The 4 Main Types Of Meditation Styles Explained | Tom Cronin

Hey, welcome back. It's Tom here again. Thank you for joining us. It's wonderful to be sharing this space with you again. Now, in the first video, you heard what is probably the biggest objection that I've come across with most people when they say to me that they've tried meditation, they're convinced that they just can't do it or it doesn't seem to work for them. There's this idea that meditation has to involve sitting in lotus position with your hands in mudra, your eyes closed and not having a thought. Well, the one thing I want to say is that everyone can meditate, including you. There's no one that can't meditate. It simply depends on what type of meditation that you're doing now. Today you're going to discover what works best for you. There are many different types of meditation, and knowing what they are, what the benefits are, and which one is applicable to you is really important in the process of finding out which to embrace in your life. Now, I did a lot of research. I spent a lot of time and a lot of money looking at all these different types of meditation. So I'm going to save you that time and money and share with you what I've learned. It will give you a full understanding of the variety of meditation techniques and ultimately which one is right for you. Also today, I'm going to be responding to some of the most pressing questions that you may have seen in the comments area. And I'd like to really thank you so much for being honest and open with your stories. They're actually really beautiful. And thanks so much for sharing with us. I'm really passionate about meditation and there's a reason for this. It saved my life. Literally, it saved my life. See, I was in finance many years ago and I led a very imbalanced lifestyle when I started out. And this led to extreme imbalances within my physiology. At first it started to show in signs of anxiety and insomnia and getting sick a lot. But then things started to get worse and they just got worse and worse until eventually I started to experience extreme panic attacks and depression and agoraphobia. In the end, I had to leave my job. Things became literally unbearable. I got to a crisis point, a point where I didn't think I could go on with life. I couldn't see a way out of the darkness, and thoughts were just constantly going around in my head and doctors wanted me to take pharmaceutical drugs and I just knew there had to be a better way. And if I could just silence My mind, I thought. So I started to look for alternatives into that. And I heard that meditation could tame that monkey mind. So that's where I began my research. And what I discovered in my research was that although there are many different styles of meditation, what I found was that there was primarily four distinct categories. We have concentration, contemplation, chanting, and then transcending style meditations, these deeper ones. So let's explore these. Now. We'll look firstly at concentration meditation. And this is where we're going to use some discipline, perhaps some force to bring your mind to a single point. Now, this might be focusing on the breath or the third eye or a candle. It's a very challenging meditation because it's something that the mind simply doesn't want to do. It's not what the mind is designed to do. The mind tends to focus on the future, designing events, or on the past, remembering events. And it goes where there's greater charm, where there's greater enjoyment. It's just not that enjoyable. For the mind to be focusing on one single point, it's really boring. So you require a fair bit of discipline to get that mind to that single point and just keep it there. In today's world, it seems a little bit difficult to do this meditation because we're processing so much information. We've got Facebook and Twitter and we've got emails, we've got meetings, we've got buses to catch, movies to go to, dinner parties to attend. We've got a lot of information to process. So we're actually asking our mind to be very busy every day. Now you have around 50 to 70,000 thoughts every day. So that's a lot of processing of data. But if you're a monk, say from the age of eight, living in an ashram or a monastery up in Tibet, where you didn't have to go through all of that processing, these meditation techniques of concentration are much more accessible because you've been training your mind over a long period of time to be able to do this. Now, in today's world, it's a big ask for our minds to transition from all that busyness down into a single point of focus. It can be very challenging to embrace this style of meditation. And then we have contemplation meditations. Now these are about using thought forms to create a scenario inside your head. So we're actually going to be thinking through the whole meditation. And when we want to manifest certain outcomes, we should be using affirmations or visualizations or chakra contemplation or simply Guidance from someone else who's actually talking now all the while. During the contemplation meditation, there's an activity going on in the mind. There's some busyness. For every thought we have, there's a corresponding physiological shift, shift in the body. So the body's not actually going into the same level of rest if the mind was so still. So that said, contemplation meditations, they can create benefits because it's all about manifesting certain outcomes from the thinking process. Now we have chanting meditations and this is where we use Japa beads. You see people wearing these beads and they count the beads as they might say a chant like Om Namah Shivaya or Om Mani Padmiham. Chanting meditations are beautiful, but like contemplation meditation, the mind is still active while you're saying the chant. Finally, we have transcending style meditations. This is where the mind actually transcends beyond thought, goes beyond the thinking process. By using a sound or a vibration or a mantra, the brain tunes into the repetition of that vibration or sound, and your mind moves from the active beta brainwave thinking state down into the deeper delta brainwave state. Now, in delta brainwave state, the mind becomes very still and is in a very deep meditative state. We're awake and conscious, but we're not actually having a thought. Now, studies have been done on these transcending style meditations, and what they found was that the results revealed that they were getting into a deep level of physiological rest, about four times deeper than sleep, which is just remarkable. And it's because the mind is awake and yet not thinking. And when the mind's in that state, there's a deep healing intelligence that unlocks in the body and starts to restore balance. And this is what happened to me. I came across this transcending style meditation technique and what I found was that my body started to heal itself really quickly. I started to producing serotonin, the biochemical for happiness, oxytocin, the biochemical for love, and melatonin, the one for sleep. Now, a reverse of that state is stress or fight flight response, which in today's world of information overload doesn't bring about the same level of rest which is needed to restore balance and repair. So simply through that level of rest that I was achieving in meditation, I was able to restore balance in my life. It was very accessible and very easy to do. Absolutely amazing. So there you have it, four distinct categories of meditation. Now, there are many different styles of meditation, but most of them will fit into these Four distinct categories. So the big question is, which one is right for you? Well, that all depends. What do you need and want out of your meditation? For me, I was choiceless. There was only one that healed me holistically, one that gave me the peace, calm, and inner joy that I craved. It totally changed my life. And what I'd like to do is respond to some of those questions that you had about meditation. We had some amazing questions. So thank you for sharing your questions and your stories with me. They were fantastic. Now, the first question we have here is from Tanya. Tanya says, I've been a single mom for two years now. My life is so busy, I'm so fatigued. How will meditation fit into my day? Tanya, that's a great question. And I'm sure there are quite a few parents, especially mothers, who share your situation. Now, I understand how challenging it is as a parent, and I can't imagine what it'd be like as a single mom. I've raised two children. I have twins, and I know how much energy goes into raising those children. One thing I know about children is that they learn through osmosis, that is, through observation. If they see their parents calm, happy, peaceful, they naturally mirror this in their lives. Which is why it's even more important for you to have meditation in your life right now. And there's two main reasons for this. Firstly, you're going to restore a lot of balance that comes from the stress and the fatigue of raising children. Meditation will enable you to access deep levels of rest in only a short period of time each day. It enables you to recharge your battery. Meditation is a very powerful way to do that. Secondly, it's really important for your children to see you having these quiet moments, just being in stillness. It's something they will come to realize an important part of your day, just like brushing your teeth every day. We do that because we want to prevent cavities. Now, meditation is about preventing stress in our life. And, Tanya, I gave you my handy 7220 tip on creating more space in your day for that meditation. And that was in my second video, which you'll see in this series. And I hope you get to watch that. It will help you reclaim your day. Now, we've got a second question here, and this is from David. David says, I'm concerned that if I meditate, I will lose my passion and drive in my job. David, I totally understand how you feel. I had a very successful career in finance. There was one point in my career where I actually had to Leave my job. I couldn't go to work, as I said before, because of stress. Stress, you know, it's a major roadblock in our lives. It works against us, against our success. After I started meditating, I went back to work and I continued on for another 15 years, only leaving my job in finance recently, at the height of my career, on multiple six figure salaries. And I put that all down to meditation. It just removed my stress response. I was able to be more creative, more productive, my relationships flourished, my health flourished, and this all enabled me to be very successful. Now, you may or may not know a man called Ray Dalio. He is the CEO of Bridgewater Associates and they're the world's largest hedge fund. They have about $160 billion worth of assets under management. Ray Dalio is probably considered the world's best hedge fund manager. He says meditation, more than anything else in his life, is the biggest ingredient to whatever success he's had. And today, more and more Fortune 500 companies and top execs are turning to meditation. So there you go, meditation mate. I tell you, I couldn't recommend it any further as a tool to become successful in your job. Now our next question. This comes from Krista and Krista asks. I've meditated on and off for quite a few years, but I can't seem to keep regular with it. Do you have any suggestions? That's a great question, Krista, and it's not an uncommon situation. Hopefully this session's answered your question because it's possible that you actually need to look at a different style of meditation because not all meditations are the same. Some meditations are very challenging, very time consuming and not easy to access. If you can find one that allows you to meditate deeply and in a short period of time, you'll find your meditations will become more blissful and more enjoyable. You'll probably find then that you won't have any issues sticking to it because it's something you'll look forward to every day, which is what I do. I've been meditating twice a day now for 20 years simply because the meditation I choose has these three distinct qualities about it. Firstly, I chose a meditation that I wanted to be fairly short, something that I could fit into my day quite easily. Secondly, I wanted something that I could go deep. I was looking for a meditation that I wasn't fluffing around on the surface, but could go quite deep, beyond thinking and something beyond the busyness of the mind. And this meditation was really effective in that respect. I knew when I could access deep levels of rest in my physiology that I'd start to heal and restore balance that I desperately needed in my body and in my life. Finally, what I was looking for is I wanted something that was enjoyable. Let's face it, I knew I couldn't concentrate or force myself to sit and focus for long. If I wasn't going to build a habit that I could stick with for three weeks, then I just wasn't going to be able to persist with it. The only way for this to happen was if the meditation itself was enjoyable. And as it turns out, accessing deep levels of rest also enables the body to produce serotonin and oxytocin so that I would naturally start to feel levels of bliss. And I found that the meditation sessions were fulfilling. And after all, isn't that what we're searching for, fulfillment? One more thing I should mention is that when I started meditating, I had access to ongoing support. And that proved to be just as important to me as the meditation itself. As you learned in the first video, meditation doesn't always come with no thoughts. I had lots of questions, lots of thoughts, lots of experiences to process. And having that ongoing support is really helpful. And I think today it was one of the most important things that helped me continue on with my meditation practice. So having someone there with me through the process was really beneficial. And I'd like to take one last question. It's from Ruth here. Ruth says, last year I lost my husband to cancer. I've been married for 27 years, and I feel that my heart is broken and I don't know what to do. Will meditation help me heal my broken heart? Well, Ruth, I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you for allowing yourself to be open and vulnerable. And what I can tell you, Ruth, is that your heart isn't broken. The heart, it's a fire. It might be diminished, but the heart doesn't get broken. It's a constant flame of love that burns bright. And your capacity to love is always there. You love your heart. It's always got the capacity to feel love. Yes, there can be pain from the loss of someone close to us, but the heart's capacity to love is always there. And you find that meditation will quiet the mind. And when it does, you'll be able to access a place of peace and calm. When that happens, you'll remember what it feels like to love, because you'll be able to experience that love within you. So, yes, meditation, more than anything now, is a great thing for you to Embrace my condolences go out towards you. So that's, you know, thank you for sharing that. Now that's all we have time for the questions. Thanks so much for submitting and sharing these questions. Amazing. Hopefully you got something out of those responses. If your questions weren't answered directly, we covered also lots of different meditation techniques and which one's right for you. So no matter where you are in your life, no matter how stressed, depressed, anxious, or even if your life is going well, there's a particular style of meditation that you can access. And even if you've tried other meditation and relaxation techniques, there's a specific one that you'll find will be able to access those deep levels of rest and blissfulness within you. And here's the amazing thing. Anyone can access it. I've taught it to 7 year olds and 70 year olds. My life was a complete darkness 20 years ago. Stressed to the max, completely overwhelmed. I went from not even being able to leave the house to go to work, to now traveling the world, living an amazing life of my design. But more importantly, feeling alive and enjoying every single moment of it. And I put that all down to this specific style of meditation that I learned about 20 years ago. I've been practicing it ever since. I've taught it to thousands of people. I'm seeing incredible benefits unlock within each person. More creativity, more abundance, more grace and joy in their lives. And all this is possible for you too, Sam.