Meditation
To anyone reading this, I imagine “You should just meditate!” has been advertised, suggested, or shamed upon you for years now. On one hand I think meditation being so ubiquitous with “mental health" and “self improvement” is a wonderful development in modern culture, since I believe it is truly powerful and revolutionary to practice regardless of your history or lifestyle. The fact that I can casually say “meditation helps me” and most people at least vaguely know what I’m talking about is a pretty recent, and very positive change in American culture.
On the other hand, “meditation” is talked about in a way that is vague and confusing enough for most people to think it’s “nothing” or some sort of waste of time. It is advertised to us endlessly, and becomes a joke “oh a certain mega-corporation is giving their employees 10 minutes of mindfulness before going back to dehumanizing backbreaking labor for minimum wage”. And I’m sure all of us know someone who dove deeply into “spirituality” and tries to fix your problem by suggesting you to “just meditate!” to deal with whatever’s going on (sorry!).
These are all true in a way - Meditation is an umbrella term for many types of practices with some being contradictory, it can truly help people deal with unfair circumstances and perform well in spite of mental or physical pain, and, sorry to validate that character in your life, but meditation can indeed be a powerful tool to help us with most life problems. But clearly none of that is enough to make us feel like “Wow, meditation is obviously a helpful thing, and I love doing it”. Modern cultural beliefs and messaging around “mental health” and “living a good life” are very confused and misleading, so having uncomplicated instructions and motives for this lifechanging activity is vital for us living in the 21st century.
My goal here is to teach how meditation is as obvious as brushing your teeth, sleeping well, and engaging in mild exercise, and as engrossing and joyful as your favorite hobby. Meditation need not be a confusing or “I oughta do it” part of your life, but something that occurs as naturally as anything else you may do to be a healthy and happy person.
Ok, what is Meditation? What about Mindfulness?
Yes, there are tons of different definitions and practices around this. However in my life, I’ve simplified it quite a bit.
Meditation is when you deliberately work with your mind, by focusing on something, to bring about a change in your thoughts or your perception. You may meditate on your breath, a sound, a sight, an idea, part of your body, or any other singular object or thought. While they require some light effort and intention, most meditation styles will help you let go, become less reactive, gain insight to your life, and develop focus. Mindfulness is one type of meditation, but you may have heard of mantra, visualization, or other forms of meditation.
Mindfulness is a specific quality of your mind that we can develop by practicing Mindfulness Meditation. It is combination of focus and nonjudgment - in other words, being mindful means being less distracted, and having a more peaceful space in our heads.
How to practice mindfulness meditation
Sit or lie down with a comfortably straight back
Place most of your attention on your breath
This may be at the tip of your nose, the movement of your chest, or throughout your whole body. Pick wherever it’s most obvious or comfortable for you
You may simply focus on the physical sensation, or label the breaths “in, out” or “breathing in, breathing out”. Labeling helps me focus, and I find that my fellow people with short attention spans prefer it.
When you notice you’re thinking about something random (anything that isn’t the breath or your labels in/out), gently acknowledge it with the word “thinking” or a phrase like “ah, those are just thoughts”, and place your attention back on the breath.
This is the core of mindfulness meditation - you label all thoughts with a simple word or phrase, and return to your object of meditation
In any given minute of meditation, this can happen several times, especially when first starting out.
Our minds are generally very scattered and full of random thoughts, this is human and okay, especially if you live in the 21st century, have trauma, and/or haven’t meditated before.
Success in meditation is not about reducing the frequency of thoughts or going X amount of minutes without distraction, but rather about “Did I notice I was thinking?”
Because of this, more experience in meditation may actually lead to you labeling your distractions more! Not because you are increasing the amount of thoughts, but rather noticing the finer subtleties and details of your mind in any given moment.
Since “successful meditation” is simply noticing when you’re distracted and gently re-placing your attention on your breath, anyone can be a successful meditator!
Most people have lamented “I just can’t meditate, I can’t quiet my mind!”, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what meditation is, which is why I usually ask “well did you notice you were distracted?” “yes” “then you successfully meditated!”
It is also okay if you go through several different subjects and thought trains before finally noticing “ah, those were all just thoughts! anyway, back to the breath :)”
You can also label the “types” of thoughts. For example, instead of saying just “thinking”, you could label the most recent thought as “past thought” “future thought” “thinking about dinner” “confusion” “boredom”, or any other simple word or phrase to put your thoughts in a nice box.
Do this for at least 3 minutes, 5x times a week.
As you build familiarity with it, up the time to 5, 10, 20, or even 30 minutes. More time per session, and more sessions per week will increase your mindfulness and may give you insight, wisdom, and clarity to how your mind works.
Give yourself permission for these 5 minutes to not feel so much pressure to problem solve, figure things out, or to prepare for something in the future. You can gently assure your mind that “All of those plans are important, but let’s just play this meditation game for another few minutes, I’ll plan later!”
What should I do before and after meditation?
While there are lifestyles and activities that can help or harm our progress, I think the best advice for any beginner is “Do whatever you want before and after your meditation session”. You can be as crazy as you want to be. The more you sprinkle your life with moments of mindfulness meditation, the more changes and effects you will notice, regardless of what life you’re living. At some points along the journey, you may be inspired to gently nudge parts of your life to a place of more harmony with what’s healthy and helpful to you, but this is a lifelong process. Show up exactly how you are, whether you feel messy or you feel perfectly fine already, and let meditation just be an addition to your unique life. You can have whatever hobbies and interests and personality traits you already have, I am not asking you to “become a meditator” and live a certain life.
But why even do it? How does this seemingly simple practice change our lives?
Over the initial days and weeks of when I first began meditating in late 2014 / early 2015, I noticed changes on a few fronts.
Firstly, regardless of how well I was meditating or whether it worked or not, I was thinking of my life and my mind more sincerely and curiously. I considered and contemplated on things like “why do I react a way when they say that?” “what kind of friend do I want to be and what gets in the way of that?” “how does my lifestyle contribute to my mind state?”. These contemplations, when you’re feeling relatively calm, can be very healthy and fruitful things to consider while moving through your life. If these sorts of questions cause you to tense up or stress out, that’s okay, you have every right to want to just rest and chill until they feel like fun and interesting things to ponder!
Secondly, regardless of what I was thinking about, meditation was objectively causing physical changes within my brain and nervous system. Scientific studies have shown structural changes from consistent meditation practice, not limited to increased gray matter in the brain, regulation of the stress center of the brain, improving attention and memory, and improving heart rate variability. I felt a lot of this firsthand, which contributed to my motivation. I noticed, even when dealing with intense stress as a traumatized college student, that I was feeling ever so subtly more focused, levelheaded, and thoughtful. This is similar to how if you take walks or do some light exercise regularly, you just inherently feel and know that things are changing. Most people who try meditating give up within a week or two, which is not long enough for these changes to be obvious. Be patient (and nonjudgmental) of your skepticism or frustration, reduce the time and frequency of meditation, and just dust yourself off when you feel like giving it another shot :)
Regardless of what we do outside of our meditation sits, the act of noticing when we are thinking about something unrelated to the current task, and gently labeling it without judgment, fundamentally rewires the way we think and how we perceive the random thoughts that come up in our head. Over time, meditation develops a sense of “I am not solely identified with my thoughts”, which releases us from being at the mercy of the countless random associations our brain throws at us. It liberates us from dragged around by irrelevant distractions during important moments of our lives. How many times have you been at a party, concert, event, or date and noticed in hindsight how wrapped up you were in shame, second guessing, anxious rumination, and otherwise distraction from just enjoying the moment as it was?
Thirdly, regardless of if it was changing my thoughts or my body, I was at least partially believing that “there was a way to live a life that feels better, and it has to do with my mind”, and that helped me feel less dread and more hope for my life. At the beginning of my meditation journey I was dealing with PTSD from an abusive relationship, and considering quitting university to focus on my mental health, but I had a sliver of hope that “maybe if I continue to try again everyday and meditate a little, things will feel better”. Waking up and knowing there’s a chance I could shift my thoughts to more pleasant ones greatly reduced the amount of stress and despair I felt. Over the last ~10 years I’ve gone through multiple new sudden traumatic life changes and meditation has been an absolute life saver for me. Believing there is a way to change your mind is vital to living a whole, healthy, and resilient life
In summary, our motivation of meditation can be derived from how it helps us think more deeply and wisely about our lives, how it makes our brains and bodies more healthy and stable, and how it helps us accept that our enjoyment of life is at least partially, if not entirely, based on how we think about it.
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Thank you for reading! Reach out to me on Instagram or send me a message on the form below! You can tell me how your practice is going, ask me questions, or just start a chat with me about anything. If I get enough questions, I will make a Q&A blog post with your question in it!