This will help with your meditation
I thought I’d write this because I’ve been having an increasing number of conversations with people about the self-talk that tends to happen BEFORE meditation.
Most of what I’ve spoken/written about to date has been on how to deal with the chatter whilst meditating, so I’m excited to address this other ‘conversation’ we often have with ourselves prior to meditating.
For context, here are a few lines that might sound familiar… “I really should meditate more”, “I’m going to make it to the next class!”, “I don’t feel like meditating now”, “I’ll make sure I do the next one”. Sound familiar?
Firstly, this type of inner dialogue is completely natural. Don’t beat yourself up for thinking this way and certainly don’t let it convince you to give it up.
We do this to ourselves all the time whether it be with work, exercise, or simply with things that need to be done around the house.
I’m not going to get into why we do this (it’s years and years of environmental conditioning). I just wanted to offer some tips that were real breakthroughs for me and my approach to meditation.
Save this article and revisit it whenever you hear the above conversation starting to take place in your head.
Meditation is simply a release
There’s a lot of promises out there on what meditation can do for you. What’s missing with all of them though is one essential element needed to deliver on these promises.
Letting go.
With any promise made, there comes an equal expectation. Let me be clear here, meditation does not fix problems, it is an exercise to put you into a better mindset to approach them or just give you a break from them.
Treat mediation as time to release and relax. Just like the act of kicking off your shoes after a long day or having a nice hot shower. Meditation is your time to let go and relax.
It’s something to simply look forward to and enjoy.
Have fun with your meditation
Once you’ve shown up and decided to let go, the mind might jump into a judgemental mode. “I can’t seem to settle”, “I feel so frazzled”, “I’ve got so many things to do” etc. Again, firstly this is completely natural. It’s an autoresponse when we finally take a moment to relax.
A really helpful tip when/if this happens, is to shift your mode of thinking to one of curiosity and wonder. As if you’re about to go on an inner exciting adventure.
A common misunderstanding with meditation is that it’s all about single-pointed focus and if this is broken you are doing it wrong. This isn’t the case at all. Open up all of your senses to experience whatever you’re focusing on during meditation.
Have fun with your meditation and you’ll be able to go deeper with it.
When you feel agitated in meditation try the following, it will help
Even with the above tips above, there will still be times throughout meditation where you’ll feel agitated or frustrated now and then. This could be due to suppressed emotions coming up, you’re trying too hard, or a recent stress experience lingering in the body/mind e.g. your boss yelled at you earlier in the day.
When/if you encounter this the worst thing you can do is try to push through it. This will just make you feel more agitated which could then lead you to resent meditation.
Instead, try the following
Take a big clearing breath in and out and shake out your body,. Literally, shake your hands out, bend your neck, and reset yourself. This will flush out the agitation and allow you to wipe the slate clean. Then calm your breathing and return to the meditation.
I hope these tips have answered some of your inner queries or settled some doubts you may have been experiencing about meditation. It truly is a beautiful exercise to appreciating life and it’s my job to remind you of that and help with any challenges you face with it.
Now, who’s excited for the next class?
Big love 💛
Luke