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Meditation to Enhance Business Intuition
By Martin Brossman
A friend once said, "When I meditate regularly it
makes a profound difference in my life, which is why
I stopped." He was both joking and honest, pointing
to the ease at which we can drop out of habits that
support our lives. I have been meditating first
thing each morning, for the most part, since 1985. I
have also done multiple weekend meditation retreats,
4 day "sits" and even a 10-day "noble sit" (total
silence) which was a humbling experience. Over this
time I have seen a clear effect of enhanced
intuition and clarity when I practice meditation
regularly. It helps me as a success coach to pick up
subtle things about my clients. It is also easier to
keep a perspective on what is most important to
focus on and makes it easier to spot any of my own
biases in business so they don't influence me.
I have very specific opinions of what meditation is
and is not. To me meditation is NOT concentration or
forcing your attention to be held on one place.
Meditation is not visualizing a peaceful place and
imagining yourself there. Meditation is NOT
imagining your day going perfectly. Meditation is
NOT something you do walking or lying down.
Meditation is NOT talking or praying to God.
Meditation is NOT something that requires you to sit
in a painful way. These can all be good experiences
and add to your life but I do not define them as
meditation.
My concept of effective meditation comes from
working with people I perceive as masters and my own
years of experience. It involves sitting upright
and 'witnessing your existence' with eyes closed. It
is a process of being still and letting the thoughts
and feelings bubble through you. It is a dance of
your thoughts and feelings and then becoming aware
of yourself and gently returning your awareness to a
point on your body, a mantra (often given by a
teacher) or your breath. You may experience many
thoughts and feelings. I view thoughts as something
you need to move through you as you practice
meditation, gently letting go of the thought or
feeling. This process brings your attention back to
the point at which you gain more insight on what is
going on inside your body / mind rather being
controlled by it. The best way to describe how to
'hold the point' is in a relaxed and not firm
condition. As for the points you return back to--
there are two points in the physical body and I
invite you to experiment with them. One is the
classic point, about the center of the forehead.
Another point of profound results is your center of
balance, which is about two inches below your navel.
If you have ever studied serious sports or dance you
know this is the most powerful place to move from.
Aikido also instructs you to move from this point
referred to as the "hara" or "one point." The other
issue is noticing your breath--being aware of your
"breath-breathing-you." In addition, sitting
upright in a chair not only gives you good posture
and support, it allows the body and mind to remain
alert and present.
I recommend you start meditating as little as a few
minutes and work your way up to 20 to 30 minutes. Of
course meditating twice a day is better and once a
day is good-- preferably two hours after eating or
before. Falling asleep may occur when you start,
usually a sign of not getting sufficient rest. In
this case you may want to start your practice just
before bedtime and then go to sleep. If you think of
things you want to write down, just wait until you
are done meditating.
Results start to show in about a month or so.
Almost universally meditation has the effect of
increasing your perceptive capabilities. Typically
you will find your mind is in a much more effective,
calm, reasoning state. You may also notice that you
become less reactive, keeping things in perspective
with less effort. The effects of meditation move at
a gradual rate that you can handle. As you master
it you will receive the bonus of increased intuition
and perception--a real competitive advantage.
When I first began meditation I asked about its
relationship to activity, and my instructor
explained: "Meditation is like the way Indigo has
been dyed into cloth so it does not easily fade
again. You dye the white linen in the Indigo, and
then you expose it to the sun to fade it. You die it
again and again exposing it to the sun to fade,
continuing the process again and again. Eventually
the linen stops fading and remains even in the
presence of bright sun. The meditation analogy to
the dyeing of Indigo and the sun is much like the
challenges of every day life. We need both to grow.
My intention is that you find meditation a tool to
make you more creative, insightful and resilient.
Martin Brossman can be reached at
martin@coachingsupport.com , (919)
847-4757 or CoachingSupport.com where you can find
his article "Vipassana
Mediation VS. Martin Brossman" |
