Tips For Those Who Have Trouble Meditating and How To Overcome This
By Mark DeNicola
One of the latest gauging roughly estimates that anywhere between 200 to 500 million people meditate with regularity globally.
If you are a beginner in meditation practice, you may find useful the following most common reasons why so many of us struggle to meditate and how we can transform that.
1. Preconceived Belief That Meditation Is Boring
Compared to the sights and sounds of ordinary conscious life, meditation certainly can be substantially less sensorially stimulating – especially at first. But that’s part of the point! One of meditation’s greatest potential powers is its ability to bring us into the present moment without any glaring distractions, a reality that many of us haven’t experienced in years.
So if you’re part of the crowd that keeps putting meditation off because you think it’ll be too boring, ask yourself: “Is boredom really the issue? Or am I instead either so addicted to stimulation or even worse afraid to be alone with my thoughts?”
Solution: Involve others! Either set up a challenge with your friends to add an element of accountability to it, or meditate with a group in a public space. It’s amazing how much less intimidating being alone with your thoughts can be if you’re not the only one doing it.
2. Unrealistic Expectations
If I were to ask you to create a mental image representative of the word meditation, what would come to you? I’m willing to bet that at least one (if not several) of the following elements would come up: the sunrise, a sunset, a monk, mountains, or someone sitting cross-legged with great posture.
While these visuals certainly are accurate depictions of meditation, they don’t account for the vast majority of the 200 to 500 million of us that are practicing it regularly. Meditation can be done at any time of day, in a countless number of settings, on a comfy chair, and sitting or laying quite normally. So rather than setting these unrealistic expectations of what meditation is supposed to be like, why not just try making it your own?
Solution: Remind yourself that we are all human. Even those who claim to have attained the most profound insight while meditating have had just as many random thoughts pop into their head, so you’re just as capable.
3. Sheer Impatience
We live in a world where a substantial number of us are not only used to, but fully expect things instantaneously. We’re run by instant gratification, and when something fails to provide that, we’re quick to lose interest and ultimately our patience.
If you want to meditate regularly but patience is an issue for you, I’ve got some bad news: meditation will never satisfy your need for instant results. But meditation is also one of the best tools for developing a state of mind that won’t be so hungry for them!
Solution: Start by “forcing” yourself to practice patience through a reward and/or punishment system. Establish something that you are going to reward yourself with for meditating 7, 14, or 21 days in a row. Or set up a punishment (ex. donating to a charity the $100 you wanted to use to buy something nice for yourself) for not sticking to your goal.
4. Overreacting To Thoughts
One second you’re focusing on your breath, and before you know it several minutes have gone by and your mind has drifted through a random string of thoughts you never thought imaginable. As I mentioned above, this is far more normal than you may think!
The part we need to focus on is how we choose to react to noticing that our mind has drifted off rather than the fact that it has.
There is a substantial difference between allowing yourself to get annoyed while believing that the entire meditation is ruined, and just noting that you’ve drifted, and bringing yourself back to your initial intention.
Solution: I’ve highlighted the word noticing above because I believe it’s one of the best solutions for this issue. When you realize that your mind has drifted, choose to make a calm mental note that it has happened and then bring yourself back either by re-focusing your attention on your breath or by doing a numeric countdown (anything with a meditative purpose that your mind can easily focus on).
yogaesoteric
March 11, 2020
Also available in:
Français