Having trouble meditating? Here’s why, and what to do about it.
“I try and meditate, but I just…“
(insert any of the following):
sit there thinking
don’t have time
get bored
fall asleep
don’t know if I’m doing it right
can’t stick with it
When people hear I’m a meditation coach, they feel compelled to tell me their version of this story - usually sheepishly, because they know they “should” be meditating. This happens literally everywhere I go: parties, business meetings, the dentist, ubers, checking out at the grocery store. Everywhere.
Now, I am clearly a tireless proponent of meditation. I can talk all day about how it’s changed my life. Or how I see it work absolute miracles for others on a daily basis. Or how it is the single most helpful thing we can do for ourselves.
But you don’t need me to tell you why you “should” be meditating. You know that already.
Your problem is that you haven’t been able to meditate in a way that’s easy to do, easy to fit into your day, easy to stick with, and that gets you the results you need.
Good news. That is a very solvable problem.
7 steps to a successful meditation practice:
1: First of all, cut yourself a break.
For some strange reason people seem to think meditation is something we should inherently know how to do. But it’s like any other skill.
You weren’t born knowing how to play the piano. If you want to learn that particular skill, you could sit down and start banging on the keys. You could read a book about piano playing. You could listen to your friend explain what playing the piano is like for them. You could watch a video.
OR you could take a friggin piano lesson from a professional!
Enlist a skilled teacher and learn properly. Find someone who has actually been trained in TEACHING meditation, versus just having done it themselves. Stop sitting down in front of the piano without proper instruction, then being hard on yourself for not being able to make beautiful music - or worse, determining that you just “must not be musical”.
2. Understand that there are TONS of different types of meditation - and there’s one out there for you.
To say you’ve tried meditation is like saying you’ve tried ‘that whole exercise thing’. Just like there are a ton of ways to move your body, there are many different ways to meditate. It’s about finding the one that you like doing and that gives you the results you want.
Personally you couldn’t pay me enough to get yelled at in a bootcamp class, but I love to dance and hike. Similarly, I found meditation was not for me when the instruction was to follow my breath or keep bringing my attention back to the present moment. But when I learned the technique I now teach it was MIND BLOWING.
I had no idea that I could find meditation so easy and so enjoyable, that I’d do it every day, and that the benefits could be so immediate and so profound. I promise you, there is a style of meditation out there that will feel like that to you, too.
So don’t give up. When you see someone who has what you want when it comes to meditation, ask them what they do. Keep an open mind and keep trying new types. Believe me, when you find the meditation that’s right for you, you’ll know it, and you’ll never look back.
3. Believe that meditation can be easy.
Yes, some meditation techniques are about struggle, requiring you to clear your mind, stay focused, concentrate, or sit unmoving in uncomfortable positions. However, what I practice and teach doesn’t require any of that and it works way better than any other meditation technique I’ve tried (and, believe me, I have tried it ALL).
I get the difficulty in believing something so good can be so easy. There aren’t many things in life that require so little yet give us such insane payoffs. We believe that anything worthwhile requires incredibly hard work and sacrifice. “No pain, no gain” we say. I call it the “listerine effect” - it burns, so it must be working.
But meditation doesn’t have to be hard, serious, tedious, uncomfortable or something you need to force yourself to do in order for it to be life-changing. The method I practice and teach comes from an ancient tradition in India called ‘nishkam karma’ which means ‘achievement through action barely done’. The less you do, the better it works. And boy, does it work.
Howbout ‘none of the pain, all of the gain.’
4. Go beyond the apps.
Apps are a great gateway drug to meditation, giving you a taste (a very, very small taste) of what meditation can do.
What you get from an app may help temporarily to take the edge off, put out the fire, get you to sleep, and so forth. But there is a MUCH more profound experience to be had - and more profound benefits which will actually last.
If you aren’t regularly incredulous at how meditation has improved your life, then there is more for you out there.
Apps are also devoid of any personal instruction, of any chance to ask questions, and of many of the other elements that we need to properly learn anything. They’re also designed intentionally to make you reliant on them, just like every other app out there.
Which leads me to my next tip…
5. Become self-sufficient.
Being able to meditate on your own, anytime, anywhere, without relying on anyone or anything is not only empowering, but practical. It’s the KEY to actually fitting meditation into our own busy, constantly changing schedules.
Find someone who will give you all the tools you need to meditate on your own without needing to rely on them or anything else. There are many spiritual teachers out there who are very inspiring to be around and listen to, but if they aren’t teaching you concrete tools it won’t do you much good.
6. Listen to Jackie Chan.
“I fear not the person who has practiced a thousand different kicks one time each, but the person who has practiced one kick a thousand times”.
Once you find a meditation technique that works for you and you’ve made a good start, focus in on that. Don’t dabble in a million different kinds of meditation but rather double down on one technique. That is how you become a master, and how you will see real progress.
7. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
You don’t have to meditate perfectly for it to work. In fact, trying to do it perfectly is the sure-fire way to make it NOT work!
Commit yourself to meditating imperfectly each day. Be non-negotiable about THAT, then flexible with what it looks like. Because, LIFE.
We don’t need to be so precious with meditation. Again, some practices do require that you have silence around you, remain uninterrupted, keep perfectly focused, have a perfectly straight back, and resist shifting your body when your leg cramps - but that’s not how I meditate and it works great for me, and for the many hundreds of people I teach.
I meditate in all kinds of places - on the noisy NYC subway, in the back of an uber, at a cafe while I wait for my food, in a spare conference room, even a bathroom stall (not my favorite but it got the job done). THIS is how we realistically meditate in this busy, noisy, uncontrollable life. This is how I have meditated every single day for 7 years. This is how I have become “Jess 2.0” as my family lovingly started calling me after I’d been meditating for a few months.
Approach meditation with a lighthearted attitude of fun experimentation. Don’t take it so seriously. Because you don’t need something ELSE to stress you out - you need relief.
