Grow Your Business With Soul

How Meditating On Your Haras Can Help Your Business.

When Christopher Hawkins, business entrepreneur and president of Trident Design, LLC,  first began his company, he desperately needed a sales person but couldn’t afford one, until he did this…

Sometimes people find it easier to let things go, put it in the too hard basket, or simply try do it themselves. But when faced with the daunting aspect of hiring a salesperson on close to a zero budget, Christopher Hawkins did none of those things.  

What he did do, is use the power of reframing a situation to find a solution. Instead of hiring someone, he went on a search for an amazing sales person with a ton of experience who also happened to be willing to work on a commission-only basis for a hardly existing company – and he found someone!

He connected with a VP of sales on LinkedIn who wanted out of the 9-to-5 world, and the match was perfect.

Whether you work in your business full-time, or if it’s just a side-hustle, there is one thing everyone can agree on – Business is Stressful!

If you’ve found yourself exhausted, confused or simply staring at the ceiling of your bedroom at 3am, you’re not alone. 

The question becomes – what can I do to re-frame my problems into solutions that won’t cost an arm or a leg.

The answer…meditation.

Meditating for Business Success 

I love the way Byron Katie describes meditation as a “method of inquiry to meet your internal wisdom”

When you mediate you are not only connecting to your internal guidance system, but you are actually listening to it.  By being still and silent, you allow your physical and mental sensations to come and go -you learn to observe, and respond rather than react.  This helps us to gain a more thoughtful and holistic understanding of any situation that arises within our business.

Consider what is best for your business. Imagine for a moment that a customer orders a product and then complains that it arrived broken -do you lash out and tell them it’s not your fault, the post office should replace it because it left your warehouse in good condition?

Not only is this not good customer service, but it is a reaction, rather than a response.  Meditation will help increase your ability to empathise (i.e “yes, that’s happened to me before, I completely understand what a disappointment it is to receive a damaged product”), and helps us to respond in a positive way that will help your business grow.

Many years ago I worked in a beauty salon where I was made manager.  The business owner at the time decided to hire a business coach and one of the perks of my job was getting some one-on-one business coaching sessions. 

At the time I was responsible for sending out emails to our customers letting them know about any specials we were running in the salon.  It was also my role to come up with a monthly special.  Most times I was so busy trying to serve my clients that I often decided on a monthly special on the day it was due to be released and then had to run around like a headless chook trying to quickly put together an email for the customers.  I remember feeling so flustered on the day, it was always so chaotic.  

One day the business coach sat me down and said “Sylvia, if you have no map, how on earth do you know where you are going?”  From that day forward, many of our sessions were designed around mapping out a cohesive monthly special that would take our customers on a journey from head to toe.  

Not only were the monthly specials a great hit with clients, but the staff loved it too because every month they got to do new treatments that were completely different from the last month.  The emails were prepared ahead of time, and I was much less stressed.

How Can Meditation Help Your Business

Seasoned entrepreneur and venture investor Chirag Patel told the Harvard Business Review that meditation had made him feel more connected to clients, colleagues and staff: “You start connecting to your customer as your family rather than merely a business transaction.”

Mindfulness as a form of meditation has become the rage with many companies that encourage all their employees to adopt it during the day at work.  When I lived in China, I often used to see employees standing outside participating in guided Tai Chi sessions in the middle of the day.  

Students at the school I was teaching at would have a 15 minute eye and neck exercise program before lunch every day.  Maybe not your typical meditation session, but it certainly got every one breathing deeply.

The Benefits of Meditation for Business Owners

Meditation or mindfulness practise has been widely studied and there are lots of studies detailing the benefits of meditation, including:

• Decreases stress
• Decrease blood pressure
• Increase our body’s immune system
• Helps us remain more focussed on what we are doing
• Improves creativity
• Improves productivity 
• Improves energy levels
• Broaden your perspective & capability to understand things a stressed mind would miss
• Helps keep you disciplined
• Helps you maintain a positive mindset

A study conducted by Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, shows that after 8 weeks of mindfulness training, MRI scans in individuals who had undergone mindfulness training showed noticeable changes in the amygdala, the brain’s fight or flight centre.

The amygdala would actually shrink which would, in turn, allow the brain’s prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for things such as concentration, awareness and decision-making, to thicken. 

The result: An increased ability to concentrate and focus on the task at hand.

Insider Tips: How To Use Meditation In Business

Meditation is classified into different groups – concentration, reflective, mindfulness, heart-centred, creative body scan and motion based.  Some people prefer concentrating on their breathing, others prefer visualisation.  For those that struggle to calm their mind, motion based meditation is the preferred option.  

Others like to ask themselves more reflective based questions or even do some journalling, using such questions as “how can my business best serve others” or “how can I improve efficiency in my business.”  

There are many different types of meditation techniques, but it all boils down to blocking out distractions and reaching an inner state of calm and focus.

How I use Hara Meditations to Reduce My Stress And Anxiety

A Hara is an energy centre or sphere that exist within our subtle bodies.

Working on your haras is more of a spiritual based meditation.  When working on your haras, there  is the belief that there is a fundamental Life Force that permeates the universe and sustains all life.  

There are many different names across all cultures and religions – others you may recognise for this life force is  Qi, Chi, manna, ka, prana, pneuma and spiritus.  

Even though it has been around for millennia, for some reason, today it is largely ignored or ridiculed as “hippie hocus pocus” 

It is a subtle, invisible energy, but to those that work with this energy it becomes very tangible and inspiring.  By working with your hara energy centres, you are able to directly connect to your capacity to feel genuine happiness, to approach difficult situations with compassion, and make insightful and heart centred decisions in not only your business, but in your life in general.  

The 3 Hara Centres:

The lower hara – located in your abdomen (just below your belly button). This is the energy you are born with, the energy that is the essence of your life and which gives you your life’s purpose. It is your centre of vitality and helps give you the drive you need to sustain and grow your business.

The Middle Hara – located in the heart (middle of chest).  This energy is connected with your emotions.  It is “human energy connected to human experience.”  It is a healthy, loving, compassionate energy and brings all these qualities into our lives and helps us to feel greater levels of empathy and connection with customers, suppliers and employees.

The Upper Hara – located within the upper brain (third eye area). This is the energy connected with your higher being, the wisdom energy and helps us make insightful decisions, as well as inspires us to creatively make our business stronger.

Guided Hara Meditations

Guided Hara Meditation

“There are three Hara centres which are found just below the navel; heart and head.

The head is the furtherest energy centre – when you are furthest from your soul you are in the head. When you are close to your being you are in the heart. When you are at the very core of your being you are in the Hara.

And only through the Hara fear disappears. Only through the Hara do you live for the first time authentically, sincerely, with no fear. And that life needs to be lived! ” – Osho

Feel & strengthen your lower hara energy centre with this meditation.

Hara Cleanse Guided Meditation:

This is a powerful guided experience of cleansing and rejuvenating your 3 hara energy centres

When our hara systems are full and flowing freely without hinderances, we feel deeply connected to our highest selves and the world around us.

We feel energetic, inspired, empowered and alive!

This is a powerful meditation to help cleanse our hara centres from energy that is not our own, helping us to feel deeply grounded and highly intuitive!