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The art of learning to take a deep breath

Close your eyes, take a deep breath into your belly and push all thoughts of the future and past from your mind as you exhale.
Jared McCollum offers free meditation courses through the Okotoks Public Library, which teaches people natural ways to reduce stress and bring peace into their lives.
Jared McCollum offers free meditation courses through the Okotoks Public Library, which teaches people natural ways to reduce stress and bring peace into their lives.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath into your belly and push all thoughts of the future and past from your mind as you exhale.

This may sound familiar to those taking on the challenge of meditation in a free Monday night class at the Okotoks Public Library taught by Jared McCollum, doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and owner of Healing Elements.

McCollum is teaching his students how to rid themselves of their noisy, distracted minds through his weekly meditation course.

“The main issue is we as a culture are very distracted, very busy in the head and in our minds and we let our thinking get control of us,” said McCollum. “That’s a dangerous thing. When you are letting your mind run wild it’s spending too much time in unconscious places. Your mind is wandering off into all the regrets you have, all the things you forgot or into the future about what’s going to happen.”

McCollum said the human body can’t differentiate between daydream and reality, therefore stressful thoughts lead to a stressed-out body.

“If your body is in a constant state of stress and worry because you’re thinking of these things it’s like you’re dealing with these things physically on a daily basis,” he said. “The first risk is to our healthy and the second risk is to our relationships because we can’t connect and listen to anyone anymore because we are so distracted all the time.”

While there’s been a stigma attached to meditation for decades – something practiced by only hippies and yogis — McCollum said it’s been making a comeback in recent years.

“I think it’s accelerating to the point now where it’s in every class and venue,” he said. “Now it’s something recognized as not only popular… but something everyone needs in their lives in some respect to deal with the stresses of modern life.”

In the current economic slump, Foothills residents are feeling more stress than ever and McCollum said there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

“Meditation puts the pause button on in our minds,” he said. “Meditation calms and relaxes you and brings you to that place of peace or brings your minds to a change I need to make.”

While it may sound simple, McCollum said getting the hang of meditation takes time.

The first step is finding a quiet place free of interruptions and distractions, sitting or lying in a comfortable position and breathing into the stomach slowly and exhaling.

“It is our anchor to the moment and connects our mind to our physical bodies,” he said of breath. “Whenever our minds wander we can use our breath to bring our thoughts back into our bodies and the moment. The smoother and more relaxed the breath is the deeper we can go and the easier it is to release stress.”

Long-time student Heather Driedger has been attending McCollum’s meditation classes off and on for about a decade, and in the last three years made meditation a part of her daily routine.

“It’s taken me a while,” she admits. “I started off slow, not having these expectations that I can sit there for half an hour.”

Now the Millarville woman can meditate for up to an hour a day, sometimes in a quiet room and other times watching the birds in her yard.

“There is really no right or wrong way to do it,” she said. “It just brings us into the present, just being totally present and acknowledge the thoughts that come to you.”

Driedger finds it reduces stress and brings calm and peace into her life.

“One of the keys is that I don’t worry about things the way I used to, that there’s a faith that things are going to work out,” she said. “I’m better now at letting go of things rather than hanging on to them. I’m more grounded so I can better cope with what life brings my way.”

McCollum said when done properly, meditation reduces the heart rate and blood pressure and settles the mind.

“We are addicted to being busy and have to constantly have something on the go,” he said. “If you can sit in silence for 20 minutes you will reap the benefits.”

McCollum doesn’t guarantee meditation will stop thoughts of past and future from entering the mind, so he suggests identifying the thought and releasing it.

“If you expect to empty your mind you will fail because you can’t empty the mind,” he said. “If your mind gets distracted, whatever. If you create too much of an expectation, you focus too much on the expectation rather than just doing nothing. You will get better at it and you will get more out of it.”

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