11 things I was told about meditation that turned out NOT to be true
It took me 11 years of daily practice to figure this stuff out. Let me save you some time.
1. It’s best to meditate first thing in the morning
It’s a widely accepted idea that sunrise is the best time of day to meditate. It’s quiet, there are less distractions, it’s easier than other times of day for the mind to focus.
The problem is, my mind is sharp as a tack first thing in the morning, and it is starving for things to think about. Ever since I was a child, it’s been my favorite time to read, learn and figure stuff out. It’s the time of day when I have the most mental and creative energy. So the last thing I want to do is sit there trying to quiet my mind.
For 11 years, I tried, I really did. I woke up early and practiced yoga and an hour of meditation. Every morning I pushed aside my natural inclination to read. I thought my mental hunger would wane in time as my mind became quieter. It never did.
Nowadays I wake up in the morning and indulge in all the reading and thinking I want. And I am so much happier and more balanced for it.
2. When you meditate your mind becomes quieter
In 10 years of daily or twice-daily meditation practice, my mind never really got any quieter. Meditation was always difficult. I tried different postures, different focal points, different mantras, listening to music, chanting and just sitting in silence.
Of all the techniques, chanting or singing devotional songs out loud was the easiest for me. Singing gave me plenty to focus on, engaged my whole body and stimulated the love in my heart.
With all the other types of meditation, I never noticed my mind getting quieter. Sometimes my mind would stop generating interesting thoughts, but not because it was calm; because it was shutting down from sheer boredom. Many times I fell asleep during my meditation time.
3. Repeating a mantra will help quiet your mind
I tried so many different mantras. I like mantras, because I like words. The first few days of meditating with a new mantra, I found it easy to focus. But as the mantra became familiar I would repeat it mechanically and my mind would just become dull and restless.
When I met my spiritual teacher, I received a mantra from him and was very hopeful that it would be the key to balancing my mind. I spent so much time repeating it— silently, out loud, with a mala, coordinating it with my breath, adding a melody. It never became easy or enjoyable. When I finally left my teacher after 10 years, it was with great relief that I let go of that mantra too.
4. The best place to focus during meditation is on your third eye.
It definitely helps to have something to focus on when you meditate. But what I found over the years is that whenever I focused on my third eye, aka the area between my eyebrows, it would stimulate my mind rather than calm it. I also worried I was making myself cross-eyed and giving myself tension headaches. And when I focused my attention on my forehead I felt like a floating head, disconnected from the rest of my body.
5. To get the full benefits of meditation, sit cross-legged with your spine straight.
My joints are hyperflexible (or at least they were before I turned 40), so it was always easy for me to sit cross-legged. Nonetheless, throughout my years of daily meditation, it was never really comfortable. One leg would inevitably go numb and then I would have to shake it awake and endure the the crawling ants sensation. The posture caused tension in my back and ribcage from me trying to hold my spine up straight, and this made it harder to take full breaths (and breathing fully was never easy for me to begin with). I tried sitting against a wall to ease the tension, but developed pain in my coccyx instead. I tried sitting on my heels but it hurt my knees.
What it comes down to is this: when I force my body to be still for an hour, it tenses up. And I will never have effortless meditation if my body is tense.
I wish I could reach out to this past version of myself and free her from her self-imposed posture prison. I would encourage her to sit for much shorter periods of time, or to lie down so she can fully relax, or to do some slow, mindful movement.
6. If your meditation hour whizzes by, that’s a good thing
At times, my meditation hour felt like it only lasted a few minutes, and I patted myself on the back for being such an excellent meditator. In reality, I should have been less thrilled and more concerned. Because it meant I was not there, fully present, for that span of time.
Where did I go? I was dissociated or checked out, because for -reasons- staying present and connected to my body was too much stress on my nervous system.
7. Meditation is healing and emotion-regulating
It wasn’t for me. In fact, most of the time I would get up from my meditation and within five minutes feel irritated, or anxious, or depressed. Forcing my body into stillness and forcing my mind to focus on something utterly uninteresting for an hour or more did not soothe my nervous system, nor did I ever achieve a state of emotional equilibrium or the “equanimity” so coveted in the Vipassana meditation world.
Instead, my meditation practice would sink me into what polyvagal theory calls the dorsal-vagal shutdown state. When I would emerge out of this shutdown, my nervous system would be highly sensitive and the slightest interaction felt overwhelming. So I’d be irritable, critical, and snap at people. Or I’d feel really anxious, or I’d want to just get into bed and pull the covers over my head to shut out the world. I was an absolute delight right after my meditation! /s
Back then I believed, as many people in the new age spiritual and yoga world do, that this irritability, anxiety and depression were a sort of emotional detox. As if my meditation had been a cleanse and now those things were coming up to be released. Today, as a therapist, I know that that’s not how it works at all. I was not releasing or purifying anything; my nervous system was in distress.
8. Meditation leads to enlightenment
I finally quit my daily meditation practice and left my spiritual teacher and gave up on all spiritual seeking because after 11 years, I felt further away from any kind of enlightenment or peace or acceptance or calm happiness than when I started. And worse, I felt further away from myself and my own internal wisdom.
9. If you meditate every day, eventually it gets easier
It never did.
What I finally realized
Here is the most important lesson I learned from 11 years of crappy meditations: your ability to meditate or sit peacefully depends on the state of your nervous system. Just sitting there for an hour is not going to get rid of the anxiety or dissolve your stress.
There are a lot of things you can do to help regulate your nervous system so that your mind is calmer, and probably the biggest one is changing your environment. Living in a quieter area, being around fewer people, spending more time in nature. Puting some instrumental music or nature sounds in the background in your home. You can also use your imagination— visualize a calm, natural, harmonious environment and notice the pleasant sensations in your body.
As you soothe your nervous system in this way, you calm your mind. And then if you still want to meditate, it’s a lot easier. But you can also do other things.
I don’t believe anymore that meditation is the key to happiness and healing. Especially if you don’t truly enjoy it. Don’t force yourself to sit in meditation, or you will waste 11 years of perfectly good mornings like I did. Look for the things that make you feel quietly happy, and make more space in your life for those.
