Fourteenth Meditation

Today in my psych class we did something very interesting. We went downstairs to the first floor and did yoga in the weight room!

We all went downstairs to the weight room where Mrs. Gabriellie was waiting for us and she led us to the yoga room in the back. We each pulled out a yoga mat, took off our shoes and sat down facing her. The yoga room was dimly lit, setting a calm and relaxing mood in the room. The first thing we did as a class was lie flat on our backs and breathe in with our nose and back out through the nose. The sensation made me feel so relaxed that i closed my eyes and felt my "third eye" tensing for focus. It was incredible how fast I was able to go into the relaxed state of mind. We started to do basic yoga poses like the child's pose which really stretched out my back muscles and my arms. We later moved on to simpler stretches with keeping the shoulder blades down to the floor and moving our knees to the side of our body. We also did downward dog, the sun salutation and the crow which only some people were able to do because of it being hard to balance with that pose. We had to use our upper body strength and balance ourselves while holding our legs in mid air in a bent position. I was happy when I was able to do it.

While we were doing our poses, Mrs. Gabriellie told us repeatedly to concentrate on our breathing as we go through each pose to keep the oxygen flowing to our tired muscles. This helped us stretch a little bit further each time. As I was breathing, I kept thinking about going through the motions and feeling the stretch from my fingers to my toes. The feeling was absolutely amazing because I was staying mindful about my actions and truly appreciating everything that my body was going through, pain, relaxation and the keeping the oxygen flowing through my blood. 

While we were posing and breathing, Mrs. gabriellie also played some soft music to get us all in the mindset of relaxation and help us retain our focus throughout the workout. I could feel some parts of my body getting tense and shaking as the workout went on, but after a little bit I was able to find my balance. At the end of this workout, my body felt loose and I felt incredible. I was able to focus in math class and retain a lot more energy and feel a lot less stressed out. I would love to make yoga a part of my life.
Overall this experience for me made me think of yoga and mindfulness at a much deeper level and make me think about the levels I must go through with the 8 limbs of yoga to truly achieve a state of bliss.

Thirteenth Meditation

*This meditation occurred in the morning*

This week was stressful. Despite my planning I still feel anxious about what is going to happen in the next few days such as the paper for this assignment being due and my bio test and other things that are driving me crazy. Stress just hurts me so much and this week has just been painful for me. 

I went to the gods room after I took a shower and sat in the lotus position. It was 7:25 and I had to be down for dinner soon so I wanted to relax and take a step back from everything that has been going on in the past few days. I wanted to really focus on myself and how I was reacting to these things going on around me. I started to reflect on my actions and just concentrate on my breathing. The scent of the burning incense sticks was getting inside my nostrils and making me feel at ease. I felt comfort when I was smelling the incense, it made me feel a part of the room. When I was breathing, it started to ease the tension but I knew there was something more I had to do with myself. I really started to think about it and realized there was no balance in my mind. No peace of mind because of the constant work I have to do all the time.

With that thought in mind, I ignored all of the negative thoughts and focused on what I could feel right now during the meditation. It was sadness. The drive for success and competition has made me completely agitated and a stickler about my work. Whenever I relax, I always kick myself because I could be using that time to really work but I can't work when my mind is being torn in two places. I meditated for about 14 minutes and just sitting there really helped me clear my conscious and let me think about what I have to do next. 

Once I got my thoughts together I was truly able to go about my day without any trouble in my head at all. All I needed was some time for myself.

Twelfth Meditation

Over time, this meditation process has made a dramatic impact on my levels on focus and I'm incredibly thankful for that. This meditation was not as special as the previous one but it did help stop my morning panic attack.


I woke up at 5:30 with a barrage of thoughts attacking my head at once. (ACT class at 5, Extended Essay research question/meeting after school, study for bio exam, make up math quiz during 5th hour, pre-gridding on Tuesday, bio exam on Tuesday, Interactive Oral Presentation in english on Wednesday or Thursday). So many of thoughts just attacked my head all at once and forced me awake. It was absolutely unpleasant. I could feel my anxiety rising and could feel myself becoming depressed at these thoughts. However, I cannot let those stop me from having a good day today. It was 5:54 and I don't normally get up to do things until 6:15 so I decided to meditate. I put the alarm on my phone to 6:15, lied back down in my bed in a supine position and closed my eyes.

I let my thoughts run wild for a moment just so I can properly survey the situation. I've never actually woken up to do meditation because I normally just try to enjoy as much sleep as I can so the thoughts that I have to plan out throughout my day don't interfere with my sleep cycle. I could feel pressure on the middle of my forehead, having that there tells me that I am focusing on what is in front of me right now. I organized all of my thoughts to specific days in my head while I meditate and concentrated on my breathing. After while I could feel my thoughts and my anxiety starting to calm down and I could clearly focus. Today for my Extended Essay meeting, my ACT class, my make up math quiz and studying intensely for my bio exam. Tuesday I can tackle the pre-gridding and I will stay after school to work on my Interactive Oral with my group members to come up with an outline for the presentation. And for Wednesday, focus on the Oral Presentation and make sure that my group and I are throughly prepared for this.

I released myself from meditation around 6:14 and opened up my computer to type in my blog, putting all the negative energy where it needs to be. Just typing this out right now is actually easing my stress a lot because I am now planning everything out rationally and logically and taking all of my worried energy and turning it into positive energy that I need to get through my day. Before I started this meditation project I would always wake up at 3 in the morning and start panicking about either a test coming up or just something I think is in my head to scare me when it's actually nothing. I was also just thinking about the video we saw in psych class about how stress is a killer. I've started to truly understand why now because for a long time I've had a strong type A personality and it's affected my relationships with others and how I function throughout the day, causing me to have high stress levels and have this emaciated look on my face. With the meditation I've decreased most of that and continue to do so every day. So now the type A feelings I have are starting to become more relaxed so I can focus better in the long run. I'm happy now because my thoughts now don't seem as bad as I made them out to be about a half an hour ago. Meditation continues to amaze me.

Eleventh meditation

This meditation occurred yesterday but I could not find the time to post it.

I was getting ready to go take the ACT test at Adlai E. Stevenson high school around 7:30. I was starting to get really nervous because I know I didn't prepare for it as well as I wanted to and that led me to think negative thoughts about myself. On the car ride to the school I closed my eyes and began to meditate. Feeling the anxiety build up throughout my body, I started to take note of how it was affecting me. My hands were shaky and clammy, my breathing was going really fast and my heart beat sped up a lot. It felt really unhealthy for me. I started to do the 7/11 breathing again, breathing in for 7 and out for 11. It helped when I went into the school and waited to look for my room to take the test.

I saw some familiar faces and I felt at ease when people were saying they were nervous too, obviously I won't be the only one who is nervous but it's good to have that comfort of having someone scared with you and going at the test together. Even though I felt calm in my mind, I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my body and making my hands shake worse. As soon as I got into the testing room, there were about 10-15 other juniors in there that I didn't know so that also built up the anxiety in the room. I sat down in my desk and started to meditate again to control the adrenaline building up in my body. I meditated and focused solely on my breathing and easing the overall shakiness in my body.

As soon as I got the test I started to crack down on it. The answers were starting to come to me, I retained my focus throughout the test and being mindful of the time even thought I had to make a few guesses. My concentration was only on the test and nothing else, everything else around me melted away and the adrenaline helped me scan the information better and make logical guesses on what what the correct answer. The english, math, and reading section of the test was where I spent most of my energy on and once I got to science I died down a little bit. After the multiple choice, It felt like my brain just jogged 3 warm up miles. I felt incredibly relaxed and turned my clear and concise focus towards the writing section. My deep inner thoughts expressing my opinion for the topic came out clearer than ever before when writing. Overall, I was surprised how well my thoughts flowed and how well I could retain that concentration for a long period of time. Meditation really does help on standardized tests. :)

Tenth Meditation

I did this meditation Thursday night before I went to sleep but I'm blogging it here now. It was about 10:00 and I was lying supine in my bed, covered in blankets. I put some music in my ears, the same song that I listened to while meditating on Wednesday came up. It was pitch black in my room and I was focusing on the breathing with the dim light of my Ipod next to me. I was feeling the same peaceful and relaxing sensation as I did on Wednesday but this time it was different. It didn't seem as special as it did when I was looking outside at the sunset. I wasn't really filled with much warmth, only a sense of silence.

I had thoughts buzzing through my mind but I let them through just so I can organize them and get a clear look at them. Just concentrating on present moment was what strengthened my mind in the past few days and didn't make me worry or feel anxious about anything. There are definitely noticeable changes. I've been concentrating more in class and thinking outside the box and prioritizing a lot better than I used to, I also have been thinking about what is good for me in the future when forming my schedule for school and schedule for my life. I've also been keeping my mind in the right place. Not letting my anxieties for the future and guilt from the past stop me from achieving what I need to do now. Lately everything has been very manageable for me overall and I plan to keep it that way. Even after I'm done with this school project.

Ninth Meditation

It was 4:50 and I had decided to take a nap before I went back to school to help out for the freshmen orientation but then I couldn't fall asleep. I was too anxious and tight in my body for some reason. So I turned on the computer on my desk to YouTube and started to look for some more meditation music. It was 5:00 so I said I'll just relax for 15 minutes. My desk where I usually do homework on was right by the window and the sunset caught my eye, it was a brilliant, golden yellow ball of energy surrounded by gold outlined clouds, shining on the freshly fallen snow. In my eyes it was one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen in the winter in a long time.
I took a few minutes to bask in the moment. After that I put my feet on my desk, leaned back, and closed my eyes with my headphones in listening to the soft music. The way the music was made me feel a tinge of sorrow but with a deep sense of security and benevolence. I could feel myself being drawn in to the music more deeper than ever before. In the music there were sounds of ocean waves hitting the sand and loud squawks of the seagulls to enhance the beach effect. The key changes made me think of the sunset's glow that was now imprinted in my mind. I was in deep solitude with my mind. I saw myself in a beach with no one else around, just me basking in my own thoughts.
After about 9 minutes I shut off the music and meditated without the sound so I could pay attention to my body. My body felt very lax and less tense because at that moment I was focusing on the present moment and nothing more. The only thing that mattered to me at that moment was finding peace in my brain and in my heart despite the anxieties that are coming up such as the ACT this saturday and many more problems with schoolwork and the IB program that I need to catch up on. All of those faded about 10 minutes in the meditation. My heartbeat and breathing became really steady and I could maintain a good flow for a long time.
After 15 minutes my dog started to bark at some people outside. I was very frustrated because I was really into the meditation and knew that this was a beautiful moment. My parents were home and that meant they were going to start talking about their day and asking me questions like all good parents do so I stopped the meditation. My mom told me that the car that my dad and her were driving in got stuck in the driveway again due to the ice packed on the driveway. She then told me to look outside and I saw two men helping my dad get the car unstuck by shoveling the ice. My mom told me that they were just walking by and just stopped to help. Its amazing how kind some human beings can be to each other, just seeing that filled up my heart with warmness and gratitude that there are people out there to help. As I started to type up this blog I was looking at the sun, the sun has set lower and the golden yellow has transformed into a warm, hearty red with a tint of purple. As I finish this sentence and look outside, I see the true beauty of nature from the red light the sun gives off and the light blue clouds that hang in the baby blue sky. It was a truly beautiful moment.

Eighth Meditation

This meditation was something that I would consider reflective and eye opening rather than trying to find relaxation. I was sitting in the gods room after I took a shower and sat in front of the portraits of the gods cross legged. I sat quietly and took in the feelings in the room and the feelings in myself.

As I sat in the room and meditate, I started to go deep within my thoughts and got lost in trying to understand them. My heart rate got really fast and I started to think about my grandfather on my mom's side, her father. Suddenly I just couldn't focus anymore. My thoughts were just stuck on that one man and the pain that my mom went through when he died. The emotions overcame me so much that tears started to sting my eyes. I didn't understand why that thought came to me but it made me think about what kind of person he was and how he left his impact on his family. I realized that I wanted to make a good impact on my family and the ones I really care about in my life and this meditation helped me be mindful of that. The meditation was short, only 8 minutes, but I learned something very important today from it. I have to be the one who has to treat his friends and family with love and respect and not treat them for granted just because they will always be there for me.

More meditation music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrx1vyvtRLY


Here's what I used today :)

Seventh Meditation

Being sick is really rough, especially when your nose is clogged up with snot and you have aches and pains and just can't focus on anything in front of you. I've been meaning to post more meditation blogs but sickness has been getting the best of me for the past few days. So today I wanted to kick off this sickness and start meditating again.

I sat in my sisters room this time to meditate because her room is very quiet and its not too cold or too hot and her bed is very comfortable. I usually will go in there to work on homework because the desk in her room is really nice and has a lot of space. I slept in this room the night before because I was freezing and got a fever in my other room so this room helped me. It's good that she is away to college too otherwise I would've been yelled at and kicked out haha. Anyways, I knew I would have trouble breathing through my nose so I concentrated on my breathing through my mouth. I sat up in my sister's bed with my legs spread out in front of me and I propped my back against my few pillows because my back had been very sore today and yesterday. My entire body felt like it was aching when I closed my eyes to meditate. I started to feel really sad before I meditated, it was like a feeling of loneliness and pain just echoing in my mind, telling me that I've wasted time being sick and at that moment I started to feel a little worthless and miserable.

I fought that feeling with a new meditation music video and I just let all my problems melt away. I just started to accept the problems I could fix and the ones I couldn't fix in my life and became more calm. The music I was listening to had sounds of a pond and looking at it before I closed my eyes I saw fish swimming around and lush green plants with a statue of a seahorse. That made me feel incredibly peaceful. Throughout the day I was having a very fast heartbeat but this helped me calm down and focus on what was in front of me and that was the music and my breathing. The melancholic feelings melted away and I started to feel at peace with myself. I breathed in and breathed out and started to feel one with the pond and the music. There was this throbbing sensation in the back of my head but it didn't disrupt my concentration.

This Meditation lasted only 10 minutes because I started to cough uncontrollably again. I'm glad I was able to get some meditation in to ease the misery I was feeling earlier. I looked into how sickness is caused spiritually and found that sometimes the body experiences disharmony from what it is used to feeling and when it feels something new that changes the way you act and live, your body starts to change and you get sick.  I'm planning to meditate 2 more times today so I can really try to fight this sickness and overcome the misery that comes with it.

About Meditation in Hinduism

http://www.project-meditation.org/a_mt2/hindu_meditation.html


Here is a little bit of knowledge about Meditation in Hinduism :)

Sixth Meditation

I felt very anxious and sick so I thought this meditation would help me calm my mind and obliterate all negative thought. After a nice hot shower in the morning following my previous meditation, I sat in the little gods room I have next to my room and wore traditional clothes to get into the meditation process. In hinduism, we have to wear a traditional Lungi which a garment one wears around their waist. It was commonly worn by most indian men and boys when performing religious ceremonies and can be worn for sleep.

I wore one lungi around my waist and one on my back. I  sat down in front of the portraits of the hindu gods and began to meditate. Breathing in and out at a slow and relaxed pace. Almost instantly I felt myself slipping into it and started my journey of a new discovery.  Unfortunately, about 14 minutes into the meditation, my throat began to scratch and feel hot. I ignored that feeling. The sensation kept persisting in my throat for about 5 minutes so I cleared my throat. I lost concentration after that and proceeded to start over. I started over but things were not the same, my nose started to run and clog up as I was breathing in and the irritation in my throat became too big of a problem. I started to cough violently and choke. This meditation session was over.

I realized I need to be in a better state of mind and try to get rid of the sickness as much as I can before I continue. There are a lot of reasons why a cold can occur, however I am curious as what the causing of sickness is in a spiritual aspect. Hopefully next time I won't struggle as bad.

*Note I actually meant to send this immediately after I posted my fifth meditation but it went under drafts instead. My mistake.

Fifth Meditation

For this Meditation, I chose to lie down in my bed and keep myself in complete darkness with no sound to see how it would effect my thoughts. When I was younger I used to be very afraid of the dark because of what might be lurking in the shadows. I realize now its just my thoughts creating these dark images because of terrifying images I've seen of ghosts and monsters. As I sat in the darkness, I let my thoughts start to surface and let them flow, a little while later I began to feel my heartbeat moving very slowly and relaxed. The darkness felt incredibly peaceful to me. I lied down in that position breathing in for 7 and out for 11, only concentrating on the sounds around me such as the faint songs of the movies playing downstairs and the faint voices of my parents talking.

I stayed in this position just breathing in and out for a half an hour even though I was only able to concentrate for 20 minutes. After that it was 11 and I feel asleep almost immediately. In my dreams, I experienced something completely new and it involved my sense of taste. I was in the dark and I could feel myself eating apples. Small pieces of freshly cut, crisp apples as if they were picked from a tree. I could feel the crunchiness in my mouth and the juices bursting with flavor engulfing my tongue with a fresh, cooling sensation that reminds me of a quiet summer afternoon. After the apples were finished, I began munching on something different. It was more salty and it had a distinct buttery taste to it, it was popcorn! I couldn't believe what I was tasting at that moment but I kept calm and just enjoyed the moment because I realized I may never experience something like this again for a long time.

The saltiness and warm buttery flavor of the popcorn really mad me feel at ease, when I was little I used to obsess about getting popcorn for every movie I watched, at home or at the movie theater. Just having that feeling in my dreams brought me back to my childhood. As I woke up, my throat felt dry and my nose was runny. I knew right away I was sick. It was very sad because all of those sensations that came from eating the apples and popcorn and feeling the flavor of every bite was all an illusion created by my dreams. I know I made some progress with my meditation and I hope I can go even deeper next time to experience something beyond my imagination.

Overview of my meditation progress so far

This meditation experience so far has been going fairly well for me. I am starting to realize what effect it is having on myself and the people around me. For myself, I am starting to notice a decrease in anxiety. Almost every morning I wake up and start to feel this hot bubble of anxiety slowly start to fill up in my chest that is worried about what will happen in the day. "Will something happen to me during class that will throw me off? Am I prepared for the test coming up tomorrow? What about the ACTs next weekend?? I haven't prepared for it well at all!" Small thoughts like these can become a bing problem throughout my day as I isolate myself to sort out these annoying thoughts and calm myself down and can effect my relationships with other people to the point where I have to act fake to let them know I'm not scared.

As the days go on as I meditate at night, I see that I am becoming more mindful of what is around me and what I am experiencing. Like on Thursday, I was able to enjoy my lunch more than usual. The hot peppers in my sandwich had a satisfying crunch which released the juices on my tongue and the warm toasted bread complimented that by absorbing the meats flavor and pepper juices. My corn chips (yes Mr. Russell it was me with the corn chip breath) felt more crunchy and salty in my mouth, almost like I my taste buds were hyper sensitive in that moment. As I looked around at the other students during lunch, I could see that they were either looking at their phones, maintaining a staring contest with nothing in front of them, or yapping away with their friends. I took a moment to survey the room and felt quite different; more intrigued with what everyone was doing at that moment. After school, a friend of mine noticed that I seemed more quite and "sad" than usual and people around her were agreeing to it. This is what bothers me the most. When people assume I am upset or angry at something just because I have a very relaxed face but they don't know that. They are used to me acting goofy and spontaneous to make them smile and think "you're so silly." I didn't feel like I had to do that at all today. In fact, I felt more happy than normal with even the smallest moments and even during the most irritating ones.


As I went home, my focus was solely on working on my biology lab and ACT and nothing got in the way of that and I could feel myself losing myself in what I am working on and experiencing every click the keyboard makes and the small feelings of frustration when the graphs wouldn't turn out right. It felt very good to me that I felt like I was in control of the moment and I could stop being frustrated at things not going my way because in reality I am in control of what I do now, so it has some effect on the future.

Fourth Meditation

This Meditation last night was different. I turned off all the lights in my room and set my computer away from my bed so the only light I received would be faintly from that. I turned on the music again to get me in the mode. After that, I lied down in my bed and I closed my eyes and did the 7/11 breathing, breathing in for 7 and out for 11. As I was breathing, I could feel my back getting less tense and my neck relaxing. I was controlling the pain I feel in my body.

As I kept breathing, I could feel myself almost sinking in my own bed, like deflating myself more and more as I kept breathing out. It felt really nice because I was able to get a good breath and relax almost instantly. This feeling was really different because almost instantly I was able to relax and just let my mind stay in the moment without any kind of distractions at all.

I went on with this for about 17 minutes because I was starting to fall asleep and there  was too much noise going on outside in the hallway with my parents talking. I shut off the computer and went to bed shortly after. As I woke up I felt more calm but now I feel a little sickly. Probably from the cold weather we are having.

Third Meditation

In this Meditation last night, I was sitting lying down across my bed with the music from the youtube video I posted playing at low volume. I focused only on the light sounds and the dim lighting in my room as it provided a calm soothing environment for me to meditate in. I was in some comfy pajamas so this comfort pushed me deeper into the meditative state. I also tried the 7/11 breathing from Jordan's blog to help with the anxiety I was feeling late that night.

As I slipped deeper into it, my mind went blank. There was no distraction around me, no imagery, just blissful silence. I had to catch myself from falling asleep once or twice but overall the experience was very different and satisfying. I didn't even realize that the music I was playing stopped halfway through on its own. The coincidence helped me focus more at that moment.

When I stopped I felt even more relaxed and a little more drowsy so I went to bed shortly after. When I awoke this morning, I felt focused, alert, and controlled. There was no morning anxiety or any distractions. Just blissful silence.

Meditation music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suW_Fhv9wPU


This video is what I used to meditate last night :)

Second Meditation

It was about 9:15 PM last night and I was trying to work on my IB HL Biology homework but that didn't turn out so well because I started to get distracted internally and had some technology errors with my computer so I was unable to type anything up. As I started to become more frustrated, I realized I wasn't going to get anymore work done at this rate so I went to youtube and put on some soft meditation music. Once I did that, I crawled into my bed and lied down on my back with my hands on my stomach and my legs crossed. I began to deeply inhale and slowly exhale.

Throughout the meditation, I was focusing on the music and my breathing and I fell into a deeper meditative state faster than when I was meditating the first time. Slowly the music started to dissolve around me and I was able to create more imagery with my mind. I saw grass, very detailed patches of grass starting to change color from red to blue to green. it was very detailed and I got so surprised that I almost lost concentration. A few minutes later my dog was barking and my mom was calling me for something and I had to start all over. When I started over, it was a bit harder to remain concentrated but I was slowly falling asleep! I had the music in the background to snap me out of it and concentrate on my breathing.

While I meditated, the imagery changed again. I was in a small, square grassy field which was surrounded by trees in a warm summer afternoon. There was a light breeze in the air which I could see but could not feel. The music in the background corresponded with the elements in the imagery with soft notes expressing the calmness of the nature around me and the crescendo expressing the sun's rays coming down to highlight the grass. When I stopped the meditation it was 9:45 and I felt less frustrated, more focused, and more light with my emotions. shortly after meditation, I went to bed and had peaceful dreams and told myself that I would tackle my assignments tomorrow.

First Meditation

I sat in a very quiet room which contained portraits of the hindu gods and had a faint scent of burning incense sticks. With me was a computer and a youtube video of a woman doing a guided meditation for beginners which was about 30-32 minutes long. Before I started the meditation, I sat down in front of the computer cross legged on the floor with a straight posture and away from the lights. As I began the meditation, I tried cleared my thoughts of any internal distractions (anxiety, music in my head, deadlines) and external distractions (parents cooking downstairs and talking). I focused only on the voice of the woman and my breathing. As I slipped deeper and deeper into meditation I forgot to breathe in and out and I was focusing on the imagery around me.

There was this dark empty void with "Pieces" of my thoughts floating, very blurry but they were there floating. I came across this long strand of my thoughts and realized it was a song that had been stuck in my head all day. As I tried to concentrate away from it, it sucked me back in and then I lost all concentration completely. By then I was meditating for about 20 minutes. As I was trying to get back into focus, I had aches in my back and decided to lie down on my back. When I lied down, I felt very light in my head and very relaxed. I realized then I couldn't really continue with the meditation because I was becoming more aware of my surroundings and coming back down to earth.

So my limit right there was 21 minutes. It was interesting that I was able to see some of my thoughts and take a step back from my life and analyze what went on in my head. I probably won't have the same experience again the next time I meditate but I'll definitely have a lot more focus as I continue.

My Goals for meditation

The following is a list of goals I hope to accomplish during my two weeks of meditation:

• First, I would definitely like to reduce my stress. Every day at least once a day I start to feel very stressed out and drained of energy, accompanied with painful headaches, mood swings, and inability to focus on the task at hand. Hopefully through this I can learn to relax my nerves and retain a calm and focused state of mind while completing tasks that are front of me. This would also help me have more energy in the day so I can talk with others more without feeling the need to force myself to be social.

• I would also like to get rid of the sense that I have to be better than everyone in terms of academics and relieve some of the mental pressure in my head that causes me to have some irrational thoughts about success. This will hopefully allow me to reduce my anxiety I have to try to be the best and learn to accept the things I am good at and the things I'm not so good at and stop allowing me to feel perfectionist thoughts. This will also greatly reduce my exam stress and allow me to easily take in the information without being lost in thoughts.

• I want to also get rid of the aches and pains in my body such as the pain in my back and my neck along with the pounding headaches. Part of it has to do with my sleeping position and my posture when I sit but doing this meditation will greatly improve that and reduce the aches and pains significantly. In addition to that, I want to strengthen the muscles in my body, especially the neck and back area.

• I would also like to improve the awareness of my thoughts and how they impact me in my everyday life such as feelings of jealousy or worry and try to annihilate the negative thoughts completely when they surface in my mind. This would definitely allow me to have a more positive attitude with my family and friends and improve my relationships with them greatly.

• I would also like to understand what causes my distractions and having wandering thoughts. When I become distracted by a thought or a song, I lose concentration of what is going on around me and that creates a huge problem when I'm interacting with others and they automatically assume that I am upset or stressed out about something or when I'm doing a homework assignment.

• I would also like to become a more disciplined person from this. When I put my mind through this intense concentration and relaxation, I begin to see and understand what is happening in my thoughts. If I step back from those distracting thoughts, I can understand my flow and try to pick out what is really important and why I have certain feelings. This concentration will provide me with a stronger sense of discipline to control my own thoughts and feelings to a degree that will be manageable but not to the point when I become a robot.

• From this experience, I would like to understand how certain emotions come to be and how I can organize my thoughts so I may be able to prioritize things in my life more efficiently.

So overall from this experience, I hope to:

• Become more disciplined
• Ease pain in my body
• Reduce my stress
• Get rid of the perfection mentality
• Improve my awareness of my thoughts and emotions
• Become more prioritized and organize my thoughts better
• Better mental focus