Meditation is not a silver bullet… and why you should do it anyway.

There is a lot of new evidence coming out about the benefits of a regular meditation practice. For my take, see last month’s blog. With all this evidence coming out and the explosion of meditation teachers, coaches, gurus, and influencers on social media, it can be easy for people to think that meditation is some sort of silver bullet, a magic pill that, taken once, will solve all your problems and lead you to a life of pure bliss without the pain and drama of everyday life.

Bliss is possible, but not all the time

Now I love meditation and it has made a big difference to my life, but I wanted to dispel a few of the myths of meditation as silver bullet or magic pill that I see coming up over and over.

Here are few key things to note about meditation:

1. The benefits of a meditation practice are cumulative, not immediate. While we’d all love to go on a meditation retreat and come back super zen and able to glide through life without a care in the world, this is not how it works. While there are some rare examples of people who have had instantaneous “bolt of lightning” enlightenment experiences (see Eckhart Tolle), for most people meditation is a daily practice that, over time, gradually improves their ability to maintain presence, self-regulate and make positive changes in their lives. Think of meditation like exercise, you wouldn’t go to one cross fit class and expect to look like a body builder. Good things take time.

2. Meditation doesn’t mean you don’t feel the feels. A lot of people think of meditation and immediately think of complete equanimity with no ups and downs of emotion, a stoic monk-like avoidance of any feelings. This isn’t the goal of meditation for the everyday meditator. We don’t use meditation to avoid or suppress feelings, in fact when you begin to meditate you may find you are more in tune and experience heightened sensation and emotion, once you stop trying to avoid them. When we dull the pain of life, we also dull the beauty. What we aim to achieve in meditation is the ability to fully feel our emotions, without the need to be carried away or overwhelmed by them. Once we let go of trying to control them, our emotions from joy to sadness, bliss to anger can be fully experienced and move through us without being suppressed within or exploding out at others.

"Meditation isn't about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel. - Jon Kabat-Zinn.

3. Meditation won’t “fix” the other areas of your life, but it can help you to do so. Meditation is great and can be a wonderful tool to develop insight and awareness into what is and isn’t working in your life. However, it can become a crutch if you use it to “get by” or compensate for the stress/overwhelm caused by other areas of your life without dealing with the underlying causes. If you have a job that you hate and causes you stress and anxiety, or toxic relationships, or poor lifestyle habits, these things are not going to be “fixed” by meditating. What I have found though is that, through my regular meditation practice and other tools that I use, I have been able to really understand myself and what is important to me. This then gives the space and insight to make the necessary changes in my life to make it right for me.

4. Meditation isn’t easy, and it’s not supposed to be. I hear all the time from people “oh I can’t meditate because…”. Usually, when we chat further, they have tried once or twice with one type of technique and then stopped because it didn’t meet the expectations of the blissful experience they thought it would be. There’s a reason it’s called a meditation “practice”, it takes time to develop the habit of getting in the chair and sitting with ourselves. It’s often uncomfortable, particularly if we have spent many years avoiding the parts of ourselves that we have decided are “bad”. But it gets easier, and the true gift of meditation is being able to develop the skill to sit with all of ourselves and accept it all, warts and all.

Dan Harris, a news presenter who discovered meditation after having a very public panic attack live on TV, sums it up best when he says that meditation isn’t going to solve all your problems, but it can make you 10% happier, and wouldn’t we all like to be 10% happier. Dan's book is entertaining to read and brutally honest about his own experiences and the potential pitfalls. He also has a podcast, see here.

Just like with exercise, it helps to have a good instructor to guide you around technique, provide support, and keep you on track. If you are ready to learn more, you can check out upcoming courses and events here.

If you would prefer 1:1 personalised training/mentoring, get in touch and we can design something just right for you.

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happy girls laughing, probably after meditating (for a couple of years)