Hi friends.
Thank you for joining me today.
I'm so happy you're here.
If you clicked on this talk I'm assuming it's because you are struggling to meditate.
Maybe you've wanted to start up a meditation practice but are finding that it just isn't sticking.
How many times have you put on a guided meditation only to hear the teacher tell you to just let go or to quote-unquote quiet the mind?
I'm guilty of it myself.
Sometimes it just feels like everyone has discovered some hidden secret to meditating but for whatever reason you just can't.
You think to yourself,
I'm the exception.
I can't do it.
I know it can be incredibly frustrating especially when you're just starting out.
Well I'm here to gently remind you that you are not the exception.
You can do it.
It's just that nobody has ever told you what I'm about to tell you.
Now many people think that meditation means they will instantly enter a state of calm where the mind goes blank and it's completely at rest.
They mistake meditation for something that leads to instant calm and this is why so many people struggle to do it.
They sit down a couple times and they find that their mind starts racing and they think that's it.
I can't meditate.
I'm doing it wrong and for a lot of people the journey stops here.
Well that right there friends is perhaps one of the greatest fallacies of meditation.
Do not mistake a quiet mind for meditation.
Think of it instead as a symptom or a byproduct of meditation.
Sure it is true that it can be the reward of a sustained meditation practice but this happens over time,
Over many months or years and not in a matter of sessions.
So if you're just beginning to meditate or even if you've meditated a handful of times do not expect to close your eyes and think of nothing because the natural state of the mind is to wander.
It is one of the mind's jobs to create thoughts and pictures and stories.
In fact if you try to meditate and your mind starts racing it means you're doing something right.
Now what I'm about to tell you will hopefully change the way you look at meditation and might give you some insight and some clarity into your practice.
Let's say you sit down to meditate and after 10 seconds you're thinking about what you're going to have for dinner or something that someone said to you earlier that day.
It's not an active choice.
The mind just wanders.
It's like falling asleep.
You don't actively think I'm going to fall asleep right now and then fall asleep.
It just happens and suddenly you wake up and you realize you've slept.
Meditation is very similar.
You don't actively choose to have random thoughts.
You just have them and then after a few moments you think wait a second I was supposed to be meditating.
How did I get here?
And then you bring your mind back and you remember why you sat down in the first place.
That is meditation my friend.
Okay meditation is not the absence of all thought.
The goal of meditation is not to see how long you can go without thinking and this is important because some thoughts have a stronger grip on us than others.
When you begin your meditation practice you'll probably find that not all thoughts are created equally.
You might be completely unbothered by some but find that you are deeply troubled or afraid of others.
This is normal.
Okay you might find that some thoughts are especially sticky.
Maybe they're a reminder of the stories you tell yourself and they can be extremely self-deprecating and the effect of these thoughts is that you become very attached to them.
You believe in them wholeheartedly and my friend it is this very reinforcement of the same thoughts over and over again that makes them true and perpetuates our internal suffering.
That's an important sentence.
I'll say it again.
It is the very reinforcement of the same thoughts over and over again that makes them true and perpetuates our internal suffering.
It's why so many people struggle to sit alone with their own thoughts.
It's not you.
You are not broken.
You are human and there is a deep hardwired subconscious human attachment to these thoughts.
It's very natural and yet it does such a world of harm.
But the good news is it doesn't have to stay this way because meditation can in fact be the practice of repeatedly observing your thoughts as they come and go.
Just observing no matter how random or obscure or frightening they may seem.
So how do you do it?
You start first by allowing yourself to have thoughts.
You give every thought that enters your mind permission to be there.
It sounds easy but it can be quite challenging to say to yourself this is a thought.
I've had this thought before.
Or hey this is a new thought.
How interesting.
Already this is a very different kind of practice than sitting down and closing your eyes and trying not to think.
Which doesn't work.
You allow yourself to be present at the moment that thoughts arise and very quickly you will notice which thoughts make you uncomfortable.
You'll notice which thoughts you assign judgment to because you might say to yourself oh god why did I think that?
That's a bad thought.
I shouldn't think that way.
This is not an indication that your meditation is failing you.
This is meditation doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
It is an invitation to go deeper.
It is an invitation to catch yourself at the very moment your mind starts to create stories.
And what happens when you do that over and over again?
You develop awareness within your mind.
Okay awareness is the ability to watch what arises without automatically assuming it's true and reacting to it.
And that my friend is a certain kind of superpower.
So the next time you find yourself sitting down to meditate I invite you to close your eyes or soften your gaze and give your thoughts permission.
And you may just find that when you give your thoughts permission they change.
That's all I have for you today my friend.
If you've enjoyed this talk please feel free to leave a review or to follow this channel.
I read all of your comments and it brings me so much joy to know that I could even support one of you on their journey.
Until next time,
Thank you.
