For years I struggled to develop a personal spiritual practice. I wanted to connect to my angels and guides. I wanted to learn higher truths about myself. I wanted to create art and feel life breathing all around me. I have always been a spiritual person, but for a long time I struggled to build a practice that was uniquely mine, wondering where I should focus my attention, which elements I should incorporate, whose practices I should follow, and how I should go about bringing greater knowledge, wisdom, and clarity into my own life.

I looked to other people to show me the Truths of the Universe, but those Truths exist inside each of us, and we can access them any time. Meditation is an effective way to do this.

It was not until I began to silence my mind, to let everything sink away in the space around me, that I made room for my potential to enter. And there in that empty space I learned everything and nothing at the same time.

Meditation is a beautiful thing. It is the gateway between the physical and the metaphysical; the grounded and the Divine. So powerful yet so simple. It opens our minds to other levels of consciousness and dimensions of reality that were previously unknown. We feel a connection to something that is simultaneously within, outside, and around all of us. It heals and nurtures, forgives and strengthens. It is our birthright and our access to heaven on earth.

Meditation has connected me with Divine timing in many ways. The more I meditate, the more intuitive I become; the more I just seem to know when things are going to happen. The more insights I receive on a daily basis, from source and my guides. It's like tuning in to a radio station, and on the other end is someone whispering insights and advice. It feels much like clarity in my own mind. It flows naturally into every day situations. It is never distracting or overwhelming.

Meditation is a simple process, but it can be quite difficult. It takes practice and dedication, like any other habit. But the rewards are so, so worth it! The benefits are immense compared to the effort that you put into it.

Exactly how do you meditate? There are many different practices, and I have by no means tried all of them. But there are certain aspects of meditation that are important for the evolution of our practice and our selves, and which I make a conscious effort to include in my practice - (1) grounding, (2) visualization, (3) connecting with the breath, and (4) receiving. There is not one particular way to meditate that is right or wrong, but if we can focus on these aspects individually, then our practice can evolve naturally, in a way that is unique to us and what we are trying to achieve.

What you put in you will receive!

These facets of meditation are intimately connected, and used together create a powerful meditation experience. We ground ourselves into our physical space to feel protected and held. We then visualize ourselves receiving and transmuting energy from the cosmos through our chakras to the earth below (or from the earth through ourselves to the cosmos above), while using our breath as a point of return if we should drift away into thought. All the while allowing ourselves to receive whatever it is that we are asking for or need at that time.

Make no mistake, this is a powerful process.

Meditation helps us to take our ideas and turn them into something physical. It allows us to access higher dimensional forms of energy, pull it into ourselves, and utilize it in our daily lives. It gives us strength, insight, and understanding. It shifts our perspectives, and helps us to break old patterns and remove blocks.

When we meditate we download different forms of energy (including healing energies), messages from our guides and higher selves, and information from other beings we have connected ourselves to. But we also cultivate a strength of mind that is so desperately needed in these strange and often difficult times.

It keeps us sane in an increasingly insane world.

It reduces anxieties, and helps us overcome fears. We begin to feel more love and compassion from the world, and a sense that all is as it should be.

(1) Grounding:

If you can go outside and do this on a sunny day, it is a really wonderful experience worth having at least once! But this will work just as well sitting on the floor in your bedroom. 

Grounding is about connecting to the earths energy; releasing the excess of what you have cultivated. If we spend all our time downloading higher energies, and never release any of it back to the earth, we tend to lose our footing. We are not rooted in our physical realities, and we spend the majority of our time in the clouds dreaming and imagining. As beautiful and exhilarating as that can be, it can dominate our perspective, making it difficult for us to function in the real world. And the earths energy is protective and calming.

So grounding as a stand alone practice is incredibly important. But we can also use it at the beginning of any session to find a comfortable place from which we can proceed with a deeper meditation.

A wonderfully effective means of grounding is to imagine you have roots growing in to the ground. They sprout at the base of your spine and wind down through your back and legs. They push down through the furniture, and down into the floor of your house. They squeeze through the cracks in the cement, and find their way to the dirt, deep underneath everything. And they keep going down until they reach the centre of the earth.

Simple. Powerful.

Sometimes, at the centre, we will wrap them around a beautiful, glowing light (white offers the strongest protection). We might choose to offer words of gratitude and thanks to Gaia for supporting and grounding us. We can begin to release energy by relaxing our body slowly, and feeling the energy move from us into the ground.  We can spend as long as we need to in this place. But if our intention at this point is to move into a deeper meditation, we can move on to some visualization.

It might be difficult at first to see what we want. It can help to visualize the movement of the light like water, fluid and moving quickly. With time and practice it will become easier. As we learn to tune in to the sensations in our body, we can begin to really feel the movement of the light.

In this place of stillness, with our focus very much on our body and little external stimulus to distract our mind, fear and anxiety can often come up. As someone who is particularly sensitive to sensations in the body, the slightest ache, pain, or tightness in my chest, can (and does!) pull my attention to that area, and sends my mind into an instant (albeit usually brief) state of panic.

There are many healing modalities and spiritual practices that utilize the breath in specific ways. For the purpose of this discussion we are simply talking about an awareness of our breath, and the use of the breath as a sort of 'safe space' or home-zone.

When we begin to notice ourselves lost in thought, we return focus to the breath. We inhale, we exhale, and we repeat. You can try counting in your head as you breath in, and then counting as you breath out. Not in any way trying to speed up or slow down the breath, but just trying to pay attention to it.

Focusing on the breath keeps our mind occupied, but free from thoughts. We do not have to think to breath, but we can feel the sensation of air moving in and out through our mouth and nose, and filling our lungs and our belly.

There are many things we can receive in meditation. We can simply put ourselves into a receptive state, and allow information to flow freely. Or we can become consciously aware of what we want, and set an intention to receive.

We can use visualization to receive light from the cosmos; healing, energizing, balancing, protective, etc. Messages from our Guides or Source (although we might not be consciously aware of them at the time).

We can set an intention at the beginning of our session, and ask to receive guidance for a particular issue. This can be done out loud or in our head. We can create elaborate rituals, or keep things simple. We can spend a few minutes in meditation, or a few hours. When you are just starting out the important thing is that you take the time to simply be still, and create the space in your life for your practice. 5 minutes a day is much more effective than an hour or more once a week. Like any new habit, take your time and build up slowly.

A few hours after a meditation I might receive an insight about something; the way I felt previously about a particular situation or issue might begin to change. I will often experience more vivid and complex dreams. But most importantly (to me, at least!) I have an overall feeling of well being. I am more intuitive, in both subtle and fairly obvious ways. Creative ideas come to me more easily, and when I actually sit down to birth those ideas in the physical, I am more focused and disciplined.

This practice forms the basis of so much of the other soul work we will do in this lifetime. If you are just beginning to walk your spiritual path, or if you are at a crossroads and don't know where you should focus your attention, start with meditation. You will begin to realize that you are not alone and never have been, and getting clarity is easier than you might think.