“Meditation is a way for nourishing and blossoming the divine within you.” — Amit Ray
Molly Larkin starts by citing two studies that help explain what meditation can do for us. Several years ago, a study was done that estimated our brains think up to 50,000 thoughts each day, and 90% are the same as yesterday. There’s some dispute as to the accuracy of this statistic, but even if the number is half of that, it’s a heck of a lot of thoughts! Another study published in a 2010 issue of Science Magazine reported that the average American adult spends 47% of their waking life “mind wandering,” or not attending to the task at hand. Moreover, these periods of mind wandering were accompanied by reports of unhappiness.
What Does Meditation Do? Very simply,
- Meditation helps shut out, or at least slowdown, those 50,000 random thoughts and quiets both the mind and the body.
- Meditation helps us to pay attention and focus.
- Meditation helps to stop our mind wandering.
Learning to control our random thoughts helps us achieve a state of deep peace when the mind is calm and silent. In today’s world, we have a lot working against us. A big one is the feeling of time speeding up and slipping away. But really, there are still 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day—it’s more about the increasing amount of activity and rate of change that we must cope with in a day. Currently, there are more world changing events happening in any given period of time than have ever happened before. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, said “We human beings currently create as much information in two days as we did from the dawn of civilization up through 2003!” That was in 2003. How much more information must be inundating us today?
No wonder we’re overwhelmed! Our minds can’t keep up so we tend to shut down and go numb. Our minds were not built for speed; we evolved when things were much slower. Four hundred years ago, people had a lot of time to ponder things before they had to change. Our bodies were, and still are, designed to be in tune with the sun, the moon, the stars, the seasons, and the cycles of nature.
That simplicity is what our souls long for. Meditation helps us slow down, and return to the sacred and our relationship with the natural world.
Valeria interviews Molly Larkin author of Meditations on the Natural World and The Fountain of Youth Is Just A Breath Away.
A writer, teacher and healing practitioner, Molly Larkin has spent over thirty years studying with indigenous elders around the world, and is passionate about health and balanced living.
She is a trainer for England’s The Healing Trust, teaching Spiritual Healing around the United States. She is a Sun Dancer in the Lakota tradition, has done several vision quests, leads sweat lodges and is a carrier of the Sacred Pipe.
Molly’s mission is to help students and clients achieve their life purpose while balancing spirituality and modern life so they can be happy, healthy and successful. In other words, in living at 100% of their own potential.
Her first Native American teacher, Sun Bear, said, “I don’t want to hear about your philosophy unless it will help me to grow corn.” Meaning, that it will have a practical impact on improving day to day life. That is what Molly offers.
Molly co-authored, with Muskogee Creek elder Marcellus “Bear Heart” Williams, the international best-seller “The Wind Is My Mother; the Life and Teachings of a Native American Shaman.“
She blogs about Ancient Wisdom for Balanced living at www.MollyLarkin.com and has published two other books: “Meditations on the Natural World; A Guided Journal to Help Find the Technique That’s Right for You” and “The Fountain of Youth Is Just A Breath Away; Breathing Exercises for Relaxation, Health and Vitality.”
