3 Life-Changing Reasons Why You Should Meditate

Are you wondering why you should meditate? Before you read the answer, I want you to pause for a moment and ask yourself something else first:

Do I enjoy what I’m doing?

Have I achieved my biggest goal in life?

Am I happy?

Six years ago, my answer to all these questions was, “No.”

At that time, I was stressed and overworked. I was living on autopilot, chasing some vague notion of “happiness” based on external material things.

But the finish line kept moving farther and farther away the more progress I made to reach it.

At some point, I felt utterly frustrated and empty inside. To top it off, my body started to fail me. I had constant back pains and headaches from working at the computer all day long. It got to the point where I would never leave home without taking pain medication.

One day, I woke up and thought to myself, “If I feel this bad now, what will happen to me in five or ten years? I need to do something about this.”

My friend suggested that I try yoga as a supplement for my treatment. I decided to give it a try, and to my surprise, it was amazing for my body and health.

But something else happened during that time. At the end of each class, we practiced Shavasana. Our teacher would instruct us to slowly scan each part of the body to release tension in the muscles.

During this body scan, I noticed that I was completely present. I wasn’t thinking about my problems, what I had to do, what I should have done, and all the other stuff in my head. I shared this with the group, and they said that I should try meditation.

And I did.

Since then, meditation has become more than just a means to stress relief. It became a spiritual practice that made me a better and stronger person than I was before. If you’re not sure why you should meditate, I will share three life-changing reasons in this post.

Meditation Changes Your Relationship with Yourself

One of the incredible ways meditation can affect your life is how it changes your relationship with yourself.

As we meditate, our awareness grows, and we start to see specific patterns in our thinking and behavior.

It becomes clear that sometimes we unconsciously create unhappiness because of our programming and past trauma.

For example, I noticed that I always found myself in the company of people who would trigger my worst insecurities and fears.

There was something in me that wanted to be miserable and unhappy. And all it took to end that pattern is noticing it and a simple decision to stop creating suffering for myself.

I became kinder to myself and more forgiving. I saw all the flaws I had, but at the same time, I was aware of the ego in me, it was not who I really was.

Meditation Changes Your Relationship with Other People

Another transformation that happens to you is how you change your relationship with other people.

When you become aware of your own ego and patterns, it becomes easy for you to see the ego and patterns in other people.

But it doesn’t end there. You also gain the ability to see beyond the ego. You see a glimpse of their true self that is devoid of all the programming and unconscious behavior.

So even if someone is causing trouble and making life harder for you, you don’t automatically label them as “bad.” You respond to the person, not react to their unconsciousness.

You might take action to protect yourself, but that action will not come from negativity and anger. You will take the right action to resolve the conflict in the best way possible for everyone.

Meditation Changes Your Relationship with the World Around You

The third way meditation changes your life is how you see the world and yourself in it.

When we live unconsciously, completely identified with the ego and its thinking patterns, we tend to see ourselves as separate.

We are only interested in our own wellbeing and perceive everything outside as an “obstacle” that we need to overcome.

Meditation allows us to see through this delusion of separateness. We start to realize that we are an intrinsic part of the interconnectedness of all things in this universe.

At some point in your practice, the tendency to label events and people as “good” and “bad” starts to fall away.

We stop blaming circumstances and face every challenge from a place of inner stillness and presence.