Meditation the First Step to Wellness

Meditation the First Step to Wellness

As the wellness industry grows, you will find a number of wonderful natural products that can help balance the mind, body and spirit. The growing understanding of how stress and negative emotions can increase the possibility of illness has provided a wonderful opportunity to market wellness products to a growing audience. Many of the wellness products that are on the market can be effective healing tools, and some can also be very costly. Meditation is the oldest and perhaps the first natural healing wellness tool and it is free. Like love many people are familiar with the term meditation, but very widely in the understanding and opinion of what it is.

Meditation is a way to allow the conscious mind to be placed in a state of calmness and awareness. When this happens the subconscious mind is allowed to manage and balance our internal energy and immune system. Learning to breathe is the first step in the practice of meditation. Most people breathe by taking in air and expanding their lungs and chest.

This is not a natural or healthy way to breathe. When you were in your mother’s womb, you learned to breathe by expanding your stomach to take in nourishing energy and contracting your stomach to expel unnecessary fluids.  When learning to meditate only your stomach should expand when inhaling, the stomach should contract when exhaling, slowing pushing the air out through the nose. I recommend inhaling and exhaling through the nose during meditation.

The above breathing technique is known as abdominal breathing. When I was doing my Taoist master training in Korea, many of the old masters just called it baby breathing. If you want to learn how to breathe correctly watch a healthy baby’s stomach when the baby is breathing. Abdominal breathing has a calming effect to the conscious mind which will increase the internal sense of control.

Meditation has both physiological and psychological benefits; it can be used for pain management and for spiritual awareness and growth. Ancient Taoist masters developed a technique (that the Korean Taoist call, Chunsoo), to help individuals experience the relaxing calmness of the meditative state also known as an Alpha state.

 If you are considering meditation as a wellness option, you should schedule an appointment at the Harlem Ki Energy Center (646 329-6727) for a Chunsoo treatment. Knowing how it feels to be in an Alpha meditative state will give you an understanding for where you would like to go during your own meditation practice.

I plan to teach my spring City College workshop at the Harlem Ki Center. My upcoming CCNY/CPS workshop will start Saturday March 29^th for four sessions ending on Saturday April 26^th.  The title of the spring workshop is “Taoism: A Practical Approach to Ancient Wisdom for Health and Longevity”.  Each session will focus on different ways to meditate. To learn more about my spring workshop call the CCNY Continuing and Professional Studies office at 212 650-7312 or visit www.cps.ccny.edu