What Meditation Can Do For You
Go with the Flow
Buddhists call this process of getting to see yourself and your own moods and developing the ability to separate yourself out from them, as clouds or sunlight or storms sweeping across the enduring landscape that IS you, as mindfulness. And mindfulness is what develops over time as you meditate. And it is a skill and a quality once learnt that can be applied with immense benefit in your busy daily life.
Indeed His Holiness The Dalai Lama argues that the human mind is capable of re-programming so that negative and destructive emotions are minimized and positive joyful emotions maximized. And indeed current scientific research indicates meditation does actual re-wire the brain in the way the Dalai Lama suggests. (See What Meditation Does)
The Buddhists consider a state of bliss, of one-ness with the world which meditation over time can instill, to be the natural state arising from the practice of non-attachment and compassion - A state of natural being even better than that which Westerners often seek through drugs or sex or indeed even really good rock'n'roll!
This state can also be called the 'flow state' and much research in the United States is now focusing on it as the missing link between body, mind and that elusive construct, consciousness. Flow states are characterised by an intense concentration, a loss of self-consciousness and an altered perception of the passage of time. Body chemistry appears to change and our immunological system appears to function much better and without stress. Flow at work occurs when we are able to do something and achieve it even though it is a challenge and when joy in the experience is the goal.
This is the practice too of emotional intelligence, according to Frances Wick, in which you become your own emotional mentor, compass and guide. It allows you to develop strategies for dealing with stress inside and outside your workplace by opening up and approaching all life's challenges with equanimity and without judgment, allowing whatever happens to be simply part of the flow.
And it can all be learnt by simply sitting quietly with yourself and meditating. Truly the first steps in the journey to peace of mind.