​Do you ever wonder about listening to music or not during meditation? I know that I have.  

​Music is such an integral part of my life, as is meditation.  
Music has many benefits for stress management, helping to alter a person’s mood becoming calmer and more relaxed.  Meditation can also calm the mind and the body, building resilience to stress and bringing a sense of inner peace.
I personally have experienced that listening to calming music while meditating helps me to focus and calm my body, supporting my meditation.  

​“The purpose of meditation is to make our mind calm and peaceful. If our mind is peaceful, we will be free from worries and mental discomfort, and so we will experience true happiness. But if our mind is not peaceful, we will find it very difficult to be happy, even if we are living in the very best conditions.”
                                                                                                Kelsang Gyatso


Give it a try and see if calming music supports your meditation. Here are some tips to get you started.

1. Choose music that is relaxing and preferably without lyrics.  Words can be distracting and engage you in thinking – something you are trying not to do in meditation. 
2. Sit in a comfortable and upright position. Close your eyes and begin to take slower, deeper breaths. 
3. As thoughts come into your head, gently let them go and come back to the present moment.
4. Continue this for several minutes, up to 20 minutes is a good amount of time. 

If you find that a particular type of music brings a lot of memories or thoughts, try a different type.  

Use of music with meditation can support you in several ways.  It can….

1. Bring you to a state of calm and relaxation more quickly.  Music can help you to let go of the busyness and stress of the day.  They easily fade away in the calming atmosphere created with the soft music. 
2. Help you prepare for a good night’s sleep.  Whether you meditate in the morning or evening, you body will slip into a deeper state of relaxation. This will help it prepare for a restful night’s sleep that evening. 
3. Help with your focus. If your mind tends to wonder during meditation, calming music can help you come back to the present moment, releasing thoughts of the past or future.
4. Bring you into a state of healing. As you experience a deep state of rest, your body can enter into its natural state of healing itself releasing any stress and toxins.

 
Give it a try and let me know how it goes.  What music do you use?  How does it support you?  What changes do you see in your meditation? 
 
Check out the many audio recordings available to support you in your spiritual practice in my Free Healing Library here.   
 

​Meditation has been used by many cultures as a spiritual practice for thousands of years.  But what is meditation exactly?  

​It’s often experienced as a journey from outer awareness in the world to inner awareness.  You settle in and focus on what is in the present, setting aside thoughts of the past or the future. Slower and intentional breathing typically helps to relax the body and quiet the mind.
 
As you experience a deep state of rest, your mind begins to feel open and spacious. Your body can enter into its natural state of healing itself releasing any stress and toxins. This can set you on a path for greater health and happiness in your life.
 
There are many ways to enter into meditation. You may choose to focus on a spiritual text, verse, or image.  Or you may choose to be in silence.  

​Whatever form of meditation you choose, as your body and mind calms down and your awareness turns inward, you may find that you enter into the space or gap that exists between the thoughts. It may appear as silence, but it’s a silence filled with infinite possibilities. 
 
It’s there that you connect with your Divine Self – in the space between your thoughts. 
 
And as you come out of your meditation into the outer world once again, you bring with you a drop of that experience  - of who you really are and the infinite possibilities that exist.
 
By repeating this journey regularly, you strengthen this sacred connection and you’ll experience that you can bring this silence and sense of possibility into your daily activities, even in the midst of noise and chaos. You more clearly see your divine path and what choices are best for you.

After establishing a regular practice of meditation, you may experience you begin to have a higher spiritual awareness beyond your usual daily thoughts.  You more deeply discover the highest aspect of yourself, connected in unity with the universe – a feeling of oneness and perfection.

At times, you may gain insight into parts of your life, but that’s typically not an intention for meditation. Meditation is to cultivate a state of to silence where you can listen for what may arise out of this silence.
​
You may wonder, What are you listening for?  And who is actually speaking? 

In the silence, you may hear your inner voice, your eternal voice, that speaks to you out of the wisdom of your eternal spirit, your essence.  As you listen, you experience your interconnectedness to all and challenges that you have in life begin to dissolve, bringing a deep sense of peace and harmony along with understanding and compassion.  This opens the door to experience higher states of consciousness.
 
The true value of meditation is this spiritual awakening it brings. 
​
Why not start today?  Here are 3 easy steps to bring meditation into your daily life.
 
       1.      Schedule it.  We all tend to lead full lives with busy schedules.  So, to be sure to find the time to meditate, schedule it.  Put it on your schedule for a block of time                     and commit to it like you would an appointment at your dentist’s office or a meeting at work. 
       
        2.     Start small. You’ll be more successful if you start with just a few minutes. Then after you’ve been successful in this, slowly increase your time. 

        3.    Be open to what arises. Your experience will vary from day to day and over time.  Don’t consider it a failure if one day you seem to be distracted or struggling more                than others.  You’ve been present to the moment and what arises in that space, so you’ve succeeded!  
 
“Half an hour's meditation each day is essential, except when you are busy. Then a full hour is needed.”                   Saint Francis de Sales


 
 
Check out the many resources available to support you in your spiritual practice in my Free Healing Library here. 

I've mentioned before that one of my favorite spiritual texts is Psalm 91. My husband, David, introduced this Psalm to me years ago as it was a text that had supported him through difficult times. It spoke to me so deeply that I decided to commit it to memory.
Not long after that, I was inspired to write a melody for it. Listen to it here11_psalm_91.mp3.

​After first memorizing the text then bringing it to life through music, I was amazed at how powerful and potent this was for me as a healing energy. To this day when ever I am feeling low, discouraged, overwhelmed or hopeless, listening to this recording and singing along immediately lifts me up.
 
We spend so much of our time in a visual world nowadays which is really centered more within the left side of our brain. This is the side that is all about doing.  I know I often feel a longing for balancing this with my sense of hearing. This is based within the right side of our brain that is more about being. 
 
Hearing sound through vibrations such as music and our own voice is a vast realm of potential energy that can be harnessed for our own healing and well-being. Joining this healing potential of music with a spiritual text that is sacred can be an incredible gateway to a universal archetypal energy field far greater than ourselves. We can vibrate with a higher level of consciousness. 

​Every organ, tissue, and cell has its vibration.  When these are in harmony, then we have our health and well-being. If disharmony arises in some form, there is a loss of well-being and we may experience discomfort and disease.
 
According to Deepak Chopra,
“The body is held together by sound, and the presence of disease indicates that some sounds are out of tune… primordial sound is the mysterious link that holds the universe together in a web that is the quantum field.”
We can even see the potency of sound when the Bible speaks of the initial spark of creation that came from sound or vibration. It says, according to John, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God … and the Word was made flesh.”

If we understand Word as Sound, we see how sound can be such a creative force.
 
Why not explore your creative side and tap into this vast potential of healing energy through sound? 
 
Pick a favorite spiritual text. Which one resonates with you?  How could you put it to music? 
 
Give it a try! Reap the benefits of the power of harmonious sound in your life. When we bring the right kind of sound into our lives, we can align ourselves with vibrations that encourage health, happiness, and unity.
 
 
Check out the many resources available to support you in your spiritual practice in my Free Healing Library here..