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The
Value of Meditation
By
Michele Soloway
Meditation is a way to quiet your
body, heart and mind, and is an invaluable way to de-stress your life and yourself.
Meditation can improve your physical self by
recharging your body, improve your spiritual self by bringing you closer to God, and
improve your mental self by clearing your thoughts and mind.
Meditation is just as important as any
of the other things you do as part of your quiet timeprayer,
self-hypnosis, relaxationanything you do to shut out the outside world and take time
for yourself. There is nothing wrong with
putting as much energy into yourself as you put into others.
In fact, unless you take the time to recharge
yourself, such as through meditation, you will not have the energy you need to help
others.
Meditation is also as important as the
other things you do as part of your normal daily routinetaking a bath or shower,
brushing your teeth, getting dressed, going to work, eating, etc.these are all
things you do to take care of your body, or your outer self.
Meditation is used to take care of your inner
self. With a more peaceful inner self, your
outer self will perform better.
Meditation should be part of your
personal time. Not personal time in the sense
of your usual personal time; i.e., relaxing with a book, watching television or a movie,
talking on the telephone, visiting with friends, etc.
These are enjoyable, but they are still outside distractions.
These things still do nothing to benefit your
inner or spiritual growth and well-being, while meditation will.
During meditation, you can get in touch
with that part of yourself that you unconsciously suppressyour true nature.
Meditation helps you to find the truth youve
been seeking, answers to your questions and solutions to your problems.
It is through meditation that you can experience
true peace and love, and feel closer to God.
Through meditation you learn to release
negative thoughts and emotions that rage within you and keep you from losing the simple
ability to just be still. Psalm 46:10 says,
Be still and know that I am God.
How
can you know that He is God if you cant be still?
Meditation not only allows you to be physically still, but mentally still as well.
When your mind is quiet, you are open to receive
Gods healing grace. That healing grace
is always there, but it cannot come into a mind that is cluttered, while meditation helps
to un-clutter those thoughts.
Meditation is invaluable in tuning out
the world and tuning in to the spirit, to God.
Like
being able to tune into that one radio station youre looking for through the static
of all the other competing stations.
Meditation is to the soul as rain is to
dry earthrefreshing, renewing, restoring.
You
may need to make time in your busy schedule, but it will make all the difference in your
inner spiritual growth and well-being; in finding true peace and love; in finding the
healing, strengthening grace that God can give you.
And
finding that peace, love, and grace is worth making the time for meditation.
In meditation we are not thinking or
imagining about God at all. In Meditation we seek to do something immeasurably greater; we
seek to be with God, to be with Jesus, to be with the His holy spirit. In meditation we go
beyond thoughts, even holy thoughts. Meditation is concerned not with thinking but with
being. Our aim in Christian prayer and meditation is to allow God's mysterious and silent
presence within us to become the reality which gives meaning, shape and purpose to
everything we do, to everything we are. The task of meditation, therefore, is to bring our
distracted mind to stillness, silence and attention. In the Bible,
Psalms 46:10
it says: Be still, and know that I am God::
Meditation is being Still. |
Hypnosis
By
Michele Soloway
Hypnosis is in no way a new practice. Hypnosis can be dated as far back as 1000
B.C., to stone carvings found in sleep temples, where high priests put their worshippers
to sleep, and then gave them the suggestion that, while they
slept, some god would come to them and they would be healed.
Then the worshippers would actually be healed,
just by the suggestion of the priests!
Hypnosis techniques continued to be used
throughout the next centuries.
In the late
1700s, an Austrian physician by the name of Dr. Franz Anton, became one of the most
famous practitioners of hypnosis.
In fact,
modern hypnosis is believed to have begun with him.
The term hypnosis was first
introduced by Dr. James Braid.
In the
1800s, Dr. Braid, along with two other physicians, performed many surgeries using
only hypnosis for anesthesia.
Hypnosis was used during both World War
II and the Korean War in the treatment of battle fatigue for pain control.
Today hypnosis is still used by doctors and
dentists as an aid for pain control.
Hypnosis is not a new practice, although
hypnosis is still a highly misunderstood practice.
The
most common misconception about hypnosis is that people believe it will put them into a
sleep-like trance, taking away their control.
Controversy surrounding hypnosis comes
largely from religious circles, who believe that by giving up your control during
hypnosis, such as allowing yourself to be put into a sleep-like trance, you are allowing
the devil to take control. Some religions
even outright claim hypnosis to be the work of the devil.
Although the word hypnosis itself comes
from the Greek word hypnosis, which means sleep, hypnosis itself is not a state of sleep.
Hypnosis is actually an altered state of
consciousness in which a person is guided with suggestions.
Hypnosis occurs during the alpha state of
brain activity, which is when our brain activity slows and in which we experience deep
relaxation, producing hypnosis.
When
hypnotized, you are not unconscious, but within an altered state of consciousnessin
other words, you are not out of control.
We hypnotize ourselves every day, moving in and out of
altered states of consciousness, without even thinking about it.
Like when you catch yourself daydreaming.
Or when you doze off before actually going into a
deep-deep sleep.
When hypnotized, you are in an altered
state of consciousness, and your subconscious mind is in charge.
Your conscious mind is still there and you are
still in control, but if you are willing, you can receive suggestions that will help you.
All hypnosis is actually self-hypnosis.
The only way you can be hypnotized is if you are
willing to be. |