prayre/ meditation/ spiritual centering

[imnothere]

as i restart my yoga activity to the porpous of retraning my body in matters of flexabilty and muscle tone, i cant help but injoy the time it also gives me to recenter my self through its meditative action.
so without wishing to exclude any form of spiritual centering from being talked over, what i want to talk about in this thread is the necessity or lack there of in daily life.
in short, do you pratice some form of spiritual centering on a daily basis? if so, does it help you in your life? if not why do you find it unnecassary?

[FoxyBunny]

I think we all do it to some extent. People tune out the world and listen to music. People take long soaks in the shower or bath. People vegetate in front of the television. Some of these "mental health breaks" are more purposeful than others, and I think that the more deliberate the more helpful they are.

I'm not sure exactly why we need them as a general rule, but I know in my case I am subject to sensory overload. I am not claustrophobic, but too long in a noisy crowd makes my skin start to itch and I can't think straight. Too long spent multi-tasking and being pulled in multiple directions will do the same. I can recharge and reclaim myself if I get away for a bit and quiet my mind. It's better than a nap for refreshing me!

Has anyone else experienced this?

[Nesterus]

My study of martial arts helped me learn to focus mentally and honing your body physically can do wonders for your mental state as well.

Case in point, when I fell and broke my arm really really bad, i.e bones sticking out my skin I surprised myself even by the calm meditative state I entered, I remember just smelling the clear spring air and hearing the birds chirp and the leaves rustle in the wind, my heart rate dropped to 40 bpm and just stayed there for hours, I felt very calm and relaxed and my pain management was intense, but other folks were freaking out plenty for me

[darkchicken]

I also take martial arts. Kung Fu helped me become more flexible (the pain was fun!), physically and mentally stronger. Everything in life was more tolerable during my time practicing, then I stopped because I got lazy, though I'm thinking of going back.

I meditate through music.

[Montros]

I meditate by looking at the night sky. Thats it. No music, or even man-made noise. Once in a while I usually do this, and I'm actually gonna do it today.
For some reason, wondering who is out there and when they're gonna come to us makes my mind do wonders to my head.

[Professor X]

I wouldn't call it spiritual in the true sense of the meaning but for me it is. The thing I do once a week is judo. I am pretty good at it. Judo is a simple for of martial arts and although you may be thinking, "martial arts? how can that be calming?". Well judo means the gentle way and apart from it teaching the skills of effective self defence, it also teaches self discipline and self respect. We also do 5 minutes of relaxation whch you can call meditation at the start if each session.

[imnothere]

i believe that the whole human comrises of three parts; the body, the mind, the heart. that these together when in harmony form the soul. to put my soul in harmony i must incorperate all three of its asspects into my spiritual centering. my heart is my emotional self, my mind is my logical knowlegd driven self, and my body is my phisical self. i have had each come out of balance at some point in my life and getting them back into balance i find takes much longer. "its easy to bump the scale and hard to calibrate it after" kind of thing.
so as i am pulling my self back into balance so that i may once again center my soul and walk in balance through life.