing style has evolved or not, due to meditation or otherwise.

February 2025

On the topic now, meditation has been very rewarding to me. I have become more calm and composed in high-pressure situations. It has made me realize that not every battle is worth fighting and for the ones that are you fighting, not every is worth winning. Meditation does not take much from you, but it gives you immense results. I have been meditating for almost 4 years now. Usually I try to involve myself with the process during early hours, but sometimes before bed time is equally good.

It has helped me become more self aware and handle situations better. Once you have spent enough hours meditating, it increases your awareness - that how small as a human you are in this huge world (or universe).

March 2025

Getting to know about the your inner voice (what people call the monkey mind):

Meditation does not fight with your inner voice. The inner voice continues to communicate with you infinitely - what people call the loop of thoughts. Rather it puts you in the background to observe the thoughts as they come and gives you an OPTION to react to them or let them flow. Most of the times people chose to react to them and face consequences like stress, irritation, anxiety, or anger, amongst other things. But, the key (in my opinion) is to let it flow. Your actions should be determined by yourself and not your surroundings / actions of others. People who remain calm, I guess, have mastered this art.

Another learning from meditation - it helps you to increase the surface area of your brain. Surface area in our brain?

Think of it like a black board (remember school days?). Now if the black board is completely clean, that signifies a state of peace and calmness, which isn’t usually the case, with most of us. Because, something or the other keeps going on in our minds. Now, if a lot is written on the board, it would become tough for the person seeing it to make any sense, right? Think macro picture of your own thoughts and ideas. If you are with me till now, and a picture has been formed, you would know what I meant when I said meditation helps in increasing this surface area, i.e. the black board. If a lot is going on in your mind, and you try to sit down and meditate for a while, you would realize this surface area (black board) increase in size and now those thoughts are just a small part - giving you enough space to think and remain at peace.

April 2025

The benefits of meditation and breathing exercises continue to enlighten me and my soul. What happened today completely shocked me. Usually, when someone is late to a meeting with me, I really get angry, because I do not like to waste my time. [Read: sometimes, I over-plan every minute of the day, and self-criticize A LOT, later]. But, this time, when a person was late, instead of saying something sarcastic to make the other person feel bad, I could almost hear myself in my mind. This, let’s use the word magic for this feeling, is what shocked me. The moment I heard myself, I decided not to speak out loud. Instead, I took a few deep breaths (not visible to others) and decided to let that go. Going a little off track; I have been reading this book, ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’ these days; so the learnings from that book coupled with meditation helped me to decide my reaction. Most days previously, I would just go all in without properly thinking and ruin the relation and regret it later.

The more time you give to the practice, the more it will amaze you.