Dispelling Myths About Meditation: Facts Every Beginner Should Know
In this day and age, everyone is busy with something or another. Whether juggling family, work, social life, or our persistent presence on social media, it often leaves little to no time to designate self-care, let alone meditation. Whether you’re in the beginning stages of practice or an experienced practitioner, at some point, the image of meditation may have or be keeping you from fully delving into practice. This piece will explore demystifying four common myths and misperceptions around meditation.
Myth #1 Meditation Requires You to Stop Thinking
Moments after you close your eyes, you're liable to experience distracting thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations that will likely leave you wondering why you even decided to practice in the first place.
Despite your best intentions, dropping into a practice that calls you to sit with your innermost thoughts, which are liable to run amuck, will surely make beginners believe they are doing it all wrong.
Contrary to popular belief, meditation does not require you to cease the flow of thought. Admittedly, it would make dropping into meditation a whole lot easier. However, the mind doesn’t quite work that way, as it does the opposite. Where your attention goes, your energy flows. Likewise, the faster you try to stop the rapid flow of thoughts, the quicker it will flow. In other words, the harder you try to cease its flow, the more forceful it becomes as it continuously fires one after another until you reclaim volition (aka control) over your attention.
Understandably, this can quickly leave one wondering what they set up to practice in the first place. As spiritual beings having a human incarnation, you control where you direct your attention. Hence, our power lies in our ability to shift our attention to the things that can solely occur within the moment.
The breath is one of the faculties that can only happen within the present—focusing your awareness on the natural rhythm and flow of the breath roots your understanding within the now. Whenever you find your attention drifting, be gracious with yourself by releasing any judgment and redirecting your attention back home to the breath as many times as needed.
Myth #2 There is a Right and a Wrong Way to Practice
Although there is more than one singular way to do a particular thing, we have collectively been conditioned to believe there is a right and wrong way to do something. We are increasingly conditioned to err on the side of caution to ensure that we do everything possible to do things the “right way.” However, when it comes to mediative practice, there is no ideal practice, only universal law.
Thankfully, this frees you to release yourself from any limitations that make you feel obligated to mirror your practice after others when it may not fit your individualized needs. Permit yourself to remain open, available, and receptive to exploring different modes, taking what resonates and leaving the rest until you form a customized practice tailored to meet you exactly where you are in your journey. Know that practice is static as it evolves as you continue to deepen your practice.
Myth #3: You must designate a significant amount of Time for Meditation to Work
When it comes to meditation, there’s this implied notion that one must designate a significant amount of time to practice for it to “work.” This is a common misperception, as there are no time constraints. Meditation is an individualized practice that meets you exactly where you are. You can deepen and expand your practice to suit your evolving needs.
Since so many of us have so little time to add yet another thing to our to-do list, time is often a deterrent to practice. So, like most things, you must crawl before you can walk. This means consistency yields proficiency. In essence, time is one of the main things we perceive we have too little of. From a nonexistent work-life balance, pets, and young children who demand your constant awareness and attention to the many other obligations and demands that pull us in polarizing directions, time is one of those things that many of us struggle to manage.
Although there is no universal timeframe for practice, it is widely accepted that true practice is longer than three to five minutes. So why start small with a few short minutes a day when you can dive off the deep end and practice for twenty minutes or longer? Like most, I shared this same approach when embracing new practices. Only to feel overwhelmed when it seemed as if the time lingered, making it seem like each minute lasted an eternity.
When it comes to practices that can dramatically change our lives for the better, who wouldn’t want to immerse themselves in meditation completely? Despite our best intentions, practicing for longer than you are able can only deter you from fully embracing the practice. Regardless of prior exposure and experience, diving headfirst may work for several things. However, meditation is not one of them. As your capacity for meditation expands with frequency and consistency, so does your ability to extend the length of your practice.
Myth #4: You Have to Believe Everything You Think
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to believe all of your thoughts. Just because something passes through your awareness doesn’t mean you must give it your energy and attention. Where your attention goes, your energy flows, so the moment you withdraw your attention, you take your power back. So how does one know if and when to withdraw their attention? Thought that arises that causes you to question your worthiness is low frequency. Likewise, high vibrational thoughts are uplifting and affirm the truth of your being; anything else is just a distraction.
Be it conscious or unconscious, the thoughts you entertain make their way into your subconscious, making you much more susceptible for them to rise to the forefront of your awareness when you least expect it. Hence, this is why you will likely experience the seemingly random flow of thoughts and distractions that rally to compete for your attention from the moment you drop into practice.
So naturally, the more low vibrational thoughts one entertains, internalizes, and recycles within their thoughts, the more liable it is to resurface repeatedly. The secret that every beginning meditator should know is that you can agree to disagree with your thoughts by observing and accepting them for what they are without trying to interpret, overanalyze, justify, or rationalize them to be anything other than what they are, release any judgment and allow them to freely pass through your awareness without internalizing it.
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