But First… Let’s Recap: What is Mindful Meditation?
Being mindful is to be fully present in the moment; that means to be fully aware of your external environment and how it’s affecting you. Practicing mindfulness also allows you the liberty to explore your feelings without judgment or self-deprecation. When we are mindful during our meditation practices, we’re more fully aware of the position of our bodies, breathing patterns, thoughts, and emotions. Meditation is a collective of both sensory and physical experiences. During mindful meditation, the goal is to promote a more positive sense of self, enhance your current perspective, and nurture a stronger sense of awareness; all of which are very possible. With the addition of cannabis into your mindful meditation practices, you can potentially alleviate your state of consciousness which can also impact your self-awareness. Some cannabinoids have shown great success at easing bodily discomforts and promoting an overall sense of relaxation.
Mindful Meditation and Cannabis: How they Cohabitate
Under the guise of appropriate dosage, cannabis has the potential to relax the body and calm a frantically thoughtful mind – the ideal conditions for meditation! These conditions can be especially challenging to achieve. In part 3 of Mindful Meditation and Cannabis, we’ll review the cannabinoids that are known for their mildly sedative/relaxing properties! Everyone metabolizes cannabis differently; this creates an almost unlimited potential for elevating your meditative experience. Combining cannabis’ unique influence with your own mindful practices, can achieve deeper senses of relaxation, insight, and even spiritual enlightenment!
Cannabis and Meditation Culturally:
Ancient civilizations have utilized marijuana for millennia – including in their meditative practices. There are walls along the Indian subcontinent depicted with meditative drawings! Pretty cool, huh?
The Vedas, sacred Hindu texts, are among the first written records of meditation dating back to 1,500 BC. There is a secular form of meditation called Vedic Meditation that is derived from the Vedas, themselves! Vedic teachings tell us that the divine self is within the heart and the only way to recognize said divinity is through reallocating your energy inward through a process called complentative mediation! This process is very similar to mindful meditation in that it focuses on critical thinking and self-reflection.
In Buddhist traditions, meditative techniques are utilized to promote clarity, emotional positivity, and allow for the person to ascertain a more rational view of the world, and of how things actually are. Even though there are an assortment of meditative practices that are all geared toward varying things, the core principle is to cultivate a peaceful balance in your mind to be content with your being.
P3: Best Strains to Strengthen Your Brain
In pt 3 of this mirco-blog series, we’re going to explore various strains that can potentially enhance your meditative experience! A lot of users are aware of the hybrid, indica, and sativa strains. Indica is known for having sedative effects while Sativa can promote euphoria, or an increase in focus. A hybrid blend can take a little of both and produce more mild effects of either! There isn’t a guarantee that an indica will submit you into total relaxation, or that a Sativa will rattle and rake the mind into total euphoria – terpene profiles plan a big factor in their effects, too! As do our bodies’ endocannabinoid system responses.
We’re taking a deeper dive into all of these components so that if you choose to incorporate cannabis into your mindful meditation practices, you’ve got a solid baseline of where to begin!
