Goals to Reach Internal Peace

~Through meditation I want to accomplish a greater foundation for my self confidence. I want to be capable in trusting my own knowledge. I want to be able to look in the mirror and see a future. I have been lost the last few months and I have a feeling as if meditation can lead me to my own inner peace. My goal for meditation is to simply find who I really am. What my strengths and weaknesses are and how I can get through life challenges. I want to become more objective towards my internal thoughts because that have created contradicting views towards my life. I have a screaming monster inside me that wants to break through my fake smile that portrays the image that I am happy. I want to find a way to let out what I have been holding inside me. I hope that meditation will be an answer in order to control my emotions and release the screaming monster.

~I hope meditation will bring peace into my rambunctious  lifestyle and relieve undesired stress. From everything happening at once it's hard to focus on one particular issue. I believe if I focus on one thing it can relieve some of my stress. From this I can learn how to control myself while in a chaotic situation.

~ I want to develop a more genuine appreciation for living in the now sense. My whole life I have dreaded on my mistakes in the past which creates anxiety for the future. I create a dishonest image about myself about how I will never be good enough based on my past. 

~ I hope meditation will bring a sense of knowing to open my eyes to the many blessings that God has given me. I don't want my life choices to depend on my depressing state of mind. I want to make decisions based of how it will effect my now leading into my future. Too often I focus more on the sad situations occurring in my life than looking for the good in everything. Adversity restricts me to move on with the happy aspects of my life and push love ones away that way I feel incapable to have a broken heart again. I want to learn how to remain positive through everything.

~ Most importantly I want to release my anxiety. It has effected my physical health to the point where I have been rushed to the hospital twice. I want to learn how to relax in any situation and imagine myself in a world without harm. 

Meditation Studies

Students and researchers at UCLA wanted to explore the brains of perplexing who had been meditating for years, in compared to those who had never meditated or have for only a short period of time. The researcher took MRI scans of 100 people. They were fascinated to find that those who had been meditating for years showed higher levels of gyrification. In their study they shared that the more years a person had been meditating, the faster their brains can process information. 

http://blog.ted.com/2013/01/11/4-scientific-studies-on-how-meditation-can-affect-your-heart-brain-and-creativity/ 

One way of mindfulness  was used in many of the research studies is called mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). It's typically expanded through eight sessions. Meditation is a way to focus on the the brain to make it possible to stay in the moment. In order to receive a true mediation experience you have to let go of the past as well as anxieties about the future. This study proves through research that evaluated the effectiveness of meditation manages a variety of medical conditions.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/01/07/260470831/mindfulness-meditation-can-help-relieve-anxiety-and-depression

       Stress  can change your emotions to become more anxious, tense and worried meditation  can restore your calm and inner peace. Meditation originally was meant to help deepen understanding of the sacred and mystical forces of life. These days, meditation is commonly used for relaxation and stress reduction. 
       During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process results in enhanced physical and emotional well-being.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/meditation/art-20045858

Certain types of meditation may provide some modest relief from anxiety, depression and pain, a new study found. 

Many people use meditation to ease stress and promote general health. The purpose of the report was to examine the accumulated evidence to help doctors determine how best to counsel patients on the possible benefits and limitations of meditation, said Madhav Goyal, assistant professor of general internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the report's lead researcher.

In each of the underlying studies, participants received professional instruction in one of two types of meditation: mantra meditation or mindfulness meditation. A popular form of mantra meditation is transcendental meditation, which involves repetition of a phrase "in such a way that it transcends one to an effortless state where focused attention is absent," the study said. By contrast, mindfulness meditation emphasizes training in "present-focused awareness," or mindfulness. The study noted that the distinctions between the meditation types aren't always clear.

Researchers found that only mindfulness meditation produced some benefits. For example, the improvement in patients with mild symptoms of depression was similar in magnitude to what might be expected from the use of an antidepressant, the study said. It also noted that there were few mantra-meditation studies to include in the JAMA review, which could help account for the lack of evidence of benefits from this type of meditation.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304887104579304691799314468