Why meditation hasn’t worked for you
So, I’m sure at some point in your life you’ve been told by someone you know that you should sit down and breathe and stay still for 5–20 mins or longer as a “meditation exercise”.
Everyone has been raving about how good it is, and for many, many good reasons. It’s proven to be good for your health. Not only that, it is also one of the golden wellbeing habits that both science and religion agree on. Hallelujah!
Being mindful has a lot of benefits for your physical and mental health and wellbeing. Studies have shown meditation benefits against an array of conditions both physical and mental, from irritable bowel syndrome to post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as helping with general anxiety and depression.
So why doesn’t it work? I mean, I for one know many who have tried it once or twice and said, “It didn’t really work for me”. After a few more attempts, they start to identify themselves as a person who meditation will never work for, a fatal assumption which has the forbidden word never.
Before we get into why, lets look at the the main advice we get when we start meditating, which usually revolves around these three tasks:
1. Get comfortable and prepare to sit still for a few minutes. After you stop reading this, you’re going to simply focus on your own natural inhaling and exhaling of breath.
2. Focus on your breath. Where do you feel your breath most? In your belly? In your nose? Try to keep your attention on your inhale and exhale.
3. Follow your breath for two minutes. Take a deep inhale, expanding your belly, and then exhale slowly, elongating the out-breath as your belly contracts.
You can find the source of this here, and a similar list in many other places. This is the general guidance we have received before meditating. Although it’s not awful, I have a few oppositions to the traditional methods.
1- You don’t always feel like sitting still.
Our body is feeling the environment every millisecond and speaking that information to us every moment and by nature it wants to move. We were born to interact and adapt to our environments and hence sitting as still as a rock is not our natural element.
The problem here is two fold: You are now having to resist the urge to move which, is energy consuming as a little battle happens in your brain every time it feels like moving. Moreover, your focus has now shifted primarily on the task of resisting the urge to move which is not ideal.
So, what is the solution? It is best to let yourself move with discipline and ideally, a pattern. I am a Muslim, and in Islam we pray five times a day, which is my form of meditation. The prayer is more than just sitting down or asking God for something, hence it is has its own name — ‘Salah’. You can find out about my journey here, but the key is that in during Islamic prayer we follow a sequence of bows and prostrations that serve to anchor our hearts yet allow our bodies to move during meditation. This satisfies the natural requirement for your body to move slightly which allows your mind to stop focusing on the non-movement part of the meditation. The pattern of movements turns into a habit and movement it is no longer the primary occupation of your mind. This element of habitual movement is key.
Alongside the movements, we also recite certain words. These words are meant to guide us to being mindful, which I believe is a huge part of making the best out of meditation. The words we recite remind us of God’s creation, help us ponder about how it came to be, and where we fit in, and even why we are here on this earth. It also humbles us and reminds us of our limitations, then prompts us to seek help and pursue more guided desires. These recitations help bring mindfulness into meditation.
2- Focusing on your breath is boring.
Focus on your breath is one we have heard over and over. Sure, it could be a great way to disconnect from everything else, but is that beneficial? Like before with sitting still, your mind starts thinking: “Breath is boring! Pay attention to the deadline you have coming up!”.
Our Amygdala, which is the fire alarm of our brain, is very loud and a dominant member of your brain. It speaks to us our fears and anxieties loud and clear, and it robs our brains attention from anything using its power of urgency and fear. However, the amygdala isn’t bad — it serves an important and ancestral purpose to save our lives from dangerous situation that may harm us and our body. When it comes to modern day however, countless deadlines, commitments and stresses that have made us need meditation initially, cause hyperactivity in our brain and amygdala.
The solution? Negotiate with your evil amygdala! Speak to it, but first, let it speak. Hear your fears. Let them pass and listen to them carefully. Then, after a few minutes of listening, begin interrogation — why is this stressing me out? Why does this thought bother me? What can I do about it? We often naturally do that when talking out loud to a friend, but when there is no one to speak to, it becomes hard to track the internal silent conversation and follow through with those answers in our brain ourselves. This is why writing your thoughts down or keeping a diary helps. It gives you a mirror anchored in time and set in stone (or paper) to reflect on any time you like. Seeing the conflicts in your brain will help you pinpoint a source of conflict and allow you to deal with that more effectively than fighting, or even worse ignoring your emotions blindly by forcing yourself to focus on something else than your breath.
3- Being too distracted
The final point is about the guidance step of following your breath, which essentially is about bringing you to the present moment. I believe the reason they recommend following your breath as it focuses your consciousness to your senses which helps bring you to the here and now. However, it doesn’t have to be your breath! Some people find that hard and think if I can’t focus on my breath then I can’t meditate. Meditation is about much more than that. If you manage to finish doing something that rests your heart, mind and soul and gives you a bird’s eye view of life, then that is meditation whatever it was.
I was given a lovely piece of advice before on how to bring yourself to the present moment, anywhere you are. First (maybe even right now), close your eyes, then count and list in your head how many things you can hear. It can be the sound of the air stirring up leaves, the sound of train tracks or beautiful birds chirping. This short exercise is so effective at making you very present. Closing your eyes eliminated one of your most powerful senses which causes your other senses to be hyper-engaged.
Better yet, reading a journal or writing an article like this one can be the perfect way to focus your mind into the present. There is something almost divine about reading and writing. Not only is that an exclusive ability to humans excel in over animals, it seems to engage the best parts of me and those I know when practised.
So now, why don’t you start meditating by first finding a nice, quiet place to relax, and naming all the things you hear, smell and feel. Then let your thoughts wander, observe them as they pass, all the while moving around if you want to — for as long as your mind is not occupied by another task.
That’s it! Happy meditation, and may God bless you.
