Being "good" at meditation
When I first started meditating about 15 years ago, sitting on the tiled floor of my apartment in the little mountain town of Ifrane, Morocco, where I was working as an English instructor, I didn’t have a meditation teacher or a course, and this was before the time when apps and recordings for learning to meditate were so widely available.
I did have a book, and from it, I read the same basic instructions that most of you reading will have received: Focus on your breath, and when your attention drifts elsewhere, return your attention to your breath.
And like many others, without being conscious of it, my mind added a small but important twist to the simple instructions—something like: When you are focusing on your breath, you are doing the right thing. Whenever you notice that you are failing to meditate because you’re thinking about other things, start over (and maybe this time you’ll do it a little better).
Practicing with these modified internal instructions, meditation often felt like a whole lot of trying and failing, again and again. Breathe in, breathe out, whoopsie-daisy!, breathe in, breathe out, oh shoot there I go again!, breathe in, breathe out, jeez for real?! Come on, get it together! Breathe in, breathe out…
In the years that I’ve been teaching mindfulness and meditation, I often ask people, “Have you meditated before?” so that I know how much instruction to offer. The most common response I hear is, “A little, but I’m not very good at it.” When I ask why they feel they aren’t very good at it, it usually turns out to be something similar to what I described above.
Just like me, and just like every human being, this person was gifted a complex and active brain without an off-switch. It isn’t our failing… and it isn’t a problem! The only problem is that we believe it is a problem.
During the first retreat that I went to for my training as a teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, one of the teachers, I think it may have been the renowned researcher, Judson Brewer, helped me to completely “untwist” my internal orientation toward meditation, and I will be forever grateful.
He said something like this, “When you notice that your attention has drifted elsewhere, that noticing means you have already returned to the present moment. Welcome yourself back with a smile, ‘Yay! I’m back!’”
Isn’t this sweet? With that small teaching, he helped me (and probably many other people) to remove that bitter, heavy striving-and-failing flavor that can spoil a really beautiful practice which—by definition—is about simply being with myself as I am and the moment as it is.
This is something I try to convey in every meditation that I lead: the permission to drop the twinges of self-judgment, the invitation to embrace yourself just as you are. What a relief!
In a later retreat, another teacher said that he spends the last few minutes of each meditation celebrating. This inspired me, and I often take time to do this as well. Out of all the ways I could have chosen to spend my time, I chose to offer myself a gift in service of my well-being, that also benefits every person with whom I come into contact. What’s not to celebrate?
I'm offering Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in person in Monterey in just 2 weeks! Join us to receive training and practice in various forms of meditation and mindful movement, as well as everyday mindful moments in daily life... plus I'll add in all the tips I've learned along the way.
I’m wishing you moments of joy and celebration in your practice!
Katie