How Meditation Affects Your Soul

I’ve often seen my friends and colleagues telling each other (and me) to mediate to reduce stress and anxiety and streamline their professional and personal lives. However, we tend to give more priority to our physical and emotional health rather than spiritual well-being. This is because we don’t fully understand the impact of meditation on our spirit. Or if we do, we simply choose to ignore it.

Meditation is a practice of ‘doing nothing’ that can have a calming and a quite positive impact on our soul. However, this ‘doing nothing’ doesn’t always mean that you think nothing. You can think and focus on specific thoughts such as your life goals or maybe your qualities. However, this comes only with practice as you have to consciously train yourself and attain a healthy sense of perspective.

Here’s how meditation positively affects your soul:

Meditation Brings Peace

“Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Meditation helps you process your thoughts in the most logical way, which releases stress and unwanted worries and brings peace. By meditating, you can look at the bigger picture and let insignificant things go. You become more self-aware and have better control of your emotions. Such a relaxed state of mind calms you and helps you become centered.

Meditation Inspires You

“If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” - Steve Jobs

One of the philosophies of Buddhism says that everything that exists in this universe is within us, and the outer world is a reflection of our inner self. But we’re too distracted with our emotions and worries to notice the well of information, guidance, and wisdom that lies deep within us. Meditation helps us tap into our true potential and ultimately inspires us to do greater things in life.

Remember those times when you were desperately looking for solutions to a problem, but it just wasn’t coming to you. However, as soon as you let it all go and calm your mind, you naturally get the answers you need. The same thing happens when you’re looking for ideas. The more you push it, the more it avoids you. But some quiet reflection later, ideas come pouring out of you. Meditation can help you achieve that, and over time it’ll stop the mental chatter completely.

Meditation Induces Compassion

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” - Dalai Lama

These words from the Dalai Lama show how powerful compassion can be, and meditation helps you sense your inner compassion for others. This makes us more open to understanding everyone’s problems and possibly resolve them. Meditation triggers positivity in you and also builds a sense of morality, which ultimately induces compassion.

Meditation Introduces You to Your True Emotions

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.” - Oscar Wilde

Many of you might be surprised by this, but you’re not your mind. You are different from your mind; instead, you’re your heart or your true emotions. Let me make this clearer with an example. There are so many times when you come across someone you want to punch in the face. But that doesn’t make you an aggressive or violent person. You may even have good reasons for thinking such harsh thoughts, but that emotion is temporary; it’s not who you really are.

Meditate, and over a period of time, you’ll detach yourself from your experiences, and your true emotions, personality, and goodness will come out. This is the next level of self-awareness, where you learn that your true essence is vaster than you realize.

Although it’s not easy to encapsulate meditation in one go, I’ve tried my best to cover the most functional aspects of it. So what’re you waiting for? Dedicate 20 minutes every day to meditation, and I hope you find the inner peace you were looking for.