Meditation & Mantras: Meet Simon!
Ahead of our Meditation Series beginning this January, we wanted to introduce you to our new resident meditation and yoga guru, Simon. Promising to guide us in our meditation practice, Simon will be sharing his favourite techniques, tips and advice on how to live a more mindful life. From 3 minutes a day in the comfort of our homes, to Simon's meditation classes exclusively for our members, there are many ways to practice meditation. So let's use the new year to discover this new state of consciousness for ourselves, taking the time to shift our focus, harness a sense of mindfulness little and often, and see how it can benefit our day-to-day mindset.
I first started exploring meditation in 2003. I was 40 years old with a busy life and work wise, I was a merchandise manager in a very fast paced retail head office environment, which included running a team of buyers and travelling a great deal. I enjoyed my job, but was stressed a lot of the time with erratic sleep patterns, and felt “off” (like something wasn’t quite right) regularly. I had also experienced anxiety and panic attacks. I had read that meditation might help, so I booked myself onto a 10 day silent meditation retreat. Talk about throwing myself in at the deep end! It certainly was a life changing experience in many ways, but even though I tried, the meditation technique that I learnt wasn’t sustainable for me back in everyday life. So I explored other practices.
Since the start of my meditation journey I have learnt and practiced a number of individual techniques to find the one(s) that particularly resonated with me including Mindfulness, Vipassanna, iRest yoga nidra, concentration on the breath and mantras.
With a regular meditation practise I have experienced many benefits including improved focus and energy, reduced symptoms of stress and improved sleep patterns.
Having experienced the benefits first hand, I wanted to share this transformative practise with others and completed a 3 month meditation teacher training with Swami Saradananda and have also completed iRest Yoga Nidra Level 1 and Level 2 Teacher training.
Swami Saradananda worked for 26 years with the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres and ran yoga centres in New York, London, New Delhi and the Himalayas.
iRest was developed by Richard Miller who is a clinical psychologist, author, researcher and yogic scholar who among his mentors, he credits T.K.V. Desikachar and Jean Klein
Meditation regularly can help you to:
Improve focus and concentration
Experience reduced levels of anxiety and stress
Reduce feelings of being overwhelmed
Be less reactive and more responsive
Increase patience, intuition and empathy
Develop clarity of mind
Develop greater perspective in life
Become more resilient to challenges in relationships and life
Feel more centred and happy
Improve self awareness
improve self-discipline and encourage other positive habits i.e. exercise, diet changes, reading).
