When I started teaching regularly in the fall of 2009, there didn’t seem to be much interest in meditation at that time. I would say that tide has shifted completely since my early days. There are now countless meditation apps to use. Meditation has its own big section in Chapters and I just googled the word Meditation and there were 440 million results 😲 That is a whole lot of information out there about meditation!!
My personal journey with meditation has been an on again-off again relationship, up until a few years ago. I now meditate at least once a day. I remember my meditation teacher at my 200 hour training saying that an experienced meditation practitioner would have the ability to focus on their mantra or their breath for 10-15 seconds before a thought would take over.
When I teach meditation the number one complaint will be about the thinking mind. If you are just trying out a meditation practice for the first time and let’s say you are in your 30’s or if you are like me, your 40’s, that is a whole lot of time that your thinking mind has been running the show!! Other than when we try to meditate, do you ever expect your mind to be quiet? Probably not. So, this expectation that we sit down, close our eyes and our mind will be instantly quiet, after years and years of doing whatever it wants, is honestly kinda laughable.
How do we find silence in mediation then? Through practice, consistency and a whole lot of patience! When we are just starting our meditation journey, we might set our timer for a 10 minute meditation and sit there and think for the whole entire time. This can leave us feeling very discouraged. The key, though, is too set that timer again the next day and the next day and over time, we start to notice a few seconds of silence in between those noisy thoughts. As we gain experience, we begin to seek out that silence. When a thought takes over, we can pull the mind back to where we want the focus to be and we have the ability to keep it there for longer periods of time.
My teacher says eventually silence will prevail. If the thinking mind has been running around like an uncontrolled toddler for20, 30, or 40+ years, we have to expect that it is going to take some time to find that consistent silence. For most of us, it’s not going to happen over night. Honestly, now that I have built some awareness around my thoughts, I have the ability to pull my thinking mind away from unwanted thoughts that show up throughout the day, not just when I meditate. Just this is worth the hours of sitting and listening to myself think when I was supposed to be focused on my mantra!
If you are just starting out on your journey into meditation (or even if you are experienced) and you are wanting to create a consistent meditation practice, I would love to help! Feel free to send me an email and we can set up some time to meet.
Until next time,
Sandra