The mindful way: How meditation will help you thrive.
You’ve probably heard or read this word a billion times: MEDITATION. It has even invaded social media with more than 51 million #meditation on Instagram and 4.9 billion views on TikTok.
And every time you think something like that: “ugh, I could never do that, sit and not think about anything for an hour”, “I just can’t, I think too much”, or “Sounds terrible, I have better things to do with my time”.
Or maybe you have tried in the past and felt like your mind was all over the place, so now you have this idea that you “failed at meditating”.
Do you recognise yourself in any of these?
I was the same.
But do you know what meditating truly means? It seems to me that the definition of meditation has been a little lost and diluted over the past few years. So to start, I am going back to the basics, giving you a little context and definition.
There are many ways to meditate, but today I concentrate on this one: the practice of mindfulness. And now, you can ask: what is mindfulness?
“Being mindful means simply noting what is arising, and as best we can, just letting it be.
Mindfulness training teaches us how to reduce stress (…), as well as how to be happier and calmer in the ups and downs of life.”
12 benefits of mediation, READ HERE
Pay attention to the first part of this definition: “noting what is arising”. Very often, we think that the art of meditating is the art of silencing our minds. Actually, it is the art of paying attention to our minds and thoughts and viewing them as clouds passing by in the sky. Do you remember doing that as a kid? Lying down on the grass and watching the clouds above you, noticing their shapes, colour, and speed.
Meditation is the practice of sitting or lying down and paying attention to the thoughts inside your mind and trying not to follow them. We are trying not to go down the rabbit hole but realise, “oh, I am thinking about this, ok”. And every time you notice a thought, you go back to your inner peace, to your breath, and let the thought go.
Let it go, let it gooooo (please sing this part like Elsa, aha!)
I started meditating about seven years ago. At the time, I was suffering from a lot of anxiety and regular panic attacks. I needed something to help soothe my nervous system, something that would one day help me stop taking anxiety medication.
If you have read my previous articles, you know I am not a huge fan of medication, and it is because it was so hard for me to stop anxiety medication. I can even tell that to this day, I still sometimes crave it. I have made peace with the fact that this sensation might never go away, but I have also decided never to rely on medication ever again for my mental well-being.
So as I was saying, I needed something to help soothe my thought process, my anxiety. I needed a practice that would help me build mental strength. That’s when my housemate at the time introduced me to meditation. More precisely, she introduced me to the “calm” app.
I am definitely not here to sell you the app, but it changed my life. I started their “7 days of Calm”. The first time, I failed to go through it entirely. The first minutes of stillness were so difficult! I was not used to just sitting down and focusing on staying still and breathing. It was really, really hard. I think it took me three attempts to finally go through the seven days, even though each day was only a 10-minute practice!
Getting into the habit of mindfulness and stillness is hard. I am not going to lie to you. Some days are easier than others. Some days I have to go back to my breathing every 10 seconds because I have let myself be swept away by the waves of thoughts running through my mind. But that is precisely what meditation is, a PRACTICE. That’s why you cannot FAIL at meditating, because the simple act of trying and practising is what it is all about.
The benefits of mediation have been studied over and over again. Even Forbes magazine published an article called “7 ways mediation can actually change the brain” back in 2015, stating this:
“studies reporting that meditation helps relieve our subjective levels of anxiety and depression, and improve attention, concentration, and overall psychological well-being.”
7 ways Meditation can change your brain READ HERE
The previous article I linked in this post gave us a list called “12 science-based benefits of meditation”. Let's take a look at it:
Reduces stress
Controls anxiety
Promotes emotional health
Enhances self-awareness
Lengthens attention span
Reduces age-related memory loss
Increases compassion towards yourself and others
Helps fight addictions
Improves sleep
Helps control pain
Decrease blood pressure
Accessible anywhere
Like I said earlier, I turned towards meditation to help with my anxiety and my consumption of anxiety medication. I also found a way to unwind, gain more self-awareness, and, most of all, self-compassion.
I don’t know if you are anything like me, but I am very hard on myself. Way harder than I am with everybody else. Mediating has helped soften that and be kinder to me. It is now an act of self-care and self-love that I practice almost every day.
I cannot say that I am free from anxiety now, but I have it under control, and panic attacks are in the past. That, in itself, is a miracle for me.
Here are my 3 tips for you if you want to start meditating:
Start with a short meditation. 5 to 10 minutes are enough because what you want to do is get into the habit of doing it. There is no need to try to sit for 30 minutes or an hour. It will just be overwhelming, and giving up will be too tempting.
Start with a guided meditation. The guidance the narrator provides will help you notice when you have let yourself be swept away by your thoughts.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Whenever you notice yourself caught up in your thoughts, come back to your breathing with KINDNESS. Please do not beat yourself up; it happens to all of us. And again, this is the PRACTICE of meditation. You are doing great.
I hope this article is of some help and gives you some clarity about meditation. Maybe you even want to try it out! If committing to a seven-day challenge seems too much for you right now, just try it every other day. As always, my advice is to GIVE IT A TRY.
And remember, be kind to others, but also to yourself.
