So you learned to meditate a little while ago and chances are that even if you kept it up for a few days or even for a week or two after you learned,
Chances are that by now you're not meditating regularly anymore and that whatever routine you were on got totally derailed.
And the point of this video is to check in with you and to reassure you that if this happened to you,
It is totally,
Absolutely normal.
What happened was that your monkey mind,
After multiple continuous tries and effort,
Simply found a way to pick you off the tentative toehold you had on meditation and dropped you right back to square one.
The intensive chatter in your mind just overwhelmed you and you are probably feeling like this is not for me,
I stink at this,
But it's not true.
It only means that you have a normal,
Healthy monkey mind.
And it's good at doing its job,
Which is keeping you engaged in the endless drama and excitement of everyday practical life.
And the thing is,
Your monkey mind is so strong because it's like a muscle that you've been using 24-7 every day of your waking life.
So it's really,
Really strong.
And the opposite of monkey mind,
For now let's call it the non-thinking mind,
Is completely atrophied.
It is weak and undeveloped because you were never taught to use it.
You definitely didn't learn to use it in school and they definitely didn't cover it at Harvard or Stanford when I went there.
So now,
If you've been meditating regularly since we started,
Congratulations.
But you also are not immune.
Monkey mind will eventually get to you too,
It is just a matter of time.
So then,
What do you do when this happens?
So whenever you fall off your track,
What I recommend is that you just use the audio guided meditation of Just Preside,
Or whichever one you may have learned in addition that's your favorite,
And only at the 5-7 minute levels.
And I recommend that you do that every night for a few days,
3 or 4 days in a row,
And then see how you feel from there.
Now what this will do is it will work the muscle of your non-thinking mind so that you will get back in the habit of resting in the non-thinking mind totally effortlessly.
And the more you do this,
And it is really important to keep it effortless,
Okay,
But the more you do this,
The stronger your non-thinking mind will become.
And then the more it can quote unquote support your weight as it were for longer periods of time in meditation,
And then make it easier to do regular meditation.
Don't feel badly if you were doing 40 minutes or an hour meditation,
And now you've dropped back to 5-7.
It's basically just one more round in your ongoing management of monkey mind.
And don't see it as a failure,
See it as the next step.
And when you do this,
Don't be afraid to stay at the 5-7 minute level for a month or even a year.
The point is to work the muscle of your non-thinking mind slowly,
And to remember that it's like an atrophied muscle,
It's in recovery,
And what you want to do is to gently nurse it back to a stronger functional form.
You don't want to rush out to brute force your way to a 45 minute meditation,
You'll just give monkey mind a field day for slapping you around.
So be gentle with your non-thinking mind and work it back up slowly.
I hope you found this helpful,
And please email me with any questions you may have.
