Avid dreamer + artist + magic user. Trying my best to discover myself along the way to refine what I see as a reality.

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Meditation is a form which allows the conscious mind essentially focus more on the self in a short period of time. What comes up is different thoughts, actions, feelings, muscle pains, and what ever else comes up.

However, the process itself isn’t only inherent to consciously making that habit and taking time for oneself. This particular one that has become more popular is a form of active meditation, or perhaps active rest is a better term for this thought. Active rest is practice which allows the physical body to receive more active attention along with the emotional and mental processes as well. The benefit to this shows a conscious understanding what is already present and allowing this to be more actualized. Thus bringing more empathy and kindness to problems which seemed more magnified by not giving proper attention to these. Or, to bring more insight to a vague unknown quality of the self. For example, a realization of certain behaviors or thoughts in how others react to us due to the differences. Bringing the conscious into the unconscious to answer a question unbeknownst to an individual.

There is however, another form to this. Which is we’ll call passive rest for this thought. Passive rest is the already formed habits which we perform everyday in our lives. Whether that is hygiene, sleep, eating, or habits which we create to bring a little stability in our lives. Which is one reason why we react when our habits are interrupted, because unconsciously it is a form of comfort or ease ingrained by how we live. Even if someone doesn’t think they have good forming habits, everyone has some type of habit here and there even if it isn’t the healthiest form of that habit. This is the opposite, where there is an ingrained unconscious action that once noticed by the conscious intervention, brings an answer to a question which was known, but never questioned on a conscious level. For example, walking for a job without adequate rest brings muscle tension over time. This is not actively realized until pain reaches a more conscious level: strain, falling, pulled muscle, sitting, etc. It is in that spark of a moment where we realize that we have stepped beyond the comforts of this passive rest. To which this is met with a conscious level of caution and change this back to a normal level once more.

This is where the bad habits come in with either case. What if despite realizing there is a warning to take care of the body that it is ignored? This fuels into a more complex thoughts on why this would occur in the first place. If there are external matters more pressing in the moment, or if there are beliefs which make it difficult to overcome, or if there in lies a change which coincides with a negative reaction. And so on and so forth.

This could be considered as a third form of rest, ego rest. Where the mind tries to dictate what is correct or logical in the moment. Or what is the best course of action based on the patterns around. Which can work alongside the other forms of rest if this isn’t following strictly societal or other people’s thoughts. This ego rest helps to bridge between the conscious and the unconscious mind, to use present knowledge to help understand the situation. Because being able to rationalize what doesn’t make sense, even if you are lacking in that knowledge, does help to bridge the desire to understand the cause and result from what is happening.

To be able to create a balanced triangle from this includes how one processes, how one applies this, and how one changes those throughout life is not a one and done deal. Realizing this and understanding that in order to improve one part of the whole, all of those parts are going to undergo changes to adjust to this. If one is trying to create a new habit of including stretches during a set time as an example, then there is a bit of changes here. One is the more conscious action transforming into an unconscious action, while the ego action is maintaining that bridge based on what is happening around oneself. Essentially, there is more to meditation than the conscious action to relax and be aware of the body. It is a subtly complex action that leads to other subtle actions and how it is processed in the daily events of life.

This post was originally made Feb 2021


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