You hear people talking about meditation all the time. Maybe your doctor told you to try it. And you want to want to meditate. But you don’t. And when you do try it, it’s like when someone tells you not to think of a pink elephant.
Well, I am here to tell you that if you think you did it wrong, if you were thinking of the pink elephant, then that means you were on the right track!
Why bother with meditation?
You may already know that meditation can help improve your concentration, that it promotes a positive outlook. Or that developing your “meditation muscle” strengthens you against anxiety. It’s a way to access your intuition, to learn to distinguish the stories you tell yourself that are only partially true (read about the true stories I lie to myself with ). Meditation lowers stress (which causes dis-ease) and enhances your body’s ability to heal itself. It can fill you with peace and wellbeing and feel great —if you just give it the chance and stop judging yourself.
That, in my view, is one of the greatest gifts of meditation: the training in not judging ourselves as we do it.
Doing it “right” when you think you aren’t
When I said you are on track when you are noticing that you aren’t “doing it right,” that’s what I mean: the only new element you need is to let go of the judgment. You ARE meditating when you are aware of what you are focusing on, whether it is your breath, beautiful music, silence, OR the intrusive thoughts about your to-do list that pop into the middle of it all.
Noticing is doing it! So you don’t have to talk smack to yourself or be irritated. There’s no need for judgment. Just keep noticing, choose what you want to focus on and keep going!
And do tell me what you choose to focus on, and how you congratulated yourself when you caught your mind wandering, please!
