Yoga & Meditation: A Beginner's Guide to Meditation & Visualization, Common Yoga & Meditation Practices, Finding Your Peace, and Attaining Health, Wealth & Happiness

By Maxwell River

If you're looking for the key to the next chapter or level in your life, look no further. This book will aid in your human development, spiritual evolution, and everyday quality of life. If you're feeling stuck in any area of your existence, this book will allow you to free yourself and find yourself all at the same time.

 

In Yoga & Meditation, we will be exploring the power of meditation, visualization, and some of the most common yoga practices that align with meditation. We will also explore the awakening of your healing power, how to find inner peace, and how to attain an abundance of wealth, health, and happiness. In this book, you will be given a balanced beginner's guide on the origins of yoga and meditation, the connection between these two practices, the historical practitioners that are known as the ancestors of yoga and meditation, what the common practices are, and how they can become a core element in your lifestyle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maxwell River
• Release date: Aug 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201189921

Book preview

Introduction

Welcome to the beginner’s guide to yoga and meditation. In this book, we will be exploring the power of meditation, visualization, and some of the most common yoga practices that align with meditation. We will also explore the awakening of your healing power, how to find inner peace, and how to attain an abundance of wealth, health, and happiness.

Everything that you desire is possible. Everything that your heart yearns for can be attained by you. It is my role to guide you through how to get there and how to reach fulfillment in your life.

But remember, I am only here to guide you and push you in the right direction, as well as give you access to some incredible research and background history on yoga, meditation, and the power of manifestation. It is up to you to take accountability in practicing mantras, finding your routine with meditation and yoga, and doing some of the work that is necessary for successful manifestation and visualization.

This book will give you a balanced beginner’s guide on the origins of yoga and meditation, the connection between these two practices, the historical practitioners that are known as the ancestors of yoga and meditation, what the common practices are, and how they can become a core element in your lifestyle. If you have never practiced yoga or meditation before, then don’t be afraid. This book will give you everything you need to get started on this journey.

Most of all, a core principle of both yoga and meditation is practice. Practice is a necessary component to maintaining a bountiful relationship with yoga and meditation. Practice is also a sacred space, one which you can choose to do in a group setting, or one that you may prefer to do alone.

Whatever way you choose to maintain your practice, there is something remarkably humbling about practicing an art such as yoga and understanding that it will take time to perform some of the moves or mantras to the best of your ability.

There is no rush in this journey. Whether you choose to become a practitioner in the future, or even if you decide to make revenue out of passing on your knowledge, there is still no reason to rush the process. The process of learning and being humbled by the art, as well as educating yourself on the abundance of information available, is not a thing to be rushed.

In fact, a prominent theme in the practice of meditation is to be in the present moment, allow all other thoughts and feelings to dissipate, and connect with your innermost authentic self, if only for just ten minutes a day.

My meditation practitioner once said to me: If you think you don’t have enough time to meditate for ten minutes every day, then that means you need to meditate for twenty minutes every day. What do you think he was trying to say here?

To give you a bit more context, this practitioner was also a nutritionist. Not only did he see the value in the mental clarity that is possible when practicing meditation, but he also spoke of the physical and health benefits that have been recognized by scientists across the world with this practice.

Meditation has been linked to improved learning ability and memory, improved focus and concentration, lower blood pressure, strengthened immune system, and even a decrease in tension areas around the body (AAMI March 2021). For my meditation practitioner, he was particularly interested in the improvement in stress levels for clients of his that engaged in meditation regularly.

In the modern world, we are constantly experiencing a sensory overload of constant digital distractions as well as an influx in people’s access to our attention. Speaking as a writer, I completely disengage when I am working on a book. When I am not writing, I live and reside in Boston with my cat, working a full-time job as a barista and energy healer. But unless you have made a similar commitment of making yoga and meditation a main priority in your life, chances are that there are plenty of things ready to distract you from being in the present moment.

For this reason, I ask that in situations where you have set aside time to read this book, allow yourself to be fully present. Take precautionary measures to ensure you don’t get distracted. Noise, environment, and other things you cannot control are not something to worry about. There are ways of maintaining a deep state of concentration with noises from the outside world present.

But you can control things like turning your phone on silent, asking family members or roommates not to disturb you, and even getting used to doing yoga and meditation with a pet or child present. This will all help in maintaining a positive journey.

This book is a step-by-step guide on how to enter the world of yoga and meditation, and all of the wonderful blessings it can give to you. I have also included some questions and exercises for you to fill in, or even jot down in a journal, as we focus on aligning ourselves to our innermost desires.

I am very grateful and honored to be here with you in this space, and welcome you to the powerful beginner’s guide to meditation and visualization.

Namaste.

One

Meditation and The Modern World

The pandemic saw an interesting shift in people’s perspectives on work/life balance. Companies and organizations were turned on their heads when they were told to either close completely or pack everything up and do it all from home. This meant two things in particular.

One, we suddenly gained a lot more contact with our domestic lifestyle, mixing only with those of the same household. For some, this meant that long commutes and traffic jams were suddenly cut, lunch could be made in the kitchen, lower gas expenses, and more time could be spent with kids or loved ones while upholding work life.

The second thing was that suddenly, the boundaries between what was work life and what was domestic life were blurred. Parents were still expected to juggle work and childminding, but without the usual support of daycare or even school. Caregivers were under even greater pressure, living with the most vulnerable.

During this worldwide shift, many reported the feeling of never being disconnected from their place of work. Lately, hours can melt into one another. You can find yourself checking emails on a Saturday afternoon or sitting up late at your desk on a Wednesday evening. In a society that is consumed with maintaining a bustling lifestyle, and always being online, it leaves very little room or allowance to shut off.

The Modern World and Negativity Bias

Have you ever gone to the grocery store and realized you left your cell phone at home? Can you recall the panic and fear you experienced when you quickly felt around your clothes or pockets, only to realize you had left your phone behind?

This exact feeling is an anxiety that we did not always have – one that is the result of the belief that we must always be available. What if someone needs me? What if something happens? What if there is something I am supposed to be doing, instead of being here, in the present moment, distraction-free?

The anxiety that many people feel over what will be can drastically affect what is. Apart from this, a lot of people will be able to identify with the stress hormone being triggered regularly in moments where it really doesn’t need to be. It is called our negativity bias. It is a part of our brain that has been in place since the beginning of time.

Most notably, our negativity bias was needed to help keep us safe from things that could harm us. To put it simply, it is far more important to know which plants are going to kill you, as opposed to which plants taste delicious. That is why our brains are predisposed to think negative thoughts.

Negative thoughts are, on average, thirty times more powerful than positive thoughts. This is why criticism, emotional abuse, and cruel behavior can affect a human being so drastically. If there is one bad thing said about us and five positive things, then we are more likely to remember and focus on that one bad thing!

Before you start to think that our own minds are out to get us, I promise you, it doesn’t have to be this way, but an unmanaged mind can certainly be the cause of a lot of suffering and pain. However, those who practice meditation believe that we have the power to control all of our thoughts, feelings, and reactions. Focusing on that which we can control can put us in a position of great power, as well as bountiful happiness.

Kevin Janks from Centered Meditation says, It can take up to an hour for our body to return to normal once the threat of stress is alleviated, so we spend an excessive amount of time in that stressed stage. Janks