Common Misconceptions about Meditation
Nearly every person that I have sat with in the last 10 years has told me they are bad at meditating. There seems to be this idea that being good at meditation is being able to sit for long periods of time and fully clear your mind. This is not the case and often makes people give up on meditation before they even give themselves the opportunity to benefit from it. Meditation is more about shifting our awareness to a state of curiosity than it is about emptying our mind.
A common story I hear is someone will sit down to meditate and quickly get distracted by various things going on in their lives. They then become judgemental towards themselves and frustrated for getting distracted. That judgment then snowballs and people give up and just say they are bad at it. But what if the goal isn’t actually to empty your mind? When we get distracted the idea is to just notice that distraction without judgment and bring our awareness back to our breath and practice. You might find that you have to do this 20 times in a 5-minute meditation — that is okay. It is actually the process of noticing the distraction and bringing ourselves back without judgment that will expand our ability to meditate longer and also reap the benefits.
There is evidence to suggest that when we are able to be in a state of curiosity, our brain releases dopamine which is our happy hormone. Most people are typically pretty hard on themselves, especially through their internal dialogue. Being able to shift into a curious state is the beginning of allowing yourself to create a new relationship with your trigger. For example, you may begin to meditate and get distracted by your to-do list. Instead of going down the rabbit hole of “I can’t believe I can’t even clear my mind for a few seconds, I am so bad at this”, try just noticing the distraction and bringing yourself back to your practice as many times as it takes.
The other thing that trips people up is if meditation does not resolve all of their anxiety, they feel the effort was futile. It may actually even be unlikely that meditation will completely resolve your anxiety, so there are a few things to keep in mind here:
The more often you meditate, the quicker your body will shift into a meditative state in times of distress. It is similar to running a marathon — if you wake up the morning of the marathon without having trained and try to run, you would probably collapse well before the finish line. But if you train, your body will know what to do on the day of the big event (aka the big stressor).
Maybe meditation will not release all of your distress, but can you focus on noticing whatever change does come? For instance, if you start your meditation at a 6/10 stress level, did it come down at all? Maybe it releases some tension in your neck and now you are a 3 or even a 5. Are you able to observe the shift? Seeing that we have some agency to shift our distress level can actually be very empowering. And if you do this regularly, think about how much less stress you are carrying in a week compared to living at that 6/10 all the time.
The irony is we bring so much perfectionism to meditation when the whole point is to slow down and kindly be with yourself in the present moment and just observe what is. As said by Jon Kabat-Zinn, “one mindful breath is a meditation.” You do not have to develop a huge practice in order to gain some of the benefits of mindfulness.
