This post provides information on the benefits of meditation and how to start and maintain a meditation practice.
There are many ways to meditate like using a mantra or a repeated phrase, mindful eating or walking, focusing on the breath, and many others. It doesn’t matter much which meditation style you choose. Dawson Church, EFT practitioner, author of Bliss Brain, and the founder of Eco Meditation, suggests that the most important work of meditation is acknowledging when you get distracted and consciously shifting your mind back to focus.
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Who is Betsy Leighton?
I’m a writer, blogger, and healer dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with their innate peace and wholeness by healing nervous system dysregulation. My personal experience with chronic illness called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) shapes my work, and my content offers tools to empower those with chronic illness to improve their well-being and take charge of their health.
I created the Sacred Self-Healing Method and am a trained and certified Safe and Sound Protocol provider, an author, blogger, and A Course in Miracles Teacher. I hold a Master of Divinity in Spiritual Counseling and am a trained spiritual mentor, with certificates in sound healing, aromatherapy, nutrition, and Sacred Deathcare. I offer a self-study certificate program in the Sacred Self-Healing Method, provide spiritual counseling and coaching, courses, and supported subscriptions for the Safe and Sound Protocol.
What is MCAS?
Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) is a chronic condition that affects all organ systems. It can cause severe, disabling symptoms every day, including potentially fatal anaphylaxis. MCAS often occurs with other chronic conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Managing MCAS is challenging because many healthcare providers are unaware of it, and diagnostic tests can be unreliable. Treatments include antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers, as well as avoiding triggers. Check out this post on managing MCAS.
Intention
Sacred Self-Healing relies on intention and frequency. Intention directs frequency to bring about healing. The universal formula for healing is:
Intention + Frequency = Healing.
In this expression, “frequency” refers to the specific healing modality being applied. Setting an intention is particularly beneficial when utilizing self-healing methods such as frequency and forgiveness. This post covers more information on the power of intention.
Beneficial Frequency
Beneficial frequency refers to natural vibrations that synchronize biological and Earth systems, to support overall harmony. For instance, visible red and blue light from the sun are beneficial frequencies because they regulate circadian rhythms. Likewise, Earth’s Schumann resonance is a naturally occurring frequency that aligns internal and external rhythms for health. This post discusses beneficial frequency in more depth.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness, like love, is seen as a high-frequency energetic state connected to compassion and gratitude. In contrast, emotions such as resentment and anger are thought to have lower frequencies, constricting rather than elevating well-being. Forgiveness helps elevate energy, promote emotional healing, and support physiological balance. Science hasn’t measured the frequency of forgiveness, but studies show that forgiveness can improve heart and brain patterns and help the body work more smoothly. Forgiveness brings balance, healing, and peace—both emotionally and physically. This post delves deeper into forgiveness.
What is meditation?
Meditation is the act of bringing your attention to one thing, whether that is focusing on your breath, repeating a mantra, following someone’s voice in a guided meditation, walking a labyrinth, or chanting a sacred word or phrase, to name but a few examples.
Benefits of meditation
Meditation has myriad physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual benefits. It reduces cortisol and epinephrine in the body, chemicals that lower immunity over time. Brain research confirms that meditating for even a few minutes per day makes a significant difference in your ability to cope, be resilient, improve your sleep quality, and manage your stress response.
Set an intention
Intention setting is powerful because it signals to the Spirit realm your willingness to see things differently. All it takes to put forgiveness in motion is a little willingness. So, intentions are more than goals; they join you with your Higher Teacher.Â
When you set an intention, you combine your desire to be a partner in your healing with the seen and unseen forces at work in the Universe. Quantum physics has found that our thoughts can influence animate and inanimate objects. The same holds in your life. Whatever you put loving thoughts or positive energy into is more likely to come to fruition.Â
You can influence your emotional, physical, and spiritual state by setting intentions.
Tell the universe that you want to be successful in meditating! It will help!!
Tips for starting and maintaining a meditation practice
It can be daunting to start and maintain a steady meditation practice, so here are some tips that have helped me:
- Prepare a space. Set up a place in your home/room where you will always meditate. Have the cushions or whatever you need all set up there so you don’t have to do anything but put yourself there. By consistently meditating in the same place every day, you start to create an energetic imprint that makes meditation easier and easier. Sounds funny, but it’s true!
- Set a consistent time. Find a time during the day when you are most likely to be able to meditate regularly, and stick to that time. Studies show that if you repeat an activity for 40 consecutive days, it becomes a habit in your life.
- Choose a style that works for you. There are many different ways to meditate, and I encourage you to try different styles. Here are a few ideas: 1. focus on the breath; 2. silently repeat a mantra or seed sound (for instance, “OM”, or “Love is all around me”); 3. center your attention on your heart; 4. use guided meditation audio recordings (you can search the web and find lots); 5. chant aloud one of the many names of God (Yahweh, Allah, etc). Once you have found a meditation style that works for you, stick with it.
- Don’t sweat the details. If it works for you to meditate lying down, do so (but try not to fall asleep). If it works to be in a certain yoga pose, do it that way. Find a comfortable position that works for you and stick with it. Many meditation guides insist that you need to sit upright. But if it means you will be uncomfortable, and therefore not want to meditate, it doesn’t make sense for you. I have a back problem, and I find meditating in a semi-reclining yoga pose works the best for me.
- Keep trying! I have wanted to meditate regularly for over a decade, but for some reason, I had huge resistance to doing it. Finally, last spring I took a course on spirituality and brain science that drove home to me the benefits of meditating — for your brain health, relationships, mental health, longevity, blood pressure, and so much more. I realized there was no way I could not do it. So I started meditating, and haven’t stopped.
- Get help! Ask for help from your higher power, the Angels, or the Divine Meditators of the Universe. This really works! Asking for divine help puts out an energetic request to the spiritual realm that won’t be ignored. Begin each meditation session with a brief prayer, asking for help meditating successfully. Be surprised!
Meditating is one of the keys to a steady self-care practice. Consistently setting aside time to quiet your mind has far-reaching benefits. Give it a try!
The bucket theory
The bucket theory simplifies understanding symptom reactions with MCAS. Imagine your body as an empty bucket you don’t want to overflow. Reactions to various stimuli fill the histamine bucket at different rates, forming the total histamine level (how full your bucket is). More histamine means more symptoms. By managing triggers, reducing exposures, and taking medications and supplements, you can control your bucket’s level.
Know your typical symptom progression
Understanding your symptom progression during a flare is key to developing your rescue plan. This post discusses how to recognize symptom progression so you can be prepared to address them.
Get my free ebook, symptom log, and meal plan!
Want a tool to easily track your symptoms?
Check out these circadian health tools!
I’m an affiliate with Bon Charge, a company that makes tools for circadian health, and you can receive 15% off your order with my coupon code BETSYL.
Bon Charge offers tools such as yellow– and red-tone blue-blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, PEMF mats, infrared saunas, and EMF-blocking products.
Sign up for the SSP!
I’ve found the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to be the most helpful bottom-up healing strategy if your nervous system has been overloaded with toxic exposures, including mold or non-native EMFs, chronic infections, concussions, stress, or trauma. The SSP is a passive listening therapy based on Polyvagal Theory that helps heal nervous system dysregulation. Many people with MCAS and other chronic conditions have nervous system dysregulation stemming from infections, toxic exposures, concussions, and trauma. The SSP is an easy-to-use app that lets you listen to specially filtered music for 30 minutes each day as part of a 5-hour cycle. Studies show the SSP has a profound effect on mental health and chronic conditions. Here’s a short podcast describing the Safe and Sound Protocol.
You can sign up for the SSP here!
Heal your mind!
While the SSP is a bottom-up, somatic therapy for healing the nervous system, the Sacred Self-Healing Method I offer is a top-down nervous system-healing modality that focuses on cognition, attention, perception, and emotion, using the mind’s higher functions. The SSP and the Sacred Self-Healing Method complement each other and together produce lasting results. Here’s a short podcast on my self-healing practice.
I provide one-on-one in-person and remote chronic illness and caregiver coaching, as well as Sacred Self-Healing Sessions based on the Sacred Self-Healing Method, a proven, novel co-creative healing modality detailed in my Books.
Order my books!
Here’s a short podcast highlighting my five books.
My latest book, Living In The Light: Healing with Forgiveness, Sound, and Light, is all about the tools that have been most helpful for me to heal: forgiveness, sound, through nervous system retraining using the Safe and Sound Protocol, and light, through entraining my circadian rhythm with the energy of the sun. Living In The Light is available here!
Rocks and Roots chronicles my solo backpacking journey on the Superior Hiking Trail and my efforts to overcome nervous system dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome symptoms to complete the 328-mile hike successfully.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method ebook is available here and in most ebook retailers!
The Sacred Self-Healing Workbook is available for purchase here!
Betsy’s first book, Sacred Self-Healing: Finding Peace Through Forgiveness, is available here
Companion Recordings
The companion audio recordings of chants, guided meditations, and sound healing demonstrations that accompany the Sacred Self-Healing Method are available for free on my YouTube channel here
What do you think?
I’d love to have your reply below!
Disclaimer
The preceding material does not constitute medical advice. This information is for information purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, cure, or treatment.
