May is National Meditation Month. How will you celebrate it?
Are you thinking of beginning a meditation routine? If you answered yes, you are in luck because May is National Meditation Month.
This is the month to begin meditating or re-energizing your existing meditation practice.
May is perhaps better understood to be a Mental Awareness Month. This month focuses on raising awareness and managing mental illness using various tools, one of which is meditation. I’m a big fan of eliminating the sigma associate with mental health and mental illness. I used meditation to fight my own struggles with depression and it worked so well I felt I needed to teach this practice to others.
Mental Awareness Month was first observed in May of 1949 by Mental Health America and affiliates. Over the last 20 years, the growing popularity of meditation has led to increased awareness, which is why more and more people are observing National Meditation Month.
Are you aware of The Huge Boost in Popularity Around Meditation?
Meditation popularity is often measured by the number of articles published on meditation. If you view this graph (created by Thrive Global) you will see that in 1996 there were 3 articles published. In 2000 there were 10 articles published, in 2006 47 articles and things just kind of blow up from there. In 2016 there were 667 articles published in that year.
I think some of the leaders in this space have been two people I follow and trained under via their books, courses, and communities. These two people are Thich Nhat Hanh the Zen Buddhist Monk and Jon Kabat-Zinn a professor of medicine and creator of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program.
Both were huge influences on the west and made meditation more popular over the last 20 years. Thich Nhat Hanh has been a leader in this space since the ’60s in the West and more so his whole life, in Vietnam and France. It probably wasn’t until the ’60s that his messaging actually reached and started gaining traction in America with folks like Martin Luther King Jr. Did you know Thich Nhat Hanh was the person who influenced Martin Luther King Jr. to take a stand against the Vietnam War?
Why has meditation gained so much popularity over the last two decades?
I think people have found an interest in meditation because over the last 50 years we’ve created a lifestyle of chasing material things and climbing the corporate ladder and achievement as ways to measure our self-worth. I was guilty. Then when things go sideways or we just get tired of being stressed out and we seek a way to find peace, or regain control, or just get unstuck in our lives when things don’t seem to be working out we go on a search to help. In my world meditation was one of the more successful strategies and tools I used.
A powerful de-stressor
As civilizations grew larger and humankind settled down, new problems arose. While you no longer have to worry about food or predators, the modern world is full of daily stresses that can bear down on your mind.
Enter meditation, a powerful tool for decompressing the mind. Part of the reason why it’s so popular these days is that it allows people to detach from stressful experiences, thus avoiding worry, sadness, anxiety, and depression in their daily lives. Depression is what lead me to meditation.
The answer to many mental health issues
The main goal of meditating is to create a clear awareness of your experiences without judging them as good, bad, yours, or others’.
When you form no judgments about experiences, you become less attached to happy experiences and less worried about stressful events.
Your mind benefits a great deal from a lack of stress. In fact, numerous studies suggest that the primary source of mental illness is stress and worry. In my own story I had a perfect storm of chaos unleashed on my life sending me into a dark two year depression. It was ugly and this is why I became so passionate about understanding self-care, wellness, and mental health.
I’m not going to lie… learning to let go of judgements is some serious work. We often judge ourselves harshly and we are quick to judge other people and their thoughts and actions. Practicing letting go of judgements is powerful work. Meditation can assist with this.
A necessary anchor in today’s world
Look around you. Most of what you see is either an object of desire or prized possession. The modern world has made it extremely hard to detach ourselves from desire. Sometimes or items of desire just end up being piles of clutter causing more stress. You know the old saying… “less is more”, but it is hard to live sometimes when society tells us MORE is more, or BETTER is more. Am I right?
In Buddhist philosophy, Desire is one of the five hindrances to mental clarity. The more we have to desire and possess, the less happy and peaceful we become. That’s why meditation is a necessity in today’s possession-driven or materialistic world. If you’d like to learn more check out this article on the Hedonic Treadmill and Hedonic Adaptation.
Meditation teaches us to become content with what we have and not chase the endless treasures this world offers. Contentment is a source of lasting happiness.
Lasting peace
No drug, therapy, or medication can replicate meditation’s natural restorative effect on your mind.
Meditating doesn’t provide temporary relief. It cures the mind of its deepest illnesses. Well… cure is a pretty strong word that most companies stay away from as not to be sued. I cannot say it’ll cure all minds, but it truly helped me break free of my depression and other toxic emotions like anger. I am NOT cured of ANGER, but my anger is less and less toxic the more I meditate.
Once your practice takes root, you will experience a shift in reality, unlike anything you’ve encountered (at least in my case this was true). By building a daily habit you start building neurological pathways that actually change your mind by meditating time-and-time-again. It was very surprising to me how it’s changed me
Meditation is great way to create lasting peace and sustainable happiness.
Beyond the Above, What are Some Other Benefits of Meditation?
MIND
- BRAIN EMPOWERMENT
- MIND FOCUS
- STRESS RELIEF
- REACH GOALS
Emotions
- MOOD ENHANCEMENT
- SELF CENTERED (UNDERSTANDING OF SELF / SELF_AWARENESS)
- BALANCE
- FEEL CONNECTED
BODY
- BOOST IMMUNE SYSTEM
- ANTIAGING
- HEALTHY HEART
- INCREASE ENERGY
How can I help Make A Positive Impact in the world? Would You Like To Join Me On This Mission?
In March 2022 (previous month from when writing this article), I set a goal to teach 1,000 people learn how to meditate daily. This was after seeing the results 3 groups got from this 30-Day Daily-Meditation Habit Builder Challenge I built and started rolling out. This is a new goal and to-date I have taught 21 students (updated in April 2023).
The beauty and surprising data behind these groups was that many were regular meditators even a few very seasoned meditators, and many have/had a background in the medical industry. Serving these folks and seeing them learn a few new things, and/or level up their current practice or improve their wellness and resilience was really exciting to see.
This challenge is focused on two main topics, covering many topics related to meditation and also moving into the science of habit building. These classes are as science-based as I could create and based on several years of research.
What these 21 students proved was… in as short as 30 days one can really build something that can be life changing or at least send them on a more healthy path. Of course it takes ongoing work to leverage the real value of these exercises. It was exciting when I saw the first person cross a daily meditation streak of 365 days. WOW! That is so amazing!
The idea of BEING the change you want to see in the world starts with you and living your best life and being your best self. Meditation is one tool to support this. If you would like to step up your meditation game or create a new practice and/or learn how to get started, this program could be great for you.
Will you help me boost my signups and help me reach (or exceed) my goal here? Will you do it in May to celebrate your life and also the fact that May is National Meditation Month? I’d love to have you join me on this journey.
Want to try adding mindfulness and meditation to your self-care routine? Click below to get details about the 30-Day Daily-Meditation Habit Builder Challenge.