How to Expand Your Consciousness

How to Expand Your Consciousness How to Expand Your Consciousness How to Expand Your Consciousness How to Expand Your Consciousness

This week saw another one of those “Days.” You know the type I mean? Not the one’s we have a good old moan about but those “Days” which have a title attached to them, they are special “Days” and I have to admit that I’m guilty of not knowing my “Days” at all. They just pass me by.

Doing what I do for a living, I feel that I should know what “Day” it is because many of them are to do with well-being. This particular “Day” was Tuesday 21st of May and like me, if you didn’t know, it was “World Meditation Day.” I didn’t miss out completely in the celebration of it because Ann did a little meditation at our open circle at Tuesday’s Psychic evening but I wasn’t consciously aware that it was a special “Day” and therein lies my feelings of guilt! I tell myself, I should have known!!

As an extoller of the virtue of meditation and its power both individually and collectively, it would have been good to do something special or at least talk about World Meditation Day at Tuesday’s group, however, it seems that every day has a title these days (pun intended) so keeping up with them is quite a task. I’m sure there’ll be an app to tell me what “Day” it is but frankly, I don’t want another flippin’ app and anyway, at current count, I have 363 other days to go at to talk about meditation so as the saying goes, “there’s no time like the present“ and where meditation is concerned, there really is no time like the present.

So, as it was only a couple of days ago, I’m cutting myself some slack and would like to do my bit for “World Meditation Day” to write about the amazing experience of “Meditative Journeying“ and how its changed my life. (Too many speech marks already!)

There are many ways to practice meditation and the key word there, is practice. It is a skill and like all skills, we have to work at them and hone them over time. There is no right or wrong way to meditate and we don’t have to sit for hours, days and years trying to attain Nirvana, unless that is our intention. We can meditate in just a minute by solely focusing on taking a simple in breath and out breath. That in itself can immediately centre us and it’s very effective when connecting to our psychic senses.

There is a lot of modern meditation practice which now involves Mindfulness. Mindfulness helps to teach us about our thoughts and how we react to them. It leads to acceptance of our thoughts and acknowledgement of the powerful practice of inviting gratitude into our lives. I am no expert in this field but our lovely friend Faiy Rushton is and her teachings have had great impact on me. There is now a meditation section on the NHS website dedicated to both meditation and mindfulness so thankfully, even the mainstream medical profession are beginning to “get it!” My blog here though is more to do with letting our thoughts take us to destinations unknown so that we may explore our conscious potential.

My personal practice is something I’ve developed over many years and it began in my mid to late teens when I borrowed a book about Yoga from the school library. At that age, I was very much into the psychedelic Sixties vibe and was intrigued by Donovan and the Beatles and their ventures into eastern mysticism so the book grabbed my attention, naively hoping that I would become enlightened. The reality back then was that the subject matter was a little bit too deep but I nevertheless found it fascinating.

There was one section which taught about Prana, the life giving energy force also know as Chi. It recommended focussing on the breath, holding the breath and releasing it in a very controlled way and I used to practice it before going to sleep. I can’t tell you exactly what the exercises were but after a few minutes, I started getting a weird sensation. At first it panicked me a little because I felt like I was loosing control but as I relaxed into it, I found that by stages, I achieved a state where could no longer feel my body, only being fully conscious of myself, in my bedroom, experiencing this strange new super relaxed state. At that point it was only my conscious mind which existed and it was bliss.

Things got in the way of my spiritual development as I progressed into working life and the responsibilities which come with all that and it wasn’t until I discovered I was a Medium that I re-connected with it, becoming conscious of what we know as Spirit Guides.

It was my Guides who taught me how to use meditation as a journeying tool to open up and expand my consciousness. It wasn’t until much later I realised that what I’d been looking for as a teenager, had been waiting to find me in my thirties. Even now, my Guides take me on incredible journeys. It’s like riding in Dr Who’s Tardis through time, space and dimension and I have to thank that Yoga book for teaching me how powerful meditation can be because it made me aware that I could do it and as the years have advanced, I came to learn now that we are all capable of it.

“Our minds are limited by our thoughts. If we allow our minds the time to open up and explore, magic happens.”

JH

This stuff was new to me back then but the practice of journeying derives itself from ancient times. It’s important to note that I was taught meditation by experienced teachers in my development as a Medium so if you are very new to it and are keen to learn, then please do speak to Ann or myself as learning in the right environment and under the right circumstances is essential to having a positive experience. I knew a lady who tried ‘“doing Shamanism” from a YouTube video and let’s just say that it wasn’t the life changing experience she was looking for, however, when we learn from an experienced teacher, it makes an incredible difference.

When we achieve a certain level in our meditative practice, we can then begin to journey. The question is, how do we know we are journeying? I can answer this by saying that the thoughts in our minds begin to change. You may have heard of the “Third Eye?” The Third Eye or Minds Eye is our inner visual receptor, it is where we see see things in our own heads, pictures, little scenarios like film clips, colours etc. We tend to call it our imagination. When we begin to journey, visuals come into our consciousness which we have not intentionally put there or have had thoughts about previously, in short, they just happen randomly out of the blue. It is at this point that our minds tend to dismiss these thoughts without turn. The key to journeying is that if we allow the thoughts to continue and just experience each frame, moment by moment, whole new words can open up to us. When this happens and you find yourself suddenly observing a new situation in your mind, just remain passive and allow your ‘dream’ to unfold without expectation or intention.

This experience is very similar if not the same as what we call “Lucid Dreaming.” In this meditative state, we are the observer but can also interact with our surroundings. We can see and hear people, be in places we’re not familiar with and even find ourselves on different planets but all the time we are conscious of being there and just like real life, we will retain the memory of it long after the meditation has finished. It can provide inspiration for us in art, music, science, writing and life in general.

“Meditative journeying inspires the Spirit to know itself.”

JH

I have learned so much from meditative journeying and many of the blogs I write are either direct experiences of them or based around them such as the one I wrote about lucid dreaming here. If you wish to expand your consciousness like I did as a teen then aim to practice meditative journeying, it is truly and profoundly life changing.

By Jonathan Halstead 23rd May 2024

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To find out more about Jonathan’s readings click here, or for sound therapy and meditations click here. You can contact him directly on 07738 942 989 or e-mail Jonathan  All enquiries are handled with the strictest confidence.

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Image & Artwork Credits: Header Photo- EvaMichalkova – Pixabay. Meditating Monk – Kzenbzh -Pixabay.