Fragrant Heart Blog

Have you ever watched one of those extreme makeovers on TV? The person, usually a woman, after weeks and sometimes months of intensive treatment comes out looking ten years younger. It’s amazing what people are willing to undergo to achieve a more youthful look. On TV you can see women liposuctioned (fat sucked out of hips and abdomen), faces lifted, breasts augmented, flabby loose skin surgically removed, teeth implanted, noses reshaped, lips pumped out with filler, frowns and lines botoxed away, and multiple hair extensions to add to the new image.

The beauty industry turns over billions of dollars a year. Advertising, which focuses on a fantasy ideal of a female and a male body is designed to make people nervous about what they are apparently ‘lacking’, and also inadequate that they are not living up to the ideal beauty image.

Meditation Slows Down Ageing

Now consider that if you take up meditation you will slow down the visible signs of ageing. This could have millions of age defying enthusiasts flocking to meditation (if only they knew).

DHEA – The Age Defying Hormone

Research shows that if you meditate you increase the production of DHEA – that’s the code name for the only hormone in our bodies that decreases with age. So simply put, if you meditate you boost the production of DHEA and thereby slow down the ageing process. Not only that, the other benefits of meditation such as inner peace and calm radiate out from within also adding to the lustre of agelessness. Look at any stressed out person. You’ll notice how they not only look haggard, but much older than their years.

If your physical looks are important to you, consider meditation as a non-invasive procedure that will enhance not just your beauty but every other aspect of your life as well.

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Talking to others who gave meditation a go and then gave up on it, I learnt that it wasn’t that they couldn’t, it was simply that they had expectations of what meditation should and shouldn’t be. When their expectations weren’t met, they became disappointed.

How often are you disappointed when you have an expectation of someone or something? You enter a relationship, for example, and you expect your partner to love and respect you. When they don’t you’re miserable. You have expectations of your children, how they should behave, what they should be doing with their lives. When they don’t do the things you want them to do you get angry, resentful, and controlling. Have you noticed that with expectations come a lot of shoulds and shouldn’ts?

In meditation what shows up is exactly what is meant to show up. If the mind is agitated some days, then that is what’s happening. If the body is restless and uncomfortable that too is what is happening. If there are moments of peace, and joy that is also what is happening in that moment. Just stepping aside and watching what is going on, like you’re watching a movie, and a part of you knows it’s just a movie. Doing this is helping me more and more not to be so invested in my stuff. I may still get upset about things and what others do or don’t do for me, (my expectations), but I’m learning to watch as the emotion, or thought behind the feeling passes through. As the Buddha said, “All is anicca, anicca, anicca.” In other words everything is rising and falling and passing away.

Yes, research points to lowering your stress with meditation. Stress it seems is the number one culprit for all diseases.

Here are some more emotional, and physical ailments that meditation addresses. Research indicates that panic attacks, depression, ulcers, insomnia, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, psoriasis, and tension headaches are helped and often alleviated with meditation. It has also been found to be a particularly effective way of dealing with pain. People also cope well with the stress of cancer with a meditation practice.

You don’t have to be ill to meditate. I am finding more and more with meditation that I can no longer live in ways that are unhealthy for me, or be in relationships that distress my body and emotions. It seems to me that the body with its innate wisdom will guide us if we take time each day to enter into stillness and silence.

For some meditators enlightenment is the goal. What is enlightenment? A friend of mine describes it as being in a continual state of bliss at one with everything and everyone. There is no longer any separation between you and the expansiveness of the universe. You carry on your life as before but there is no attachment any longer to your own suffering or anyone else’s. You may have your own definition of enlightenment, and if not it’s interesting to read about what others have to say about the subject.

I came across this quote from a famous Zen teacher called Dojen Zenji that puts enlightenment in perspective.