Where should you place your attention during meditation? Where you shift or place your awareness during a meditation practice can alter the outcome of the experience. We can open to the energy of awareness, tenderness, and power by meditating on one of the three centers in the mind, heart, and belly. Moving your intention and awareness from one center to the next offers a different experience, outcome, and effect. In general, these three centers will awaken and activate unique qualities.
Navel Center: The navel center is home to the Manipura Chakra. Manipura is associated with the natural element fire and directly linked to your sense of self. It stokes the fire that moves prana (life force) through the body. This energy center is associated with your self-esteem, sense of purpose, personal identity, individual will, digestion, and metabolism.
Placing your awareness in your belly emboldens you. It is a power center and a place you feel anchored. You can access positivity, vitality, courage and self-confidence when you meditate in the center of your belly. Placing your attention in the navel center is also appropriate when you have a health challenge. This area enables a healing response in your mind and body.
Heart Center: The center of the heart is home to the Anahata Chakra. Anahata is associated with the natural element air and it colors our life with compassion, love, and beauty. Getting in touch with your heart center allows you to listen more deeply to your true inner knowing and connect to the flow of life. You cannot survive long without a properly functioning heart. And you cannot live your most fulfilling life without opening your heart to connect with yourself and others. To give of yourself requires patience, compassion, and kindness. Living your life from a place of unconditional kindness, for yourself and others, is a key element of managing stress and finding true meaning in your connections and work. When you act with kindness and compassion, you can give to others and share your true gifts.
The heart center an area where physical and spiritual meet, balancing the world of matter with the world of spirit. Beneath our suffering and hurt lie boundless compassion and love. Placing your awareness at the heart center brings emotional balance. You can clear away any blocks and open your heart to experience more love, compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude. As your heart chakra energy becomes more balanced, you will feel peaceful and full of joy.
Mind Center: The Ajna Chakra is in the area of the third eye, which is found in the space between the eyebrows. This is your center of intuition. The third eye is a spiritual chakra, which means “beyond wisdom.” Placing your attention in the mind leads you to an inner knowledge that will guide you if you let it. An open sixth chakra can enable clairvoyance, telepathy, lucid dreaming, expanded imagination, and visualization.
Meditating in the brain center gives mastery of the mind and invites stillness. It helps break distraction and is an ideal place to go when we want to override mental and emotional agitation. Placing your awareness in the center of the mind helps to quiet our thoughts and create a vision of ourselves beyond our conscious awareness. It is the center to tap into for insight, vision, and higher wisdom.
A meditation practice does not always require you to place your awareness in a specific location. However, you can alter your experience when you anchor in any one of the three centers receiving the benefits shared above.