You’re Right.
You Can’t Meditate.
I can’t meditate either.
And there are many more people like us.
This is you…
This is Your Brain
It’s Bold and Beautiful. But it is also a wild child and a lot chaotic. There are literally thousands of thoughts that pass through it each day, in whatever direction they choose.
This is Your Schedule
Sure it’s color coded but it’s FULL. There’s also a lot of overlapping commitments and priorities. Sometimes people expect you to be in two places at once.
This is Your Day
Your day ends up being a chaotic mess of thoughts and commitments that pass by you at the speed of light. It’s almost like you are in a car constantly going 100 miles an hour. You naturally feel stress.
You live in a world that never stops. Literally. Because there is no longer a village to raise your children and technology means you can and will be accessed at any moment of your life. Your mind is multi-tasking, overextended and stressed like never before.
Then Someone Suggests Meditation to Reduce Stress
So you pick up a book, listen to a podcast or take a class.
You Learn:
You sit in a quiet place and focus on your breath with no distractions or only minimal distractions that are easy to let go.
You Feel:
Instead, you feel tense, distracted, fidgety, anxious, stressed, distressed and dare I say angry any time you try to meditate.
You Decide:
You think that meditation is not for you because you can’t sit still. So, you quit and decide you are bad at it. You blame yourself for everything.
The Truth About Meditation
Meditation has existed across many cultures in many different time periods with the earliest records suggesting that the practice developed several thousand years B.C.
What’s more striking though is not how old it is, but how it developed. Meditation practices largely developed in monastic settings and were practiced by religious orders who have dedicated their lives solely to observing and practicing the principles of their faith. In many cases, they were isolated from society and did not often have the same obligations and responsibilities that people outside their religious order experienced. In some cases, they even lived physically separate from society at large in their own villages, or monasteries so as to not interact with society for fear of contaminating their faith.
Their lives didn’t even look anything like the standard person’s life at the time these practices were developed.
Fast forward thousands of years later and you will find that meditation practices haven’t changed much since then. But your life certainly has. Now we have cars, planes, computers, social media and bosses and coworkers that want us at their finger tips 24/7.
Your life has next to no resemblance to the life of those who initially developed the meditative practices we are commonly taught.
So unless you are fabulously wealthy and can spend your days in meditation or you have isolated yourself from the rest of society let’s have a reality check.
Why It Doesn’t Work
Apart from the fact that meditation was largely developed a long time ago in isolation from society, there are some real practical reasons why traditional seated meditation practices don’t work for most people.
Sudden and Extreme Changes in State Lead to Shock.
A car going 100 miles per hour that makes a sudden stop is likely to injure the passengers.
Hot glass that has cold water thrown on it is bound to shatter.
It’s not that you can’t meditate, it’s that you can’t meditate in the way we are often taught. It’s unrealistic to go from a state of significant stress and chaos in our modern lives to sitting still focusing on our breath without experiencing significant resistance and distress which shows up as anxiety, stress, frustration etc.
Let’s Acknowledge a Few Things…
1
That a daily seated meditation practice is not for everyone.
2
That many of us need the calming benefits of mindfulness and meditation more than once throughout our days. Think shorter but more frequent.
3
That our minds are becoming more and more used to multi-tasking and as such many of us find our brain craves and possibly needs to have multiple things occurring at once. Let’s work with this rather than trying to fight against it.
4
That each person is unique, and as such each person’s meditation and mindfulness practice should and will be unique.
What To Do Instead
1. Don’t Give Up on Meditation and Mindfulness.
Beyond a seated meditation practice there are literally hundreds of ways that you can incorporate meditation and mindfulness into your daily life. Just like running is not the only form of exercise, a seated meditation is not the only way to meditate.
2. Don’t Deny The Circumstances of Your Life.
If waking up earlier in the morning is going to cause you a significant amount of suffering (I’m there) don’t do it. You need sleep to function. Don’t deny yourself that necessity.
If sneaking away for 15 minutes for a quiet meditative break alone is unrealistic or causes you distress, don’t do it.
Don’t ask yourself to do anything that isn’t congruent with who you are or what you need.
3. Find a Way to Incorporate Mindfulness and Meditation into the Reality of Your Life.
Instead, let’s find realistic ways to incorporate mindfulness and meditation into the reality of your life. Maybe that looks like counting breaths as you are walking into the office. Maybe that means moving your feet in conjunction with your breath as you make dinner. Maybe it means focusing on breath as you are braiding or participating in another art form. Or maybe it means repeating a positive statement to yourself for every stair you climb in a day or every email you send.
It’s Not You.
And Whatever You Do Don’t Give In To the Belief that It’s Your Fault.
Most meditation practices were developed generations ago in monastic settings long before computers, social media, traffic jams and the modern office. And many of these practices have not be updated significantly since. We don’t use the same medical practices that were used back then, so why are we using the same meditation practices?
There is a Better Way.
Yes. You can meditate without doing a seated meditation. There are hundreds of approachable ways to incorporate meditation and mindfulness into your life that are engaging and effective. In the weeks that follow we will go through many options whether you are looking for things you can incorporate into your daily routines, use in the office, or techniques that you can combine with art or movement. There is a way to incorporate meditation and mindfulness into any life. We just have to find what works for you. And we will.
