Why you can’t Meditate
My mind is too busy! I keep forgetting to pay attention! I can’t sit still. I don’t have time. I have other important things to do. I know I “should” but months go by and I still haven’t.
If you have experienced any or all of these, you are not alone. I’ve been there too. I once tried a meditation exercise that instructed me to notice each time I passed through a doorway. The point was for the mental recognition of passing through the door to slow you down and create more presence. The problem was, it required presence, which I apparently did not have. I had exactly one instance of remembering to notice the door, and that was well after passing through it, when I realized, “shoot, I was supposed to notice that.”
There are so many tips, tricks and programs like the book from where I got that exercise. Maybe they work for some, but for me, and I would guess for many others, the book was another purchase that ended up in a donation pile.
This went on for years. I tried so many different ways to meditate. A weekend training, a formal zen temple, a casual meditation hall, I even went to a church meditation group. I bought and read books, tried timers and apps, and it wasn’t until I gave up on much of that, that I finally figured out why it was such a struggle.
At that time, having tangible results was essential. I had 4 young kids, a business, home and self to care for. Even if meditation didn’t solve everything, prioritizing it needed to make sense. I needed a tool for now, not an elusively magical practice that might enlighten me years later. If you feel similarly, that you need help in the moment you’re about to yell at your kids, or when you’re stuck in a tailspin of dreadful thoughts.
Here are a few important things I learned along the way.
Your body is the gateway to the mind. Our body houses all the tension and contractions of our stressed out mind. If you spend time unwinding the body's patterns, you will become more sensitive to when its tensions arise. The benefit of this is noticing sooner, rather than later, that something needs your attention. You are surely familiar with a tailspin into anxiety, the rabbit hole of self-doubt or criticism and the feedback loop of anger or grief. What if you could recognize and address these feelings before they became overwhelming? That's the power of heightened sensitivity.
Trying to focus on one thing, takes you away from that thing. When I began meditating, I remember trying not to hear the cars going by. I thought I had to sink into a state of nothingness. While many teachings advise you to focus on the breath rarely was I able to do that for long before getting distracted. I discovered that the effort of forcefulness interfered with the noticing state meditation is about. In other words, trying to “make” myself focus, was the very thing leading to failure. I learned quite by accident to experience the whole of my body, mind and surroundings where I finally found the presence needed to ride the breath. I would reword the adage “focus on the breath” as “watch the breath without looking at it.” If you want to understand what that means, remember a time you sat looking at the ocean. You watched it intently and effortlessly. It was there. Our breath is like that. It is just there. Staring at it is stressful, watching it without looking is a lovely experience. Give it a try.
The best time to meditate is when you think it's the worst time. When the mind is in chaos, the last thing you may think of is meditating. Yet that is actually the most fertile ground to dig through. (See Meditation may not be what you think) Even though it is a common practice to meditate for a set amount and time, my experience is the timer added a level of pressure that interfered with the process. When your mind is in a state, just pause. Sit or lie down to simply watch all the thoughts swirling and feel the body tension rising and tightening or releasing. Staying with this until there is change is how you will begin to notice the purpose and effectiveness of the practice. When I began to figure this out, I would wake in the middle of the night consumed by thoughts and worries. It wasn’t unheard of for me to meditate for 2-3 hours until they slowed or stopped. You don’t necessarily need 2-3 hours, but if you happen to be awake in the middle of the night and it takes that long, let it.
Meditation may not be what you think. Most people I know have some notion that meditation is about a quiet or still mind. They are not incorrect, but that is not all of what it is, and it cannot be forced, it is discovered through navigating the other side of meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh describes stillness as one wing of the bird, and Inquiry or insight as the other. Without both, the bird cannot fly. Without inquiry, you will never sift through the mind enough to find its quiet center.
The word for mindfulness meditation in Pali is Satipatthana. Sati translates as remembrance. The reason we aren’t present is because we forget to remember. We have been conditioned to ignore the sensations that we’ve gotten lost, the sensations that are calling us back. So we slowly return to this sensitivity in our body and we take the minds rumination as an opportunity to observe. The parts must come together to make a whole. This is Samma. I will tell you more about that later.
Stop trying to get something out of it. Lastly, when you practice, leave getting something out of it behind. It is fine to want to get something out of it. These are the reasons we decide and choose to meditate at any given moment. I wanted to have a more fulfilling motherhood at the time I began. Sitting with the intention to get something, will lead you to look for that thing and you may miss whatever is right in front of you. It will also lead you down a one-sided path that doesn’t allow room for the reality that life moves and changes. We are not aiming for a static state, or even forcing one for a brief time. Every energy you put into the meditation will be what you get out of it. So when you get caught thinking you’re doing it wrong or right or judging it as bad or good, right in that exact moment you are failing to remember.
Oh, one last last thing. A good friend is 100% of the path. Find someone who embraces the whole of you to walk alongside you as you dig, uncover, learn and grow. Just like negative patterns are contagious so are positive and growth oriented ones. We can willfully not look, not investigate, hide and keep running. We can also slow down, dig in, get dirty and embrace the messy so it feels good to get clean. Someone to celebrate your wins, give you a wise redirect, and just witness your transformation are beyond important. This discovery is not my own. Buddha himself said “a good friend is 100% of the path.” I just got really really lucky when I found that good friend, and my life and practice soared to levels I never expected before that.
Join our meditation course to experience all of this and more. The course is a true self-exploration experience. You will come away with understanding of how the mind helps and hinders you. You will have tools to work through the tough moments and develop a practice that will continually produce the progress and results you need in your life. The best part to me, is the friends you’ll make. We truly need people at various levels of practice to share our experience with and have them share theirs, it will make all the difference on your path.
Next course begins fall 2024.