Hi,
I'm Robert,
Welcome to this short intro to meditation.
Meditation can bring us benefits such as more calm,
Better concentration or managing our emotions better.
But it only works if we approach it with the right expectations.
That's why I've got two questions for you.
First,
Do you expect meditation to turn over your mind?
To have no thoughts?
If so,
I invite you to reframe this expectation.
Our mind's job is to think.
So let's respect its job.
Instead of trying to have no thoughts,
We can aim to learn to work better with them.
How exactly?
That depends on the type of meditation.
For example,
If we focus on our breath,
The goal might not be to focus on the breath all the time,
Because that's almost impossible,
But rather to notice when our mind starts to wander around and to take our attention back to our breath.
In other words,
The goal is not staying with the breath all the time,
But rather noticing our thoughts as soon as possible and returning to our breath.
Second question,
Do you expect meditation to be pleasant?
Do you feel good?
If so,
I invite you to adjust this perspective too.
Meditation is about learning to be with whatever there is.
Being pleasant,
Neutral or unpleasant.
It's easy to be with it when it feels good,
But when it happens to be unpleasant,
Try to really allow the feeling to be with you.
You can even say something like,
Hello my dear feeling,
I allow you to be here.
And then,
Depending on the type of meditation,
You can either observe the feeling,
Explore it a bit more or for example bring your attention back to your breath.
If you do respect your feelings,
It will bring you way more good than trying to push them away.
To sum up,
If thoughts appear during meditation,
It's absolutely alright.
Just work with them as the instructions of the particle meditation say.
And whatever you feel,
Try to allow the feeling to be with you.
And now it's time for practice.
You will find a guide in meditation on another recording on my profile.
Have a beautiful day.
