Approach Your Practice

How do we approach our meditation practice to help facilitate success? During this discussion, I will touch on the importance of setting ourselves up to be successful. Having a strong commitment while implementing simple yet effective techniques, will help encourage us to show up consistently.

Transcript

Approaching your practice.

How should we approach our practice?

This is something that a lot of people that start meditating don't even consider.

And it is most certainly one of the most important aspects of any meditation practice.

How we approach our practice is similar to how we approach anything in life that we want to do well,

That we want to be successful with,

That we know can help us is going to be something positive in our lives.

And yet we oftentimes find lots of different excuses or reasons not to do it,

Even though we know that it is something that we truly want to do.

All of us have a reason why we decided to start meditating,

Whether it is an excess of anxiety in our lives,

A yearning for peace,

An overly active inner voice,

The ego brain that is driving us crazy,

Whatever that reason why.

It got you here.

It got you to the point where you decided to do something about it,

Whether you really believed that meditation was going to help or if you had heard a lot of talk about this thing that you could do that would help.

You knew somebody who had started meditating and they told you about it and the results that they had gotten from it,

You could see in their eyes there was a truth to it that it worked.

But without the proper approach,

All those things can lead you down that same path that you've been down before,

Where you started to do something and you didn't get the results that you were looking for right away or you have an expectation about what's going to happen,

What it should feel like,

Even though you've never done it before.

And that's not uncommon.

That's something that a lot of us run into and a lot of the things that we do.

So in order to be successful with your meditation practice,

We need to do a few things in order to set ourselves up for success.

And they're not that difficult.

Choosing a time that makes sense for you to meditate,

Even if you're only meditating once a day,

You should probably meditate more than that,

But starting out at once is great.

Early in the morning when you first get out of bed,

At nighttime before you go to bed,

The middle of the day,

Some point in time is a tough one to get in.

A lot of people work,

Have kids,

There's lots going on.

But picking some times throughout the day and then setting reminders on your phone that go off every day at those times,

That flash up on the screen on that wonderful supercomputer that you carry around in your pocket that says meditation.

And you might not have time for it.

You might have 10 different reasons why you have something else to do.

But as long as that pops up on your daily reminders,

It's a tool.

It's something that will help you remember.

And if it works just a few times to begin with,

Then it's helping.

Every time that we sit down to meditate,

Every time we close our eyes,

Is one time closer to actually forming a habit of doing it.

And you can also tell the people that are in your life what your intentions are that you're going to do this.

They will help you to do it.

Even if you are super busy and your spouse is super busy,

If you're married,

If you convey the importance of it and something that you show that you truly want to do,

That person will help you find the time to do it.

Maybe even help remind you that it's time to do it,

Even though sometimes you might not want to be reminded.

But most importantly,

A commitment to your practice,

A commitment that you're going to do it,

Has to be there.

You are the person that's going to do it.

Nobody else is going to do it for you.

If this is something that you truly want and that you know is going to benefit you,

Then you have to make that choice and you have to commit to it 100%.

My teacher has a teacher and his name is Maharishi Krishnananda Ishaiah.

And he,

In a talk that I listened to,

Talked about committing 100% to something as opposed to committing 98% to something.

And the example that he gave,

Which I thought was a really good example,

Is if you commit to something 100% as opposed to 98%,

It's actually a lot easier to follow through with that commitment.

Take giving up fast food as an example,

Because you know that fast food is horrible for you and that you should eat better and that your health is important to you.

You decide that you're going to give up fast food and you're 100% sure that you're going to give up and you're 100% committed to it.

So yes,

It will be difficult when you first start,

But after a short while you will be able to drive through town and you'll drive right by McDonald's.

You'll drive by Burger King or whatever fast food place that you like to frequent.

And you won't even notice it because you've committed to the fact that you're not going to eat it anymore.

You're 100% committed.

Whereas if you commit 98% and you leave that opening that,

I'm not going to eat it anymore,

But every once in a while I'll have it.

And that just makes it so that when you drive through town and you go buy those fast food places that there's a crack there.

There's the opportunity that you could say,

Well,

I guess,

You know,

Today's going to be that 2%.

Today's going to be that time that I'm going to let myself have it.

The rest of the time I won't.

I won't have it,

But today I can.

And before you know it,

You're most likely going to be eating fast food just like you were before because you weren't 100% committed to doing it.

Another great example would be smoking cigarettes.

Anybody that has smoked cigarettes,

I used to be a smoker and I can say from my own experience that the only times that I've ever been able to quit were times that I quit all out 100%.

If I left the tiniest little bit of crack that I would allow myself to smoke,

Eventually I would do it.

I drive by gas stations and know that they have cigarettes there.

Anytime that a person was around me that was smoking,

I could ask them for a cigarette.

Before I knew it,

I would start smoking again.

But if I was 100% committed to not smoking anymore,

I could do it because I had committed 100% to do it.

And the same thing applies to your meditation practice.

If you buy in 100% that you're going to do this and you do it to that degree,

Before you know it you'll have formed the habit and it will become something that's very important to you.

You'll feel the benefits from your meditation practice and you will love it and it will be something that you'll be able to count on.

So go out and commit.

Take it head on.

Don't take it piecemeal.

Do this.

Meditate.

You know it's something that you want.

You know that it has a benefit to it.

And if you're new to it,

Be gentle with yourself.

Give it some time.

It's not going to happen the first time that you do it.

It's not going to happen the second time that you do it.

The habit that will form will take a little bit of time.

The benefit that you will get from it will take a little bit of time.

But it is well worth your time to stay with it.

Approach your practice like it's something that you cannot live without.

And before you know it,

It will be something that you cannot live without.

Go with peace and love,

Everybody.

Have a great day.