The Beauty of Meditating Together

Meditation supports, empowers, and expands my healing and personal growth, for many years now.

What most excites me about individual meditation these days is two-fold:  embodiment and inspiration.  These two forms of meditation complement each other.  Like a yin / yang symbol, a joining of opposites, their energies require each other for wholeness and integration.

• Mindfulness meditation connects us with our bodies and with what is happening within, dissolving tensions and resistance.  This form of meditation supports integrating various aspects of experience:  body sensations, breath, senses, feelings, and thoughts.  Through practice we build capacity to attune with these various inner "frequencies,"  weaving together our consciousness seamlessly, cultivating embodiment.  Embodiment brings us to the *ground* of the present moment, which we might think of as standing on what has come before, what was built on the past.  History is present within us as human beings, not just mentally as ideas and stories, but actually wired into our physiology. 

• Inspirational meditation connects us with spaciousness, light, and growth.  This form of meditation supports turning toward our callings, yearnings, a magnetic pull to who we can become.  Through various practices (such as surrender, prayer, mantra, contemplation, intention, or meditation on sacred texts, spaciousness and light) we connect with higher, faster, or more subtle vibrational frequencies toward becoming:  an evolutionary update for our our body/heart/mind structures.  Inspiration calls us forward, individually and relationally.  

While meditation creates many benefits, it's not a magic pill.  It's common to discover various tensions, numb places, energetic blocks, and disturbances, and sometimes psychotherapy, body-centered therapies, and / or inter-personal connection is necessary to resolve issues that come to light while meditating.  A paraphrase from Thomas Huebl which I resonate with is:  "What was hurt in connection heals in connection."  The do-it-alone mentality which is an ideal of many yogic and spiritual communities can itself be a manifestation of trauma, an avoidance of connection.  And still,  meditation is a powerful tool, in combination with whatever other healing support may be needed.

What most excites me about group meditation is that whether the group is united in physical proximity, coordinated timing, and/or joint intention, collective practice strengthens the impact of the meditation for each meditater individually, for the whole group, and also expands benefits into the collective field.  The possibilities of such practices are profound.

I'm hosting a monthly meditation gathering at the Big Bend Yoga Center, New Moon Meditation.  The next gathering is Sunday, May 5 at 5pm.  All details are here.