Both Meditation and NLP can have profound effects on your life. May you wish to incorporate meditation as part of your lifestyle or learn NLP techniques because of some of the benefits you have heard of or experienced? Maybe you are conversant with one or both practices and would like to have a better understanding to make your practice more effective.
- What is the source of these techniques?
- What are the benefits?
- What is the end goal?
We seek to gain some clarity on the above questions and develop your skills further to be happier and improve your quality of life with Meditation and NLP.
Meditation and NLP
1. Source of Knowledge: Meditation and NLP
Mediation practices have primarily originated in the spiritual practices of most religions of the world. Whether it is Vedantic or Vipassana meditation, a meditation on the form or formless, breath awareness, or other various variants. Some have deep cultural roots and some of our modern variants are created by various spiritual Gurus and modern teachers.
There are many apps that can be run from your phone or computer. You can easily try various meditations using these apps. We have a self-awareness exercise on the insight timer if you like to try it. You can find many more free exercises including many which are designed to help you sleep.
NLP or neuro-linguistics is a kind of toolbox derived from the best practices of successful practitioners of therapy and the modern understanding of how the human mind works. There are many individuals and organizations worldwide that run their own training programs and accredited courses.
2. Benefits of Practice: Meditation and NLP
Meditation and NLP both assist in personal growth on a holistic level. However, we focus on a want or challenge and find a way forward.
Mediation practices calm the mind, help reset the mind and discover a more peaceful mental state within. Having discovered this inner peace, one likes to go back to maintain this peaceful state all the time. Since daily worldly challenges test this inner peaceful state, even a seasoned practitioner needs to practice regularly to improve self-awareness and improve his inner state management skills.
Whatever the object of your meditation may be, self-awareness develops through passive observation of the object of meditation.
NLP techniques are targeted for specific challenges. Every individual goes through changes in mental state. Some of these states are unpleasant or unproductive. Many of these may be reoccurring patterns in our life due to our habits. Humans are a product of our habits. In response to a stimulus/cue, we tend to react /respond based on our conditioning.
The NLP techniques help us understand what we really want and help us create a subtle shift in our conditioning for the outcomes we really seek. The techniques are designed in such a way that state changes are induced to develop the insights needed for change to take place at the subtle level.
3. End Goal of Meditation and NLP
The end goal of mediation depends on the type of mediation you are doing. It can be for relaxation. It can for helping one focus better. These may be the desirable changes in the mental state that one seeks.
Many spiritual practices focus on value-based living. When combined with spiritual study and reflection, these practices can help a person stick to the values advocated by the practice.
Some practitioners may also have experiences that can not be easily explained. You may have heard or experienced psychic, transcendental, or such types of spiritual experiences.
The ultimate quest of a spiritual seeker may be to know the nature of Reality or understand “Who am I”. The knower of the Reality of existence is considered an enlightened being.
NLP starts with what we want and how we can achieve it. NLP focuses on the cues/stimuli that affect us. How to deal with these cues. Bring to the foreground our beliefs and values. Helps us take the small steps needed to update our conditioning to obtain better outcomes.
The end goal of NLP is personal development whereas the by-product of spiritual practice like meditation is personality development.
