Are Any of These Meditation Myths Stopping You?

You don’t have to be a monk to master meditation. But what do I know? I suck at meditation.Or at least I thought I did.Then, recently, I began realizing the numerous benefits I receive as a result of regular meditation.The benefits are immensely personal and practical. Better yet, they are even subtle. They are so subtle, I had not even realized the connection between some of the benefits I’ve received and my daily meditation.A few days ago I heard a comment; it was part of a guided meditation I was doing on the Calm app. At first, it took me by surprise. Tamara Levitt, the host and guide, said that one benefit of meditation is that it becomes easier to step away from busyness. Suddenly l realized, “Hey, that’s true for me.”In years past, when I went on vacation, I found it often took me three or four days to clear my head and begin to unwind. By the last day of vacation, I’d usually started the re-entry process — wondering what I’d missed, who I needed to contact, and what was required to resume the various projects underway. Do the math, and you realize that I often only had two days of real vacation out of a 7-day vacation. That stunk!Not so this year. Last month we got away for a week of vacation.It was much easier to stop the carousel and step off for a few days rather than being constantly bombarded by thoughts. I noticed it on day one of our vacation. For a few moments, I wondered what was different this year. But, instead of over-analyzing why unwinding was easier this year than previous years, I decided to enjoy being unwound (is that a word?).It was only a few weeks later when I connected the dots. WOW! If meditation helped me do that, what else might be possible?Recently, I was in a coaching session with Susan Axelrod (to clarify, she was coaching me). Susan recognizes that there are plenty of people, like me, who react when they hear meditation. Accordingly, she prefers to call it Meditative Space. This is a deliberate practice to visually depict clearing the clutter in your mind and finding space between your thoughts. (I don’t know about you, but I am usually in the market for some meditative space.)All of this got me thinking more about meditation. What is it that so many have misunderstood about meditation that prevents us from reaping these remarkable benefits? Here are the five meditation myths that kept me from meditating. Do you recognize any of these?

1. I’m too busy to meditate. That’s kind of like saying you are too busy to think. Seriously? In actuality, the busier you are, the greater your need for meditation. It’s easy to jump out of bed and hit the floor running out of a sense of being busy. It’s equally easy to neglect self-care when you are busy and overly busy can lead to burnout. Investing  a few moments in meditation will help you stay centered, focused, and more effective with your time and energy
2. Only mystics and monks meditate. That’s another way of saying that meditation is mystical, aerie-faerie, or religious. It can be a spiritual practice but, in and of itself, meditation need not be religious or wacky. You don’t have to burn incense, light candles, recite chants, or do yoga to meditate. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those aspects of meditation, especially if you are a monk or a mystic. (Don’t want to offend my readers from the monastery).
3. It takes too long to meditate.  Who said there was a minimum time limit required for meditation in order for it to be effective? There are benefits to meditation even if you only meditate for a moment. I started by meditating for 3 minutes. As I began to reap benefits from those 3-minute sessions, I extended the time. My sessions average about 10 minutes and I’ve discovered those 10 minutes have a compound effect on the rest of my time.
4. You have to sit on the floor cross-legged, wear yoga pants, chant, and burn incense to meditate. Now you know that I am a card-carrying Baby Boomer who came of age in the 70s to have those associations with meditation. But that is what I originally thought. Now I know that’s nonsense. Naturally, there are some places more conducive to meditation than others, but you can meditate most anywhere and wear whatever you want.
5. I’ll fail at it, so, why bother? I get this. It’s what I thought for years. Now I realize no one is grading my meditation practice. My misconception was thinking that meditation meant "to not think”, to achieve a state of nothingness. Now, thanks to help from Tamara Levitt, the voice on the Calm App and my daily guide, I realize not thinking is not the point of meditation. Instead, it is to develop awareness of my thoughts, to consciously clear the clutter, and order what would otherwise be chaos.

I now realize how wrong I was about meditation and what I was missing. How about you? Do you wrestle with any of these or are there others you would add to the list?If you’re willing, why not take a 7-day challenge. Commit to creating meditative space and carving out a few minutes each day of the next seven days to meditate. If, like me, you need a little help, try calm.com or the Calm App. Once you have a 7-day streak under your belt, I’m guessing you’ll be finding enough benefits to keep it going.  [clickToTweet tweet="Accepting a meditation challenge isn’t a competition. It’s encouragement." quote="Accepting a meditation challenge isn’t a competition. It’s encouragement."]I am enjoying benefits from regular meditation and hope you will too. Over the next few weeks, there will be guests more knowledgeable than myself on meditation sharing their experience and expertise. Leave your info below to receive updates on future blog posts. Up next is a guest post from Susan Axelrod, coach, consultant, and speaker, sharing her practice of Meditative Space.[convertkit form=4923795]