My life has changed because of meditation. There was no need for intensive sessions, no need for excruciating discipline, it does not have to take years to help you to be happy, and it does not have to be dry chore to put up with in order to be able to taste its sweetness later. This does not diminish the value of hard work, patience, and time that it takes to reach higher levels of meditation—I just found it still brought me a lot of benefit even with brief but consistent beginner-level practice. This is enough to make a big change for life.
Like many, I had fallen in and out of practice with meditation over the years, and like many, a couple major reasons I fell out of practice is believing it is too hard to do and that it takes too much time out of my busy schedule. But I realize neither of these are true, so long as I find my own way of making meditation fun, engaging, and aligned with what works for me.
Shortly after recommitting to meditation practice, I find it saves me a lot of time because I stop operating throughout the day in “reactive” mode and I live life more intentionally. It did not take long before I find that I start feeling better and acting better. Of course, extended long-term practice will bring greater benefits, but along the meditation journey, I chose to appreciate the little gains I make. The more we can see the short-term benefits of any healthy practice, the more we will be motivated to keep practicing for the long term.
I had so much trouble sitting still in silence, even for 20 minutes, watching my thoughts and focusing on my breath. I just found that I get so annoyed and embarrassed by how many thoughts there were when I start to meditate, and how much more sensitive I was to the weird sensations in my body that I don’t normally pay attention to. I notice how I become dead bored or how impatient I would feel—waiting for the time to be up—as if I was holding my breath in water the whole time and needing to resurface. This made me want to quit, and I did.
Then I came across something beautiful written by Eckhart Tolle, that helped me to see meditation differently. He wrote that even with a noisy mind, the very act of noticing the noisy mind in itself is an act of being present. Even with an otherwise distracted mind that worries about the future or is upset about the past, so long as you are noticing it, there is a part of you grounded in mindfulness—it is enough to count. It made me realize that being present is not some sort of on-off switch, in which I need to be 100% clear-minded, calm, empty and peaceful in order to get value from it. Being a fraction in mindfulness is progress, and still makes a difference.
The realization Eckhart Tolle gave helped me to see that a meditative state is one that I can relax into, rather than push myself to achieve. The more strain I put myself into having to have an empty mind or expecting myself to feel good, the noisier my mind got and the worse I felt. This happens because I have become attached to desired outcomes of meditation, rather than see meditation practice as a worthwhile process in itself.
If I set the expectations to have long intensive sessions of meditation, I never found time or the space for them, and my mind sees it as another chore to escape from. So I changed course and started to commit to shorter periods of meditation, just 2-5 minutes long, whenever I found space such as when I was doing housework, waiting in line, or commuting.
I did not have to have the perfect environment, and I did not have to keep my eyes closed and cross my legs in silence. If interruptions happen that is okay and even expected, I will attend to what I need to and go back to meditating. This way, I do not worry about having to find the best time and space for it to happen. All this may seem like treating meditation in a casual way—and it is—but this helped me associate it as something pleasant and relaxing to help me pass the time, rather than as a high-demand activity in my life.
During meditation, I could have a particularly noisy mind, but if I can notice and name a few thoughts for a couple minutes—even if I ultimately succumb to the noisy mind in the end—that counts as progress. If I am particularly disturbed or stressed, I can take a break from meditating and then come back to it later. Without the weight of expectation that it has to lead to a significant inner shift in terms of state of mind, I enjoy meditating for the sake of the practice itself.
If I find it hard to meditate, I start singing. I find that if I sing, I tend to become happier and calmer, and after singing, it becomes easier to meditate afterwards. In fact, singing itself has become meditation, as I realized focusing on the beauty and charm of a tune is like focusing on the breath, and hearing the vibration of singing is like mantra meditation. Afterwards, it becomes much easier to be in silent meditation. Singing may not be your own thing, but you can find your own way to help you meditate easier. You do not have to do things by the book.
Before I knew it, all these casual mini-meditations and playful ways to help me get into meditation really did add up over time to create a positive change of wellbeing and focus. I ended up practicing more than if I pushed myself into intensive meditation. With these lighter sessions, I still found to my surprise that during the day I was able to diffuse negative thoughts when they arise before I even knew I was doing it. Practicing noticing, naming some thoughts and gently letting them go just a few minutes a day has helped me practice that muscle.
Later these light mini-meditations has helped eased me to be able to do longer and more intensive sessions, as it no longer seems like a chore but something I was intrinsically motivated to do. got a taste of how powerful meditation can be, and I was eager to dive in deeper. I see it like doing smaller runs and learning to enjoy them before working your way up to a marathon. Any healthy practice in life can be the same: start off small and one step at a time, and if you are consistent, you can develop the practice for a lifetime.
