I co-wrote The 7 Steps of Calm and the 24 (8x3) Meditations that launched Calm, iTunes App of the Year 2017, with Cher Chevalier – my Spiritual Teacher – who brought me to God through meditation and disciplined living. Bless God. ​

 
From making us serene more and youthful to relieving chronic pain and bringing clarity to big business, is there anything meditation can’t make better? Here’s why you should be part of the global trend.

When your head’s spinning, it’s an act of sanity and kindness to stop. Rest. Refresh. Rebalance. This is what meditation does – on a profound scale.

We’re all doing well looking after our health, career, family and social life. Now we’re finally realising how important it is to also make space for cultivating calm and compassion. For nurturing our spirit. Because the best relationship, friendships, career, clothes and holidays in the world don’t have much meaning if we’re too busy stressing to appreciate them.

When your head’s spinning, it’s an act of sanity and kindness to stop. Rest. Refresh. Rebalance. This is what meditation does – on a profound scale.

We’re all doing well looking after our health, career, family and social life. Now we’re finally realising how important it is to also make space for cultivating calm and compassion. For nurturing our spirit. Because the best relationship, friendships, career, clothes and holidays in the world don’t have much meaning if we’re too busy stressing to appreciate them.

In learning to still the mind we’re able to tap into our inner peace, which – who knew?! – is always there, beyond the ‘noise’ or overthinking. The more we get in touch with that magic part of us, the more harmony, health and happiness can flow into our life. No wonder most meditators credit it with changing their lives.

Here are more reasons why meditation is the greatest gift you can give yourself – and the world.

It reveals the real you

From scientists to school kids, virtually everyone who meditates agrees it makes them a better person. Because it’s first and foremost an act of self-love. It is you saying to yourself: “I am worth taking really good care of.”

In time, your self-compassion effortlessly radiates to everyone around you. You become less reactive. Anger becomes distant. Laughter shows up more. Being patient stops being a frustrating effort and starts to feel deeply relaxing. The miracle-list goes on…

It will make your health shine

I sleep deeply every night without fail. I haven’t been to the doctors in years. And I can’t remember the last time I had a headache. Such blessings I credit to meditating every day for the last five years. And science is backing me up.

A growing body of research shows how meditation can help with everything from migraines to the menopause, addictions to asthma, even cancer. Part of the reason why is it elicits a deep relaxation in your biology, bringing you closer to your intuition and you see things more clearly.

You’ll feel and look younger

Frequently stilling your mind is does wonders for your mojo. The Journal of Behavioural Medicine reported that meditators have significantly higher levels of DHEA, a natural steroid hormone said to reduce stress, improve memory and control weight.

The International Journal of Neuroscience, meanwhile, also found that those who had meditated for five years or more were 12 years younger physiologically than their chronological age. (I last got IDed in my early 30s).

It heals you from the inside out

Meditation takes you inside yourself to a very private silence and stillness that feels like a profound rest and at the same time re-energising. It is a discipline – you have to practice regularly – that taps into the forever-peaceful, eternal part of you that’s totally untouched by emotions and anything that life throws at you. It makes you realise that – at your core – underneath all the thoughts, stress and striving, there’s an immoveable mountain of unconditional love.

First published in PLENISH magazine.

 © Maggie Richards 2015

I wrote a blog because I was inspired. I posted meditation tips, interspersed withenlightening experiences that helped me be more in harmony with life. If the understanding was helpful to me, chances are it would be to someone else.

It wasn’t a thing I did religiously. And I don’t recall why I stopped writing, though it’s likely to be not long after September 2010 when I was catapulted on the spiritual path and turned my life inside out.

Anyway, I stopped blogging. That channel of self-expression dried up. I changed my website platform and mislaid most of the content along the way. That would have been three years ago.

During that time, a memory has visited me – nudged me – now and again, gently tapping me on the shoulder, as if to say: “Don’t forget. There’s a gift here.”

About four years ago, the soft-spoken husband of a friend, both who lived in Marbella at the time – revealed that he read my blog. As did several of his non-native-English speaking friends. I was amazed.

We were walking down a central London street at the time, giddy with wine and the energy of old souls celebrating. His words – a mellifluous flow that touched my soul – are lost. But the essence stays with me, faithful to their source – the same source of me and you: “Please keep writing.”

I’ve wanted to. I’ve written some ideas down. But it’s not until today, a Supermoon, four days into my 39th year, seven month's after my father's sudden passing, that inspiration is saddled between my mental legs, heading in the direction of Creativity. And I’m grateful. It feels like a dormant part of me is waking up again, blinking in the morning sun.

Never ignore your little niggle, folks. Listen to it. Even if it takes years to act on it. Just keep listening. There’s gold in it. Otherwise it wouldn’t keep trying to get your attention.

I dedicate this post to you, G. Forgive me for the hiatus… I’ve tried several times to get in touch to wish you well. I hope these words find you: thank you for being a divine messenger.

I focused on all the positive things I’d achieved that day. It felt good. Like a stroke across my face rather than, of late, an insistent prodding in the heart and head.

This morning, at the kitchen table with my mother, 79, eight months a widow after 55 years of marriage, I found myself stroking her short fine, dark brown-with-whisps-of silver hair.

I was silent, stood beside her in her wooden chair, encouraging her to rest a little. Her habit is talk, do, then sleep. I’ve never really known her to relax. To be.

She’d trust for a few seconds, then the fear-words would come to fill the void. I responded with silence… She’d relax again. Receive. Be loved.

It’s only in recent years have we begun to be intimate like this. Last year was the first time I painted her nails for her. I don’t recall her ever doing mine.

I go to my room and leave her to potter. I’m visiting for a few days from London.

About an hour later I go back to the kitchen and she says something I’ve not heard her say before: “I’ve done three positive things this morning!”

“Great! What are they?” She describes them as I smile, inwardly marvelling at how in tune we are. This is magic.

At 12.30pm we get in the car and head to the train station for my return journey to London. Near the door to the platform now, and preparing to part, I sense a sweet, shared reluctance to go. Since dad died, especially, there are always tears when we say goodbye. It’s not easy.

“You look like a furry navy bear,” I say, noticing her fleece jacket. She laughs.

We hug again, her petite eight stones of fragile femininity resting against my pint-sized frame. I wish I was staying. That I could comfort her forever. Take away any bad feeling, just like she’s done all my life.

Up from the well of silence tears flow. We break apart, wipe our eyes and laugh at ourselves. There is so much love now we barely know what to do with ourselves.

Over the last decade, we’ve become friends. Real friends. Long come past the day in my wilful teenage years when she stopped the car (alarm bells!) on the way back from church and said if my behaviour didn’t change she’d ask me to leave home. It's been work. We have a habit of irritating one another with our speech! She moans that I mumble. I complain that she doesn't make sense and is negative. We've 'driven each other mad' many times!

Yet we're both honest; compelled by an inward longing to be closer. To polish off the dirt from this once-in a lifetime-only mother-daughter bond. It is very you-can't-put-words-on-it kinship. She ferried my entry back into the world. Has devoted almost half her life to me. And has forgiven me for everything, as I have her. Whatever ever hurt we've caused one another in the past was never intended. We knew not what we did.

I’m crying-wailing again as I write this. Heart-achingly grateful to know such love, and for the indescribable BLESSING of being at peace with one another.

If God takes her tomorrow, it will be fine. There is nothing left to say, explain, confess. There is just kindness and love. Silence and laughter.

Thank you.

PS. Go call your mother and tell her you love her.