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Where Change Begins
You’re reading this because you want to understand yourself better. You’re reading this because you want to change. All change begins with awareness.
You may want to eat healthier. You may want to start working out. You may want a different job.
But where do you begin?
You don’t change because you are distracted. You feel stuck because you don’t notice what goes on in your mind. You don’t understand why you need to change because you’re not paying attention to your desires and fears.
You don’t lack motivation. You lack understanding. You won’t have any other option but to change as soon as you become aware that you have to.
Awareness is where change begins—and we practice awareness through meditation.
Observing Yourself
Holly and I started Practical Personality because we want to use the understanding of our personality types and cognitive functions to build the life we desire. We want to see ourselves clearly and align our actions with our intentions.
Clear intentions and focused awareness are what we need to close the gap between the present and the future. With the cognitive functions running within, our mind is our most important tool for the task—and meditation is training for the mind.
Many meditation techniques focus on the breath because it’s a bridge to your mental and physical state. How you breathe is how feel. You cannot stop breathing entirely. It happens by itself.
But you can bring your awareness to it and affect its rhythm. When you change your breath, you influence your inner state. From a different state arise different actions.
Your cognitive functions work the same way.
I cannot stop being an ISTP. Ti, Se, Ni, and Fe will keep running all my life, all by itself. Saviour Ti will always dominate my mind and Demon Fe will always be my biggest void.
However, heightened attention makes me aware of the subtle push and pull of the functions. Like inhale and exhale. Am I disagreeing because Saviour Ti makes me think I should? Am I hesitating to ask for help because Demon Fe makes me feel afraid? Why am I actually doing what I’m doing?
Knowing your personality type can be a fast lane to these kinds of insights. If you’re able to pay attention. If you’re willing to accept the pain that comes with new understanding. If you’re determined to not get lost in the comfort of distraction.
I cannot end the constant push and pull of my functions. Just as much as I cannot stop breathing. But I can learn to push a bit less with Saviour Ti and pull and a bit more with Demon Fe.
This might just be enough to completely change my life. But better awareness is key and meditation is the way to awareness.
As you become aware of the movement of your breath, you gain insight into the movement of your mind and the activity of your cognitive functions.
What Actually Is Meditation?
Defining meditation is a bit tricky because there are multiple Sanskrit words with different meanings that usually get translated as meditation.
Meditation is a set of focusing methods or techniques. It is something you can do and there are heaps of different ways to do it.
With some methods, you practice one-pointedness of the mind, like focusing on a candle. With others, you don’t force the mind to do any specific thing. You simply follow and observe. Some methods are highly analytical, while others have the goal to quiet the mind and bring you into your body.
There is the right technique for everybody and every occasion. However, it might require some time and trial and error to find the right fit for you.
Meditation is also a set of mental states. It is something you can experience.
Essentially, it works like sleep (the state, not the OPS Animal). You cannot “do sleep.” You can only do other things, like going to bed at the right time, turning off the lights, etc. that make it more likely that you fall into the state of sleep.
You practice meditation techniques to prime your mind to slip into a state of meditation. These kinds of states are characterised by different levels of understanding of and non-attachment to the feelings and thoughts that arise in your mind.
Over time, experiencing states of meditation can have a deep impact on who you are, and it leads to profound change. At least, that’s the theory.
How does meditation work from a scientific point of view?
Meditation affects three different systems in the body: the endocrine system, the autonomic nervous system, and the central nervous system.
Essentially, meditation lowers the kind of long-term stress you want to avoid like the plague. It helps you find balance between your so-called fight or flight and rest and digest systems, and allows you to flexibly tap into whatever state you need at the moment.
Most importantly, it widens the gap between the stimuli coming from outside your body and inside your mind and your response to them. You create distance and become the observer of your thoughts and feelings. Instead of being jerked around by your emotions, you learn to put them into context and choose your response to them carefully.
Meditation solves none of your practical life problems directly. But it puts you in a calm state, makes you more adaptable to your environment, and allows you to consciously evaluate your thoughts and feelings.
In other words, meditation sets up your body and mind for tackling whatever challenge gets thrown at you and to create the life you want.
How to Start
In meditation, your mind must be empty. No thoughts allowed. If you’re thinking about anything at all, you’re doing it wrong.
That’s a meditation myth many people still believe, making it nearly impossible to stick with it long-term and reap the benefits. In fact, there are various kinds of meditation techniques to train your awareness in different ways. The key is finding the right meditation for you.
In his Guide to Meditation, Dr. K. teaches categorising mediation techniques along two spectrums:
From open awareness to one-pointed focus
From grounded in the physical present to highly analytical exercises
In open awareness practices, you don’t force the mind to a particular place or try to get rid of thoughts. You simply follow and observe the mind’s activities and become aware of your external or internal perceptions.
On the other end of the spectrum, focusing techniques aim to bring the mind to one particular place and keep it there. This might be feeling your breath in your nostrils as you inhale and exhale, or gazing at a candle flame for an extended period.
An ice bath can be regarded as a meditation technique that brings your awareness into your body in the present moment. All thoughts vanish as you suddenly feel the cold and shock.
But pondering a Koan or other kinds of riddles can also be considered a form of meditation. It’s essentially the opposite of having no thoughts. You mull over an open question until you gain a new insight.
Meditation is not this one straightforward thing. Meditation is colourful, varied, and weird. You’ll have some experimenting to do to find what’s right for you, your mind’s proclivities, and your goals.
I’d like to leave you with two methods to try out right now.
For something focus-based, check out alternate nostril breathing. You train your awareness to stay with your breath, and the right breathing rhythm lets you relax and find balance.
For an open awareness alternative, see if Zen meditation is a better fit for you. Learn to consciously observe your breath and your thoughts and see what you find out.
Start with meditating for 5 minutes every other day and slowly build up to 20 minutes of practice over four to eight weeks. Be patient and give it some time.
Awareness is key. It’s where all change begins.