Meditation Training
A training in letting go and embracing emptiness and space to increase your happiness.
My fifth star came to me when I was in New York. In a city full of people, cars, buildings and everything else you can imagine. I had been meditating for a while all ready, but one evening when I was alone in the beautiful hotel room we were living in, looking out on the skyline, it suddenly dawned on me: We need more space in our lives.
OUT OF SPACE
In a world full of things, most people are lacking space. I’m then referring to both your inside world and the outside world. We are full of thoughts, feelings, worries, expectations, fears, opinions, constantly having a busy mind. Our outside world are very often full. We have a lot of things we need to do, having full calendars and little free time. Most of us are also occupied with absorbing input from our screens. Either it is from our phones, iPads, computers or TVs, music, podcasts or books and magazines. We are also busy with all the input from the people we are having in our lives and meeting through our dailylife. It doesn’t matter if it`s positive or negative input, the point is that we have a loads of input almost constantly.
In addition to that many people are giving their bodies continuous foods and drinks during their waking hours, in that sense that the body, the organs never get a break and space either. We are also filling our wardrobes, cabinet, shelves, refrigerators, sheds and houses full of things and stuff.
To sum it up: Where in your life are you having a lot of space?
EMBRACING EMPTINESS
To have space in mind is maybe the one thing people associates with meditation, to quiet and clear your mind. That is the main reason why I call this pillar meditation training, because it is about creating space, peace, and clarity in your life. To embrace the opposite of being full, to embrace emptiness, nothing, as no-thing.
To give yourself emptiness in mind, in body, in heart, emptiness through just being and not doing, emptiness of letting your senses as eyes, ears, mouth and body rest. Embracing emptiness inside of your body and outside of your body. No thing, means also to just be, alone. With no other people around you. To give yourself space and rest.
WHY IS SPACE IMPORTANT?
The first reason is that if you don’t have space in your life, how can you actually be? Be you? Develop? To unfold as you?
If your mind is full and busy with thoughts all day long, how is a new thought going to be able to come to you? There is no space for it. No room for you to allow it to come to your awareness.
Or let’s say that you want your body to be a master in rebuilding itself, but your body is constantly working on digesting your food. How can it renew you? There is no space for the body to renew itself, it`s to busy and full with foods to have space to renew.
Maybe you are a person that is complaining about being tired during the day? And it`s not because your have been running a physical marathon, is it?
I believe one of the main reasons people are complaining of lack of energy, is because they are full in mind, heart and body, and in all their doings. There is too little space, to little space to just be, you. To be you, menas to exist and flow through your day, without all this «things» we are carrying on in our body, heart and mind. It is exhausting to carrying this around, to be too full. You just want to lay down on the couch? Right?
Maybe you also wish you had a better communication with your partner?
That he or she would understand you better. When you talk, it is like he/she isn’t listening. It`s like you are having the same conversation again and again. So the question is: Do you have any space in your conversations? As silence. Space to listen to the words, reflect, really think about what have been said, ask new questions, and again just be together in silence? To let the silence create space for new conversations, new insights, new understandings.
We need space to develop in life. In many different aspects of our being.
So how do I train on creating space and emptiness in my life? 
THE SECRET TO MEDITATION TRAINING
Lies in learning to let go. I call it forgive. For-give. You learn to let go of things, give it away.
It sounds easy, but many people have been thought to hold on to things. As if a thing itsself represents happiness. To let go and to forgive is about daily letting go of things that are not positive or not serving you. It can for example be destructive and negative thoughts and emotions. Why are we often choosing to think negative thoughts and choosing to feel negative emotions? I say choose. Because you are choosing to feel these emotions, ref. the mental training pillar. Instead the secret is to let go of those thoughts and feelings. As the word forgive and forgiveness also refers to, it`s also about forgiving people in your life. Not holding any grudge to anyone in your life. Not because they haven’t hurt you or done something bad, but because it is not serving you to carry those feelings with you. It`s making you tired, negative, and unhappy. Let go.
To give yourself space and embrace emptiness you need to learn to let go in different aspects of your life.
THE PRINCIPLE OF EMPTINESS
If you are having a wase on your kitchen table and you want a new one, then you FIRST need to remove the old one to get space to replace it with a new one. We need to create space in our lives for new things to be able to come into our life. What ever you are desiring to enter into your life, needs space to be able to enter. You can’t have your world (internally/externally) full of things, and expect more to come. It doesn’t matter if the things are serving you or not. Are the «things» there, they are taking up space from other things that you actually want to bring into your life. Either it is new people, new clothes, new ideas, new results. Let go, embrace emptiness and make room for what you actually do want to fill your life with.
LET GO OF WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE
If you want to elevate yourself, you have to dare and be aware of who you think your are, and let go of your believes. If not, how can you transform into being the person you want to be? It`s not like a butterfly is flying around with it`s old cocoon on it`s back. The butterflies FIRST lets go of who it was in the cocoon and then becomes a butterfly.
HOW TO LEARN TO LET GO?
There are many ways you can let go and forgive. Probably more than you think.
The first step is to be aware of the power and the importance of space and emptiness in your life. Hopefully you have already gotten an understanding of why it is essential to embrace emptiness and space to be happy in your life.
The question is now how do I do my Mediation training?
By being aware of that you will increase your happiness through learning to let go, you can use the below examples to practice letting go daily. Try to do the different kind of meditations/forgiveness methods, and remember to this over time. You will hopefully experience an increase of happiness relatively fast, but to get the long lasting results you need to practice this regularly, daily.
METHODS TO DO MEDITATION TRAINING (FORGIVE):
Silence: Is a good place to start. To make sure you are in total silence during your day. It doesn’t have to be long, but long enough for you to be aware of the silence and just being in it, optimally by not doing anything else.
Meditate: To meditate as to sit or to lay down and empty your mind is a very efficient training to get fast results and long lasting results. There are many ways you can meditate, and the different types of meditations have different functions. A main goal with your meditation should to give yourself a break from your busy mind and create more inner peace, space and emptiness in your mind and heart.
Nature: To be in nature releases a lot of tension and creates physical space to things in your life.
It can also be to sit on a bench 5-10min in a park. Or go for a short walk in the woods in silence.
Ask questions: To ask questions create space. It creates room to think and reflect, to find new solutions and ideas. It create space in a dialogue with yourself or with other people. Ask good and positive questions, and you will get good answers.
Empty your closets: To have empty drawers, shelves and closets give space and emptiness. Give away or sell things you don’t use ,or are just having stored in your garage or shed. Physical space is just as important as mental space.
Taking a shower: Running water is cleansing, and beside of cleaning your body, its also a method to empty your mind. I always get great ideas in the shower.
Remember also that washing the dishes and cleaning the drain in your sink and shower, also are ways to make sure you let go of things that don’t serve you and to create space.
Forgive: Yes, forgive the people that have hurt you and let go of any bitterness and anger. It is holding you back, and are taking up space from good experiences and emotions instead. It`s also essential to ask for forgiveness from the people you have hurt. Not necessarily directly to them, but at least consciously inside of you. Because we have not only been hurt in our lives, we have also usually hurt people too (all though it wasn’t your intention). It doesn’t matter. To forgive is about letting go of negative emotions you are holding on to in regards of others, and also in regards of other people are holding onto towards you. You ask for forgiveness because the pain in the hurt is not serving you, either you hurt them or they hurt you.
Evaluate your network: Are you having people in your life that is not doing you any good? And having a negative impact in your life? It might be smart to distance yourself from these people if you can’t let go of the relationship totally.
Fasting: Consult your doctor and check out if fasting can be an alternative for you. To decide to eat only on specific times during the day to give your body space from foods.
Going to the toilet: Make sure you are emptying your gut sufficiently and regularly. So you are not holding onto waste. It`s very important to be able to have well-functioning daily loo routines and basically being able to let go of waste the body needs to get ridd of.
To breath and sweat: To breath deeply and to sweat, either through workouts, breathing exercises or taking sauna you get ridd of waste substances in the body and also reduce stress levels in the body and creates space.
To be relaxed: When you are being relaxed, It`s not about just lying on the couch. It`s about being relaxed in your body, mind and heart during your day. This state, makes it easier not to be easily affected by negative input, and it`s easier to let go of things that happens during your day, because you are already in a state that supports letting go. To find a state of relaxation it`s helpful to do meditations where you relax your mind and body totally, but also by taking a cold or a hot shower, and then relax afterwords, or embracing the relaxed feeling after a workout.
Mental training and the other Let’s Shine pillars: Lastely, of course the others 6 pillars to increase your happiness will also help you increase your space, emptiness and peace in your life. They support each other and having a strong mind, will make it easier to let go of negative thoughts for example.
MEDITATION TRAINING SUMMED UP:
We need to learn to let go of things that are not serving us. To create space and emptiness to develop and unfold who we want to be, and the life we want to live. The emptiness makes it possible to invite in what we want in our lives, and also to become the person we want to be.
To let go and forgive are also one of the essential pieces in the foundation of life. To live is to circulate life and love. We give, we receive and we forgive. We give love, we receive love and we let go of the rest.
Let`s Shine!
All the best
