Know how Yoga and meditation help deepen bonds, reduce stress – India TV

When life gets overwhelming, and relationships become complicated, meditation and yoga can be powerful tools for finding inner peace and connecting more deeply with others. Let’s explore how these ancient practices can help heal emotional wounds and strengthen our bonds with loved ones.

Understanding Emotional Healing Through Meditation

Meditation acts like a gentle friend who helps us look inside ourselves. When we sit quietly and focus on our breath, we create a safe space to face difficult emotions without running away from them. Instead of pushing away feelings of sadness, anger, or hurt, meditation teaches us to observe these emotions with kindness and understanding.

Think of it like cleaning out a cluttered room. As we meditate regularly, we begin to sort through our emotional baggage, making sense of past experiences and letting go of what no longer serves us. This process helps us feel lighter and more at peace with ourselves.

The Power of Yoga in Emotional Release

While meditation works with our mind, yoga works with both body and mind together. Our bodies often hold onto emotional stress – think of tight shoulders when we’re anxious or a heavy chest when we’re sad. Yoga poses (asanas) help release this stored tension, almost like wringing out a wet towel.

When we spoke to Himalayan Siddhaa Akshar, Author, Columnist, and Founder: of Akshar Yoga Kendraa, he said that as we move through different poses, we aren’t just stretching muscles – we’re also releasing trapped emotions. The physical movement combined with mindful breathing creates a powerful way to process and release feelings that we might have been holding onto for years.

Strengthening Relationships Through Practice

When we become more emotionally balanced through meditation and yoga, our relationships naturally improve. Here’s how:

Better Self-Understanding

By spending quiet time with ourselves, we become more aware of our feelings and needs. This self-awareness helps us communicate better with others and set healthier boundaries.

Increased Empathy

Regular meditation helps us become more patient and understanding. When we learn to be gentle with our struggles, we naturally become more compassionate toward others’ difficulties, too.

Present Moment Awareness

Both practices teach us to stay present instead of worrying about the past or future. This helps us truly listen and connect with loved ones rather than being lost in our thoughts during conversations.

Stress Reduction

When we’re less stressed, we’re less likely to snap at others or react negatively in challenging situations. This creates more peaceful and positive interactions with family and friends.

Bheej Dhyan (Seed Meditation)

Think of your mind like a garden. Just as plants need proper care to grow well, our thoughts and actions need proper nurturing to help us grow as people. Bheej Dhyan (or Seed Meditation) is a way to help us stop and think about what we’re doing in life. It’s like choosing which seeds to plant in our mental garden – we can use them to make positive changes in our lives, whether we want to start good habits or change how we behave.

Here’s what makes this meditation special: It looks at how we automatically react to things. For example, if someone asks you to quickly name something that starts with ‘A’, you might instantly say “apple” without thinking much. This is an automatic response. Similarly, we often automatically react to life’s situations – like getting angry or sad at certain things without thinking.

These automatic reactions can either help us or hold us back in life. Seed Meditation teaches us how to control and change these automatic responses, making them more helpful for our personal growth and success.

The main idea is to become more aware of our automatic reactions and learn to choose better responses instead of just reacting without thinking.

Formation

• Sit in any comfortable seated position such as Sukhasana, Ardha Padmasana, Padmasana, or Vajrasana.
• Keep your spine erect and gently close your eyes
• Hold Siddhamudra in your seated meditative pose
• Imagine and visualise two holes- one black and one white in front of you. 
• The Black Hole is a powerful force of suction which only takes from you, and the white hole radiates strong and dynamic positive energies. 
• The White Hole is powerful and contains energies equivalent to a billion suns.
• Begin with an Exhale and send out emotions such as pain, doubt, guilt, shame, trauma, anger, sorrow, envy, and negativity into the black hole that you have visualised
• There is a pause between the inhalation and the exhalation. This pause is a very important part of the process.
• In this pause, whenever you exhale, feel that you have emptied all these destructive emotions or thoughts into the black hole.
• Inhale and gather energy from the white hole. This energy will consist of new ways of thinking, new ideas, transformative habits or behaviour that contribute to your growth.
• When you inhale the powerful positive energies, these are like seeds that you are sowing into your mind. Use the pause after you Inhale to sow these seeds.
• You will feel a vibration after many rounds of inhale and exhale. Slow down your breathing at this point.
• You will visualise many wonderful things. 

Practice this for at least 100-200 times a day for 3-4 weeks to perfect this meditation technique. Once perfected, you can use it at times whenever you want and wherever you want.

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