Does Meditation Work?

Does meditation work? In episode 23, your spiritual besties look at the meditation tools that have shifted our perspectives slowly but surely. This is less of a how-to meditate talk and more of a conversation about the benefits of meditation in daily living. We’ll share realtime examples of what meditation benefits can actually look like in the midst of our busy lives. But we’ll also include a short, breath-based practice at the end in case you’re feeling courageous and wanna try a quickie!

Transcript

Thanks for joining us here on Pretty Spiritual where we're attempting the unthinkable about how to navigate this messy, Beautiful, Imperfect life with spiritual tools, What principles in our own personal stories. So we're not experts, We're not religious, We're definitely silly. We're honest, Real and willing to share. So join us as we connect, Bond and grow together. Everyone, It's my pleasure today. We are going to bring into the light the topic of meditation. Specifically, We're going to talk about how to meditate, How to start a meditation practice and for us to share what our meditation looks like in real life application. Very exciting. I'm personally very excited. Can you tell? We often refer to meditation as being a top priority tool. We thought that it would be useful to outline and describe our ways of meditating plus the how and the why of its usefulness in our daily lives. I love to start with a few misconceptions about meditation just to clear the mind and ease the judgments of what we think we know about meditation because I've known so much for so long. Why would I ever need to start or do? Thank goodness we've got an expert. Oh no. Here are some things that I looked up that they say. God bless the experts wherever they are. That's right. Bless them. So some misconceptions about meditation would be that you have to clear your mind to meditate. This is actually the number one myth and the cause of many people giving up in frustration. Let me just say I definitely can't clear my mind to meditate. And that's great news because we don't have to. Another misconception is that it takes years of dedicated practice to receive any benefits from meditation. When the truth behind this is that benefits are immediate, Even if it doesn't feel like it, And long term. Scientific studies provide evidence that meditation has profound effects on the mind, Body, Physiology within just a few weeks of practice. Another one is I don't have enough time to meditate. That old great misconception we all know so much. The not enough time for anything. In life's paradoxical way, When we spend time meditating on a regular basis, We actually have more time. I can attest. So annoying how that's true. Really? You just wouldn't believe it until you tried it. Amen. Right off the top, I'm just going to share some quick tips with you on how to get mentally prepared for meditation. Because why not? We're already thinking, You know what? I don't like your meditation. I don't want my meditation. Forget you all. So let's just talk right now about some quick tips. Meditation does not clear the mind, At least not at first, And typically what happens is the mind may revolt, Throw a tantrum. I'm constantly throwing tantrums, It turns out. I see now. To sit and notice and observe your thoughts for the first time may be overwhelming, Especially if you have a mind like mine. Notice the experience without judgment and attempt to breathe through it. And then another great tip is just keep it short. When starting meditation, Starting for just three minutes. Many suggest to start with 15 or 20, And that if you're new- That's long. It is too long. Too much. Oh my God, I get so cranky. Getting yourself into position, Into a consistent way to help build the habit and your tolerance for the I don't want us. Three minutes is great. One minute. One minute. That's meditation, Baby. So great. We're going to share our own personal journeys with meditation. How we began, Our hang-ups, Maybe even some triumphs, What it was like then and how it is now, Present time. We might even share some of our own personal meditations and the benefits we feel we've gained with our meditation attempts and practices. Ooh wee. Ooh wee. Ella, Would you love to start us off? Oh, You know I would. I was just remembering when you were sharing about when we start trying to meditate and we're like, I'm doing it wrong. My mind is so busy going down all these paths that our brain is taking us down. And in Zen, There's a story, A teaching story that I heard or teaching phrase that I heard pretty early on, Which was, How do you tame an angry bull? And the suggestion is give it a wide pasture so that however much it needs to run around and exert itself and go down funny paths, You just let it because the pasture is wide enough for it to do whatever it needs to do. I was also told very early on that judging meditation is extra. The words that they used in the spiritual community where I was was don't qualify your meditation. Don't qualify it with good or bad or working or not working. Just do it. And then when you do qualify, Just, Okay, I qualified it. How do I not believe the things that I'm thinking about it right now? I have some humble meditation beginnings. I was physically sober, But like really, Really sad and unhappy and non-functional. And I remember my dad who's been practicing Soto Zen Buddhism for probably like 25 or 30 years at this point came into my room, And I was in like a deep wallowy kind of place. And he was suggesting meditation and I got genuinely offended. I was like, Rude. It's clear you don't know the darkness that's inside. Please don't try to apply your tools to it because it's not going to work. And then I tried something inside me was like just unhappy enough that I was willing to go on YouTube and try a guided meditation. So with all of that training and experience, I then decided to move to a Zen monastery. Extreme! Yeah, Which happened like a couple weeks later. And the truth is that I moved there because I was probably going to kill myself if I didn't do something. And that was the thing that I thought to do. What I started experiencing when I was in a position where I was basically, I don't want to say forced, But I was strongly encouraged to meditate twice a day is that I really got to experience my mind and like Lindsay was saying, It was terrifying and awful. And so, You know, The beginning of my experience with meditation was really, Really uncomfortable. It was this really, It was this really horrible experience of I feel worse. Why are you doing this to me? Like why am I doing this to myself? And initially, It was we were talking about at the beginning, It was this experience of like having a front row seat to like all of this judgment and delusion and suffering, But feeling like there was nothing I could do to change it. And when I brought that up with my Zen teacher, She was like, Yep, That's how it starts. Like you're on the right track. And I was like, For some reason, I was comforting enough. And I practiced Zen meditation, Zazen for, You know, Years, A couple times a day. And what started shifting for me after I after the panic attacks, And the anxiety and the dread and the judgment started to subside a little bit is that I started to find this like really safe anchorage inside my own body. What I didn't know before I signed up for this spiritual journey and like meditation extravaganza at the monastery is that meditation, At least in the school I was practicing means that you're actually coming into your body and I was hoping against hope that I could use meditation as like a spiritual bypass to just get away from being a human. So it's been so perfect that I've actually used meditation in the opposite way. And it's even though coming back into my body was so scary and uncomfortable, And it felt so unsafe at first, It has shifted for me into this, This really kind of ever present anchor to safety and truth. I guess that's what I said about meditation. I would love to hear what Annie has to say about meditation. Thank you, Ella. How long did you live at the Zen military that first time? It was about two and a half years on and off. Interesting. So funny how we end up here. Or there. Or there. My experience with meditation at first was totally unintentional. My sister and I, I was in my very early 20s. My friend's mom recommended we go to Spirit Rock to this four night, Five day silent meditation retreat. And she said, And I quote, It's better than any acid trip. And that really appealed to me. Wow. And I knew nothing about meditation. I knew nothing about Spirit Rock. I didn't know I wasn't really looking for spirituality. I just was like, All right. And so I sign up and I was in so over my head. I had never not talked before. Certainly not for five days straight while sitting multiple times a day. It was this crash course and it was it was really overwhelming and it planted a seed. So I left at the retreat. And it had appealed to me there was some flashes of connection that felt good. And I tried in this kind of stumbling way to apply it in my life, But it just didn't stick. I didn't have the dedication or the drive or even anything really pushing me to it. I was too busy being 21. Fast forward a decade, And I get hit a bottom in my life and I start on the spiritual journey and meditation is one of the tools suggested to me. And I was at this time really gripped with anxiety and sitting still this kind of panic would consume me. And but I also knew that I had this experience with it in the past and that there had been some good feelings. And so I would set a timer on my phone for two minutes, Because I, I couldn't bear to sit still. And if there was a timer, I felt safe and I felt contained like I knew it would end basically. And I would just sit there on my bed and feel miserable for two minutes, But I would do it. And then I stopped. It's like, It doesn't work for me. So then fast forward about three years and I'm living in another city and I, My higher power plants me in a house with a woman who has a transcendental meditation practice morning and night. And every day she would invite me to join her and every day I'd say, No, Thank you. Please stop asking. And thank you. And she would meditate for 20 minutes each time and find every once in a while I would join her. And it was nice to sit next to somebody and I wasn't alone. And also again, There was that containment. I knew when it was going to end at a set amount of time, Even though I felt 20 minutes was far too long, But it was helpful because over months I eventually started saying yes more. And then I eventually just started taking it to my own space and I just started doing it by with between me and my higher power every day. And it kind of there's a shift that occurred where it became part of my practice of like, What if I can actually commit to doing this every day? What would it be like? Because I was a big fan of never committing to anything. So it's gone through so many changes. It's gone through periods of feeling like glorious, Like I can feel this like golden honey kind of like drip down my brain and I feel so gentle and then connection. And it's gone through months where it just feels like a chore, You know, And I just sit there and I'm like, Chore, Chore time. I was getting resentful when you were like, Trippy honey. I was like, Who's ever experienced that? Wow. Sounds great. And then so my brain of course is like Ella was saying, I'm doing it wrong. If I want that golden honey back, Give me the honey. And now it's at this point where I'm like, I get what I get and I get to just show up. There was periods where I was just doing it because I had pride in the fact that I could say that I did it every day. You know, I was like, That made me feel good, Which also sometimes I just need reasons to actually be consistent. So if that's going to help me along, That's fine too. The thing I'm only about four and a half years into this journey of a daily meditation practice. But I what I see over time is that it's this, It's an investment in me and my relationship with like having a spiritual relationship with what I consider to be God. And even if sometimes it's so confusing, I just keep doing it because if I look back over time, All it's done has improved my life. There hasn't ever been a like, Really negative part of having this practice. So I'm like, What if I can just keep showing up and trust that even if sometimes it doesn't give me what I think I want, That this is a commitment to myself, To my community, And also to my relationship with God. So that's what it looks like now and how it's kind of changed over time. What about you, Pony? Oh, Thank you so much, Both of you for sharing. I related so much to all of it. And just beginning, I didn't realize it until Ella was like, Oh, Yes, Like we transcend our body and we're off in another place. Acid trip. Sign me up. And what I kind of am realizing, Like sitting here and having this conversation is that I was still really hoping that I was going to like transcend my body. So as Ella said that I'm like, Oh, Dang. I'm going to transcend my body. And I'm going to just get out of all this mess that I can't sit with or handle these feelings. I can't be here. I can't escape all of that through meditation and also how I get there is I do this every day and then I am a worthwhile person the more days in a row that I get that takes up on my little counter that I have for days. And this has gone on for a really long time. Almost presently, Let's say, Which is really cool to recognize that I've had these beliefs going into meditation. Like it was a suggestion that I really didn't like and I just didn't take it for many, Many, Many years. And then I had some future, I would kind of dabble in them. But again, I've had this idea that I need to fix myself. I need to fix myself now. And what is the thing, What is the tool that is going to fix me right now and make me a better person right now? And so of course, After like a day or two of meditating, It was very clear that that wasn't the tool. Useless. I would completely be like, Oh, Okay, Yes, On to the next, Whatever it takes. I will do it for a short amount of time as long as it makes me better today right now, Immediately. And what an amazing thing that having a meditation practice that is imperfect, That is uncomfortable, That doesn't look like how I want it to look has actually taught me more than I could ever imagine anything teaching me if it would have only gone my way. So all of this just to say that the days were more important to me on the counter. And checking this off, Whether I felt like it was a chore or that I was transcending this life and body, Of course, You know, Maybe I've had a couple of those. When it was good, It was really good and I was glad. And then when it was bad, It was really bad and I hate it and I was mad. But I've gotten more willing to go and sit and have an experience. So I'm very grateful for getting into the position of being willing to meditate, Being more curious of what it can look like without my judgments and my thinking about it. Because when my timer, You know, I was on a roll and my timer had me up to almost 45 days and I was like, This is it. Killing it. I am amazing. Mm hmm. And— Yes, You are. I agree. Oh, Wow. And I shall be well. As soon as this gets to 365 days where I meditate every day, That is when, You know, I've also made the laws or the rules of how this is going to look and I really, Really believe them and then I don't see my beliefs and then I'm, You know, I'm just here checking stuff off and being kind of unconscious about it. Tara Brach says sometimes you put your tush in your kush and you get what you get. That was something that she said. It's these little bits and pieces where I would see someone in my community and she was really fiery like me and we always related so much to each other. And I remember thinking, Boy, That person needs a lot of help or a lot of like, And then she would show up and she talked about how meditation had changed her life. That was really a big piece where I would think of her and I would go, You know, It's one of those, Well, If she can do it, Maybe I can do it. So it was really tiny incremental steps towards just getting myself into the position, Whatever it looked like, And then all of the things that I've got to learn along the way. Today I'm actually having all of this come in and like seeing myself throughout however many days, You know, My timer's back up to 33 everyone. And what I'm realizing actually is that I want this to be more of something that brings me closer to spirit. I want this to be something that I interact with as a tool to help me to be with what is here instead of trying to transcend what is here. And even in the saying that like my toes just tingled, I was like, Oh no. Oh God. So we'll see. Pretty accessible you guys. I mean, You can probably relate to all of it. The other part that I loved so much, Annie, That you were talking about is that, So I was a complete mess and I was like, Oh, I'm supposed to go. I'd never meditated. I didn't even know, But I was like, Maybe I'd like seen in a magazine or something, You know, Meditation is good for you. And I was like, Oh, I'm going to go on a 10 day sit. And I was telling my cousin's husband this and he just looks at me deadpan and he was like, How about you try to sit one time? And I was like, Oh, Sure. But no, He's the most reasonable person in my, He's like the one person that I was into. And I was like, Oh, You know, And I look back at that and I just getting again with like all this time and this sitting and being with myself, Seeing that I am an extremist, You know, To the max. And I want a lot of instant gratification. And this is a really beautiful practice where I can witness all of that, Perhaps if I am conscious enough. We'll see. Okay. In the second half of our episode, Our spiritual toolbox party. So now is the fun part where we share the practical elements of how we actually meditate. Where do we do it? When do we do it? What does it look like? What actions do we take? Beloved Ella? So great. I'm going to go off the cuff and tell you guys what's really happening. Because when we were when I was getting ready for this episode quite a while ago, I was like, Oh, This is the time for me to like, Share, Saw Zen. But what I was just realizing looking over my notes before we started today is that there was this deep kind of lack of trust that I knew how to encompass and convey this practice. And I was like, Not consciously, But oh my god, What if the Zen community listens to this and they're like, She lived at Tazahara for that long, And she still doesn't know what saw Zen is. Three out of five stars. I'm embarrassed for her. Definitely leaving a comment. I hope you do. Everyone. Just kidding. Don't. Just kidding. Do what you got to do. Listen to your heart and speak from there. And so I like took all these notes on the right way to practice saw Zen and she can toss on. It was a slightly fulfilling experience only because all of the stuff that I was reading was like, That happened to me nodding along while reading experiences, Even when I don't want to meditate, The reason I trust that doing it is beneficial anyway is because I've seen the benefits in my life where I'm less reactive and I'm more available to myself and my own needs, Whether they're physical or emotional and to those around me to life, More forgiving and compassionate toward myself and other people. And also sometimes once in a while, Maybe I hope have a sense of humor. So here is what just happened. We were all together here. We're at my house. I was telling Lindsay how I've been having such a hard time with the podcast website that I've been trying first time first time I ever tried to build a website. Didn't think I could do it. I've made something and I've been like trying to railroad WordPress, Which is this website building platform into doing what I want it to do. I'm like, I shall command the internet and the internet is not listening to me. It's very frustrating. And I've been finding myself getting like really hijacked by the idea of how it should be. And so I was telling Lindsay this stuff and Annie came in and she has her coffee and she's like, Hey, I have this really great idea for a way that we can like, Oh my gosh, How funny. I'm just going for it. How we can help people find us. And she suggested this really great thing about Instagram. I had no idea you guys were talking about that. I know. I tried.

Reviews

Really liked this one. Especially good for those new or struggling with their practice. Also talks about common misconceptions about meditation, like getting panicky when sitting or thinking you're doing it wrong when you can't silence your mind.

This was an awesome talk, good tools and great to hear your journeys into meditation. I have just passed my 365 days on insight timer, so feels good, but what's even better is that it's changed my life so much and I'm so grateful 😍 love you beautiful ladies 💜x

I gotta say I love you ladies! Thank you for what you do, and for being so real in sharing your lives & experiences with us!