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I have yet to meet anyone who meditates that I can stand to be around. In fact, I've avoided meditation most of my life because I've met several people whom I came to dislike intensely who were big proponents of meditation--who raved about it and claimed to meditate every day. They were unapologetically selfish and manipulative, and I felt on a subconscious level that meditation might have been at least partly responsible for their unattractive characteristics. 

Even so, over the last year I have made a habit of doing guided meditation before going to sleep, the last thing each day, and it has done a lot to help me work through the trauma of Jack. I believe it has lowered my stress, helped me to become more aware of my own shortcomings and ultimately is giving me the tiny edge of mental space I need to be more aware and loving.

Why then did it not help those other people to become more self aware and allow them to see how they hurt others with their words and actions? Or did it and I just couldn't see how?

I think a partial answer may be found in research carried out by Michael Poulin, et al. In Minding your own business? Mindfulness decreases prosocial behavior for those with independent self-construals, the authors sum up results from their study: Meditation "led to decreased prosocial behavior among people with relatively independent self-construals, but had the opposite effect among those with relatively interdependent self-construals."

Thus, it seems to be where a person focuses their attention: if they are focused on selfish goals, meditation will magnify selfishness; likewise, if they are focused on prosocial concerns and interdependence, meditation will magnify those goals.

What is meditation good for? It is good for making you more yourself and helping you to reach your goals, whatever they may be.


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