Impact Of Self Affirmative Meditation On Perceived Stress, Resilience And Eudemonic Health Among Gen Z
By: Shelly Sharma
Worth Noting:
- Meditation serves on unconscious mind that entangle the threads of previously suppressed and unresolved thoughts, emotions and pattern from the subconscious and unconscious mind and thus it helps to break the unwanted pattern of behavior. It is a systematic process to access the subconscious mind.
- It is the quality of a person that comes from realizing their true purpose of life and pursues the happiness rather seeking only pleasures. It is the concept from classical Greek Philosophy. The subjective experiences associated with living a life of virtue in pursuit of human excellence. It is a state of self-fulfillment, self-awareness, self-expression and self-actualization.
Great Psychologist , Sir Carl Gustav Jung wrote “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams;
who looks inside, awakes”. He put in that in each of us there is another whom we don’t know that is the divinity within us which was totally ignored in medical sciences during the time when Carl Jung was practicing his medical studies in Zurich. He was one of the most influential personalities in the realm of analytical psychology with the profound interest of how every human being has to undergo an inward individual by achieving psychological wholeness and self-realization by integrating the conscious and unconscious aspects of their psyche as remarked in his Theory of Individuation.
In present times people encounter with different emotional turbulence emerge from different rationale, it is imperative to unravel the enduring relevance of psychological interventions and their impact on our understanding of human behavior by navigating through the knowledge of analytical psychology with an aim to shed light on power of being in meditative state and positive self-talk with unconscious mind and illuminating pathways toward self-discovery and personal growth.
PYSCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS
Psychological interventions are the approaches that posits and recognize that human beings are able to change their state of mind, thoughts, cognitions, behavioral pattern and emotional health in order to have an overall wellbeing by increasing self-awareness and potentially mindful observations.
MEDIATATION
Meditation serves on unconscious mind that entangle the threads of previously suppressed and unresolved thoughts, emotions and pattern from the subconscious and unconscious mind and thus it helps to break the unwanted pattern of behavior. It is a systematic process to access the subconscious mind.
SELF AFFIRMATION
An act that manifests one’s adequacy and affirms one’s sense of self-integrity. A healthy self-talk is motivated to maintain integrity and generate positive meanings (Steele 1988; see also Sherman & Cohen 2006). Many events in these days are seen as relevant to the concept of self.
Self-affirmations given to oneself can help people navigate difficulties and set them on a better path. Their confidence in their ability to overcome future difficulties may grow and thus buttress coping and resilience for the next adversity, in a self-reinforcing narrative (Cohen et al. 2009). Self-affirmations bring about a more expansive view of the self and its resources. They can encompass many everyday activities.
SELF AFFIRMATIVE MEDITATION
Self-affirmative meditation uses the positive insight statements as the focus of one’s practice. Often, the technique is to repeat these statements internally and to feel their energy within both mind and body.
The goal is to hardwire these positive beliefs into who we are, cultivating a positive mindset.
EUDEMONIC WELL BEING
It is the quality of a person that comes from realizing their true purpose of life and pursues the happiness rather seeking only pleasures. It is the concept from classical Greek Philosophy. The subjective experiences associated with living a life of virtue in pursuit of human excellence. It is a state of self-fulfillment, self-awareness, self-expression and self-actualization.
RESILIENCE
Resilience is a concept has gained much the attention recently in positive psychology. It has been defined and explained differently by different researchers but essentially it consists of triumphantly coming out of stressful situation.
Psychological Resilience
Resilience has been defined in many ways by different psychologists. Some see resilience as an outcome, while some see as a trait and some others see it as a rather dynamic process. Resilience is a trait according to Connor and Davidson, 2003. They explain resilience as a group of abilities that make an individual face adversity and flourish through the same.
They also believe in the ability of resilience to change over time, or show improvement. Some researchers like Masten (2001) describe resilience as a result or outcome rather than a characteristic trait. Thus, resilience is the result of facing an adversity. It was seen as a common phenomenon or result of adversity. Resilience is rather seen as a dynamic process by some other researchers. Outcome in spite of adverse conditions and its detrimental impact. Also, many more attempts have been made to understand resilience. It has been often interchanged with emotional stamina that keeps people fearless.
STRESS
Stress can be defined in many ways. It is essentially an internal state which may be triggered by physical, environmental or social situations which are evaluated as potentially harmful, or over riding our coping resources. And these physical, social and environmental factors that cause stress are known as stressors (Morgan et al., 2004). The General Adaptation Syndrome and the HPA Axis (Hypothalamus –Pituitary Axis Adrenal Axis) explains the impact of stress on mind and body. It covers different stages of coping with stress.
PERCEIVED STRESS
Perceived stress as the term suggests refers to one’s perception of stress that is the thoughts or feelings that an individual has about how much stress they are experiencing. It incorporates components of uncontrollability of one’s life, amount of charge occurring in one’s life, level of confidence to deal with problems or difficulties.
Thus, rather than focusing on types or amount of stressful events in one’s life it focuses on how individual feels about the stressfulness and their ability to face the same. Thus, it focuses more on appraisal by individual rather than actual stressors. It is a manifestation of an individual’s appraisal of the environment that is threatening and its interaction with the environment.
Thus, an even maybe negative but an inter play of environment, once personality and coping may have an influence on how an individual thinks of the impact or severity of a stressful event.
Let us consider how religiosity in a individual shows itself through the essential concepts expressed by Jung. To begin with, concept is individuation. Jung paid extraordinary consideration to the relationship of the process of individuation with the religiosity of a individual. In the word reference of explanatory brain research, the taking after definition is given: Individual is the handle of accomplishing oneself, but ‘such an accomplishment obtains a devout importance, since it gives meaning to the individual’s endeavors.
All tissue, Jung accepted, suggested the reunification and determination of heterogeneous and restricting motivations. He thought the union between the person and the collective mind is conceivable as it were when there is a living and working devout attitude.. A few analyst call to prepare of individuation the prepare of combining ‘psychic substance with the sense of self, as a result of which the psychic substance of awareness is born, or, in interpretation from the dialect of C.G. Jung, the encapsulation of God in man.
Frequently, an individual, being in the handle of individuation, can discover his possess devout involvement. In the handle of individuation, coming to the revelation of identity, an individual finds a sign of otherworldly existence. All through his life, in the prepare of individuation, an individual creates his interesting ‘I’, at the same time he creates awareness and to a few degree get to be in part divine. A self-affirmation is an act that illustrates one’s ampleness. In spite of the fact that a huge achievement such as winning a sports challenge can clearly confirm one’s sense of ampleness, little acts can do so as well.
Cases of occasions that in spite of the fact that little from the point of view of an untouchable can be subjectively “big” (Yeager &Walton 2011) incorporate a pushed worker who cares for his children or just reflects on the individual significance of his family and a forlorn understanding who, getting a individual personal note from her specialist, realizes that others care for her (Carter et al. 2013).
Indeed little inputs into the self-system can have huge impacts, since a solid self-system is persuaded to produce certifying implications and generate affirming meanings (Steele 1988; see also Sherman & Cohen 2006). But there are times when sources of self-affirmation may be few, Times require to make possible well-timed self-affirmation interventions to enhance their capacity for future troubles.
This period, advertising a holistic and encompassing approach to the complexities of the human mind (Jung, 1933). In an age overwhelmed by Freudian psychoanalysis, Jung challenged to dig into more profound deeper layers of the unconscious, that have since ended up fundamentally to the broader scene of psychology.
Individuation: Jung emphasized the process of individuation, a lifelong journey towards integrating various aspects of the self to achieve wholeness and self-realization (Jung, 1933).Self-Reflection and Self-Awareness: The journey toward individuation begins with self-reflection and expanded self-awareness. People lack in the reflective practices, investigating their values, convictions and inspiration.
Importance of Integrating Conscious and Unconscious Elements:
Balancing Opposing Forces: Individuation includes accommodating contradicting strength inside the mind, such as conscious and unconscious elements, this adjust cultivates mental wellbeing and flexibility. This balance fosters psychological well-being and resilience (Stein, 1998).Enhancing Self-Understanding :Integrating unconscious elements provides individuals with a deeper understanding of their motivations, fears, and desires.
This heightened self-awareness contributes to making more informed and authentic life choices .Facilitating Personal Growth: The individuation process is inherently linked to personal growth. By embracing the full range of experiences and emotions, individuals cultivate resilience and develop a greater capacity for coping with life’s challenges (Jung, 1959).Spiritual Development: Individuation is not solely a psychological process; it has spiritual dimensions. As Individuals explore the depths of their psyche, they may experience a sense of connection to higher self.
Meditation is a mental practice where an individual exercises their mind to train attention, and to create self-awareness. The goals of meditation are to attain a state of consciousness that is mentally clear and emotionally calm. Meditation practices mainly changes functions through autonomous nervous system, which links brain and body. Something greater than themselves, contributing to a more profound and meaningful life. In essence, individuation is a transformative journey that involves self-discovery, self-acceptance, and the integration of all aspects of the self.
By embracing both the light and shadow within, individuals embark on a path towards wholeness, fulfilling their unique potential, and achieving a profound sense of self-realization. Resilience as a construct often becomes a part of the positive psychology movement. Resilience shares both similarities and differences with positive psychology.
One of the substantiate difference lies in terms of presence of adversity. Studies of resilience emphasize of the presence of some form of adversity to understand resilience. On the other hand, positive psychology incorporates all individuals and not just at-risk individuals. There is a shifting focus towards post stress growth and emphasis on adversity and risk in that sense in positive psychology (Park, 2010)
THE PROBLEM
In contemporary world of fast developing tech and quick creating digitalization and its different measurements in life is creating a shift both in materialistic and non-materialistic aspects of life specifically in young adults. They are grappled with a sense of insensitive existence of their own before adulthood.
It was the time when young people lived a life like beacon of resilience, hope and optimism. The latest world happiness report unveils a concerning reality : young people worldwide now report lower happiness level as compared to their elders.
Reports has set that few nations saw expanded bliss among young people by suggested measure like focusing on social support and a sense of purpose. In fact the world economic forum is working with its partners through the healthy workforce initiative to identify the implication of declining youth mental health and to promote holistic health strategies for them.
Holistic mindful approaches like meditation, self-positive talk, gratitude journaling and other advance wellbeing techniques that can help to change unwanted pattern of behavior, help to cope up stress by simulating the happy harmones in body and paving a path towards a true purpose of being in existence as human that ultimately led to have a happy and healthy life..
According to research on self-affirmative meditation, there is MRI evidence that suggests that certain neural pathways are increased when people practice self-affirmation tasks Carl Jung theory of Individuation clearly associated with healing process, underlying all psychic activity of balancing, meditating or uniting conflicting psychic opposites which overcomes the psychological disequilibrium and initiates the experience of wholeness.
Similar Posts by The Mt Kenya Times:
- Pan-African leaders call for borderless Africa and urgent continental unity
- Pan-African leader calls for unity, youth empowerment and economic transformation
- Wantam or Tutam: The then what next?
- Gachagua escalates war with Ruto, questions his security
- Uhuru draws the line
About the Author
