Blogging Meditation

I’ve recently realized I have a new favourite form of meditation; Blogging. Not even just the act of blogging, but the ways it makes you organize your specialized knowledge, or even just writing a free-flow of what went on during the day. To be honest, I never thought I would love blogging so much or what it would do for my meditation practice.

I’ve been a very very part time writer in the past, but never took on any projects like a blog or book or even a short story really. It takes me days just to finish writing the lyrics of a song sometimes. But I’d always heard one of the reasons people love writing is because it causes you to develop your thought, and this really is true.

I’m a very abstract thinker, and often do not use words in my thinking process at all. I think in a lot of shapes and conceptual paradigms, which really works for me. When it’s matter of metaphysical orientation or even about deeper aspects of life, I can cover vast distances and make large leaps of consciousness in a very short time.

This style of thinking works wonderfully for me, but falls short when it comes time to explain something. I often find in order to explain one concept, I first have to delve into another concept to make a foundation for what I want to say. As you might imagine, this is often times futile unless I was to spend 15 to 20 minutes relating a life lesson to someone.

Writing helps mold your presentation style, and lets you focus on the important bits, while keeping it a coherent whole, as well as developing your thoughts along natural lines of their expression. Of course, you can do some free writing, or even flow of consciousness Kerouac style, which I think helps more of the imagery writing and building metaphors and analogies, which is also important, but a different aspect of writing.

I like Blogging because you’re forced(well not really, but I force myself) to try and organize these ideas into a tangible piece that someone else can then glean some benefit from. In this last month and a half, not only have I started meditating MORE than I was, I’m also looking deeper at my methods, and trying to understand what they are achieving. Not only this, I’m getting inspiration for new meditation methods everywhere, looking for fun new ways to introduce meditation into ordinary things people might be doing already.

Not to mention the fantastic blogosphere that exists now for support, communication and integration, I’m finding positive reinforcement around every corner, inspiring me to continue blogging, which is actually pushing me to delve deeper into meditation practices and learn more about how we can find this serene mindset in the midst of life.

Blogging literally makes you better at whatever you blog about, by virtue of completing the task. It’s like writing a paper for a subject in school, only you really have no limitations and are graded by peers and merit.

I remember having a love hate relationship with essay writing. I love delving into the topic, learning more and formulating a thesis, a direction to point the reader into a strong conclusion. It’s really like telling a story, and the reader can go through a lot of the same transformative processes an epic tale leads us through; have you ever read a nice hefty article about a topic, and felt so changed afterwards? It’s inexplicable really.

The parts I often hated about essays however, was the restricted nature of it, and the limitations that had to be adhered to. This takes almost all the fun out of it for a lot of people. Well that, and writing about a boring, dry subject you have no interest in.

I love Blogging for this reason. It’s all the best parts of essay writing with none of the limitations or stress of a bad grade WITH the added benefit of more than just a teacher(who might not even really care) reading your work and really giving you feedback outside of an academic mindset. This is an incredible aspect of support that cannot be found almost anywhere else with such honesty, conviction, and real, honest interest. If someone doesn’t want to read your blog, they won’t, and you don’t get graded down on it. They just move on to someone else’s blog, while people who ARE interested are happy to read your insights and contributions to the subject.

One of my favourite ways of learning about subjects now is through reading blogs. You can get some really great information from someone who’s ACTUALLY in the thick of it, and not writing for conflicting interests or a paycheck, but writing about it because they feel passionately about it, and have something to share!

This in itself is an incredible aspect of the modern blogosphere, but don’t let it stop there. JOIN IN! Be a part of this world wide revolution and GIVE THE WORLD YOUR KNOWLEDGE! Not only is it an incredibly satisfying feeling when your wonderful readers respond and tell you how much it helped them, it just makes you more knowledgeable and well-rounded about your subject, allowing you to connect with more people, which furthers your knowledge more, allowing even MORE connection.

There’s almost no reason to NOT start a blog, honestly. Everyone is an expert in some subject, that’s the truth. I might know plenty about meditation, but I wouldn’t know where to even start if I wanted to restore and have running a classic car. But I’m willing to bet there are thousands of wonderful blogs about the subject that I could find with a simple google search.

What are you really good at? What kinds of things do your friends and family already approach you about? Maybe you’re an amazing chef and you didn’t even really know it until just now? Start a blog, you’ll only become an even more incredible chef, it’s a fact. You can’t NOT get better.

Maybe you don’t think you have any other real skills except for writing? This is actually a fantastic skill to have, and might even put you a leg up on the Meditators and Chefs trying to get into blogging; Being able to weave words elegantly will make anyone want to read your work. You could start blogging for others with just a bit of study to get a grasp on the topic, or even just blog about writing or blogging in general.

Whatever your field, you can be sure there is a readership out there, and like-minded individuals that can benefit, and will graciously thank you for your hard work. So what are you waiting for? Take a deep breath… and register a blog already!