Unit 8

Meditation is a mental exercise for the spirit and the mind. We're all faced with stresses, and how we respond to those stresses is a key to optimal natural health. Meditation can be an oasis of peace and tranquility for you-no matter what chaos is going on around you. Meditation can help provide you with a healthier outlook, a healthier body, calmer feelings inside and out, a powerful immune system and lots and lots of joy.

The heart-mind-body-spirit (the holistic you) is more than each part separate. An optimal holistic lifestyle recognizes each component and the manner in which each component works synergistically. Meditation is a very key holistic practice. Fitness, health, self-concept, well-being, confidence, happiness, all originate from a 'whole you' perspective. Not one individual part will benefit you holistically like all the parts together. They are linked together.

Visualization/Imagery can bring about some of the effects of meditation. Meditation is about quieting the mind, and perhaps focusing. Imagery is about focus, also. As some may know it, imagery is usually referred to as being a set of mental images or pictures, or the use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas. It can also refer to any of the five senses: smell, touch, taste, hearing and sight.

We all practice imagery, and just about all the time even if we don't realize it. When we have thoughts, images go through our minds-images sometimes based in reality and also images based on our imagination. For instance, we have never seen heaven or God, yet we have images in our mind and heart about what heaven and God look like.

I don’t think they are a regular practice for the vast majority of the population because in our modern society, most of us have been raised to believe that if we cannot see or feel touch something, or see the results with our own eyes, it is not true or real. Obviously there are exceptions; we ask our children to believe in God even though we cannot physically see or touch him. I believe if we approached life with the same open mind and heart we approach religion with, we would see the world is made of more things that are unseen than seen, and we would accept meditation and imagery as a part of our everyday lives.