Emily Fletcher: Healing Yourself Helps Your Group

“I love you when you’re tired and stressed,” said no one’s partner or children ever. And no boss wants you to be stupid at work, either. That’s why, Emily Fletcher points out, “meditation is the least selfish thing you can do.”

In fact, group meditation has benefits that extend beyond the practitioner, according to Fletcher, creator of the Ziva meditation technique and author of “Stress Less, Accomplish More” (William Morrow, February 2019).

We typically picture meditation happening in a quiet, empty space with no distractions. We expect to reach a state where we can control—and stop—our thoughts. (“The brain thinks, and trying to stop it is like trying to stop your heart from beating,” Fletcher says.) But Fletcher recommends practicing meditation with a group because it activates mirror neurons that fire when we experience meditation (or any action) performed by another person, as if we were taking that action ourselves.

Fletcher compares the group meditation experience to the energy and motivation you get from a group class or workout that inspires you to continue to do the work on your own. “It’s like the group’s practice boomerangs and comes back so it can charge up your practice at home,” she explains.

Fletcher also observes that meditation allows our brain to commune and tap into something bigger inside ourselves. She compares “left brain” function to working on a really great laptop. Meditation helps strengthen the corpus callosum, a band of nerve fibers connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain and the parts of the brain responsible for motor, speech, sensory and cognitive function.

With better communication between the hemispheres of the brain, Fletcher says, comes greater creativity. She compares the connection to the right brain to a Wi-Fi router connecting that laptop (left brain) to creativity. “Meditating lets you be a vessel for nature to download creative ideas,” she says.

Ultimately, Fletcher concludes that meditation adds up to something more than a better individual: “The cool thing is as you heal yourself, you help heal the collective. There’s only one thing—energy—and we are all [energy]. As you improve your energy, you improve the energy of everyone around you.”

It’s nice to talk about the value of Ziva Meditation, but it is far better to experience its transformative power.

Get started with Emily Fletcher’s Come To Your Senses visualization, a powerful mindfulness exercise to help you transition from your 100mph day to getting present in your body and in the right now.

Ready for more? Download the Stress Less Guided Meditation, a super powerful tool Fletcher created for you to use anytime, anywhere to melt stress and boost your confidence in minutes.

The audio includes:

• Full body scan
• Muscle-melting visualization
• Energizing pep talk

The Stress Less Guided Meditation does what wine, baths and exercise can’t do: relax your breathing, lower your blood pressure and give you clarity in minutes. Download the audio and use it on the go: before a high-pressure meeting, after a difficult day with the kids, anytime you want to melt stress so you can perform at the top of your game.

You’re also invited to join the 10,000-strong zivaTRIBE on Facebook for more meditation and performance-optimizing goodness. You’ll hear directly from Fletcher and the zivaTEAM for tips, answers to your meditation questions and frequent livestreams.