Silent Meditation & Healing Is My Life
I have been practising meditation now for over 18 years and during my Foundation Degree in Integrated Practice for Young People I wrote a report in 2011 about Young People, Depression and Alternative Therapies in accordance with the Every Child Matters Agenda For Change and the Children Act 1989. The report came about because I had developed an interest in holistic and spiritual approaches, and I wanted to provide and send out a message to young people who suffered with depression. That there is an alternative natural, effective, spiritual remedies and therapies such as meditation, reiki, herbal medicines and counselling that can be just as effective, as prescribed medicine that treats depression.
In my report, I emphasised how meditation benefits people who suffer with or without stress or depression. And how meditation helps emotional stability and helps to gain greater insights to understand their intense emotions, feelings and thoughts. It showed how meditation can also be easily judged because, people who meditate are just sitting there doing nothing, and can appear as a boring practice because its benefits cannot be measured straight away. And can only be felt and experienced over a period of time of dedication.
Also, it shown that here in the UK meditation was not highlighted as an effective treatment for young people, medication was. However, in the USA it was the opposite, meditation is used widely for depression, stress and to promote health and well-being as an alternative natural remedy. I would like to emphasise that I am not against taking medication, but I believe we should also know about the holistic alternatives and choices that we have. And the miraculous power of how the body can heal itself through alternative non-invasive remedies such as a simple technique like meditation.
Today meditation is highly researched, and its ongoing benefits and effectiveness are providing more and more evidence of its healing abilities. As it continues to increase calmness, relaxation, coping with an illness, enhancing our health and wellbeing, reducing stress, depression, addictions and anxiety.
Meditation is also practised worldwide by many spiritual faith traditions as a way to connect with God, the Divine, the universe or the higher self. A few examples of these are:
Hinduism – Japa, mala, mantra and chanting meditation
Christianity – Contemplative prayer meditation
Buddhism – loving kindness, walking meditation or metta meditation
There is also guided, visualisation meditations and so much more. Spiritual meditation also comes with its own benefits:
Bringing balance
Inner stillness and peace
Inner bliss that is not dependent on outward circumstances
Authenticity
Increase in creativity
Sense of belonging
Increased self-esteem
Trust
Self-acceptance
Clarity
I have practised many types of meditation from guided, silence, spiritual meditations that were mentioned above and Transcendental Meditation. But the meditation that always captures my heart is the art of silent meditation. Working with silent meditation is an empowering form of meditation because no one is telling you how you should or should not meditate. You intuitively empower yourself to learn your own style and what is best for you.
Silent meditation has become a devotional practice and has deepened my spiritual life with God, to awaken to the simplicity of inner peace, relaxation and the calmness that resides within me. I meditate because of my busy mind, restless thoughts and to heal my emotions. Because I believe the root of all illness whether that is stress, depression, anxiety, flu or a cold etc. stems from an energy that we never gave voice to that we have brushed under the carpet or hidden inside of ourselves that has become stuck or rooted in our body functional organs.
As a healer, doing silent meditation, I believe that the silence of meditation will guide us to the parts inside of ourselves that needs healing, if we listen beyond our normal capacity of how we were taught to listen.
I am aware that practising silence is not everyone’s favourite option and people like to be guided in how to do meditation techniques. When I first started silent meditation, it was not easy, but I trusted and came to believe it was the most authentic meditation you could start off practising before developing any other techniques. Because you have created and empowered a foundation for yourself, inwardly, without anyone telling you what and how you should meditate. In the end, I think that’s what we are all looking for in this world internally and externally freedom in just being ourselves. Using my intuition to help guide the practice of my silent meditation inwardly helps the foundation of empowering my meditative state to become an outwardly reality and brings to life my selfless intuitive art and poetry work from within.
The downside to silent meditation and I think it’s the same for all meditation is that it is not a quick fix, meaning you have to want to become committed for years, to see the long lasting results. Some may see results more quickly than others depending on their meditation experience or spiritual beliefs. But I have learned the value of letting go of my many years of experience and knowledge of meditation, and stepping into the art of becoming a beginner of mediation, again and again, many times.
In my meditation practice, I am grateful to experience moments of inner peace, stillness and calmness in my being. I am learning to cherish and appreciate these moments as it helps nourish, restores and brings my mind right back to where it belongs. Which is the ever present, gift of being in the moment, the here and now. Letting go of all worries, thoughts about what has happened in the day. Just giving myself the power and permission to create silence to rest and be still in the eternal what is. Knowing I am worthy and have the right to belong in the infinite loving consciousness that resides within and permeates in every part of my being.
Below is a video of how I practice silent meditation followed by healing prayers. But before I conclude this blog, I would like to share a quote by Paramhansa Yogananda which sums up the silent process of meditation for me “Forget the past, for it is gone from your domain! Forget the future, for it is beyond your reach! Control the Present! Live supremely well now! This is the way of the wise”.
Blessings & Love
Rev Dinah Pemberton
P.S Click the link to my Silent Healing Meditation & Yoga page as I continue the journey in sharing silent mediation and healing prayers with the world.
