Meditation, why I bothered to learn from a teacher.
In February this year, I completed my Masters thesis on the relationship between Mindfulness / Acceptance Based Interventions using meditation and psychoeducation with High Performance Athletes experiencing high levels of stress. My results were promising… more on that in another post.
During this time I also completed my meditation teacher training through 1 Giant Mind facilitated by teacher and author, Jonni Pollard.
The months leading up to the completion of my teacher training were pretty full on (understatement), and I feel it’s important that you guys know why I bothered to throw myself into additional study and work.
That starts with why I bothered to invest in learning meditation from a teacher myself 6 years ago today.
Life long guidance from a teacher with in depth training & first hand experience.
Mindfulness meditation apps & yoga savasana gave me a taste of how the mind could settle. But it didn’t give me in depth knowledge & skills to drop into those deeper, more expansive layers of consciousness that I knew to exist. It wasn’t until I learned from a well trained and experienced teacher using a technique unlike all the others, that my busy little mind was triggered in the most profound way. Without this technique and skills from a teacher who had thrown himself into extensive training with years of experience, I would not have been able to access that expansiveness. Six years later, I still have my teacher’s guidance, along with a deep connectedness with a mediation community of mentors and life long friends.
2. Less effort.
I always found meditation frustrating. All the mental effort & focus required felt like shit admin - something I could only ‘enjoy’ if I was already feeling all ‘namaste’ (which was not that often). This made it hard to integrate meditation into my day-to-day. Once I learned meditation from Matt, I was pretty quick realise just how effortless these self transcendental meditative techniques are. I was convinced not even the most experienced teacher could get my mind to drop down but oh how I was wrong. I was taught how to let go of control and let the technique do the work. This made meditation easy and something that I wanted to do, rather than felt like I ‘should’ be doing.
3. A self sufficient practice with real and long lasting change.
I’d seen the fMRI images of meditators along with copious amounts of research (including my own), and I knew that a consistent meditation practice was where the brain made the most significant functional and structural changes. I knew half-assing meditation with random apps and the odd yoga class wasn’t going to elicit real change and long lasting growth. I needed a practice that would seamlessly fit into my hyperactive day-to-day consistently. I invested in a course with a teacher so I could learn the knowledge that complemented the technique I was learning and the experiences I was having. Here, I was able to drop in deep within my first few sessions and integrate the practice into my daily life while experiencing all juicy brain adaptations and benefits that coincided.
I invested in meditation teacher training for one reason - to bring people out of knowing and into Being; to help people embody change rather than wanting, wishing and reading about it.
Accessing these deeper, more expansive layers of your mind is your birthright. ANYONE can learn, no matter how busy minded.
The next meditation course will be in Wānaka on May 18th, 19, 20 and in Queenstown on June 1, 2, 3 and consists of x3 90 min sessions from 6 - 7.30pm.
The course costs $289 with payment plans available on request.
On the fence but keen to find out more? Schedule a free intro talk by contacting me on taylor@ahuapsychology.com.