If I Can Meditate, So Can You!

Hi and welcome.

My name's Samantha,

And I wanted to share something with you today that you might find surprising,

But I'm really hoping it helps you.

And that is the fact that I have resisted meditation for years.

I have really,

Really struggled with it.

And I know that may sound a bit surprising because I'm a meditation teacher and I've been helping people with meditation for a very long time now.

But before I went down that path,

I really,

Really struggled with the idea of it.

And of course,

The practice of it.

So I'm hoping that by sharing a few of my experiences with you today,

That can help you not feel alone and also hopefully feel a little bit of motivation to work towards building a very simple but very effective meditation practice.

So I first came across the idea of meditation when I was five.

And my mother used to meditate and she did something called transcendental meditation.

And I remember whenever she was stressed or there were difficulties going on in her life,

She would disappear and she would go and meditate.

And I used to think,

What is she doing?

I didn't know what the word meant.

She never explained it to me until I was older.

And one day I said to her,

What are you doing?

Where do you go?

And she explained the process.

And what she did was using a particular word that her teacher had given her,

Her meditation teacher.

And as a kid,

I wanted to know,

And I said,

Let me in on the secret.

And she wouldn't share it with me,

Because that's part of the process for her.

It's a secret word for her.

So I kind of felt a little bit shut out of this weird,

Mysterious meditation world.

But what I noticed was when she would come out of her meditation moment,

It was never for a huge amount of time,

She would be a different person.

So it was always in the back of my mind that there's something in this,

I need to look into this.

But as I grew up,

Life gets busy.

I had a very,

Very busy corporate job.

And as you can imagine,

I didn't end up really giving it much attention.

Most of us do the same.

We resist something new.

And in fact,

The brain prefers what's familiar.

So as I'm sure many of you have experienced,

When we try to introduce something new,

A new concept,

A new habit,

A new practice,

Quite often the brain resists.

And this is exactly what happened to me.

But resistance is completely normal.

So that's the first thing I want to share with you.

I think the most important advice I give people who are starting out in meditation,

And this comes from my own experience,

Is to start small.

So what I found over the years is even seeing the physical change,

The emotional change in my mother.

I still resisted it.

I still felt like it was something I didn't have time for.

I was too busy.

And I'm a very active person.

My mind is always running.

So I thought sitting down for what I thought had to be at least 20 minutes,

Sometimes an hour,

Not moving,

Focusing on a word or my breathing just sounded like insanity to me.

So I resisted it.

And that's why I really want to share this with you because I think having apps these days are fantastic and Insight Timer is the most incredible app.

I think there is so much on the app.

There's so many tools to use.

But ultimately,

If you're not ready to take the step,

If you're not ready to say,

I'm open to something new,

That resistance will remain.

So the first thing is to start super,

Super small.

And I've got some other videos where I can help you with that.

But start really small,

A very simple practice,

Sitting in a chair,

Focusing on your breathing,

Listening to the sounds around you.

Just for two minutes.

But doing it consistently.

And it's the consistency bit that is really,

Really important.

Because meditating twice a week for three hours.

.

.

Great if you can do it,

But that's not going to have such a profound and long-term impact as meditating consistently even for a few minutes.

So just keep that in mind if you're feeling that resistance coming up.

And of course,

Life is always busy.

There's always other things pulling at our attention.

So just give that to yourself.

Give yourself that moment.

And as I said,

I've got other videos that can help you there.

With that particular resistance and building a habit.

But for today,

I just really want to share that idea with you.

And really what it is,

Is if I can meditate despite my years of resistance coming in and out of meditation,

There's been times I built up a really good practice,

Then life got in the way and I pulled out of that practice.

But I'm here to say that if I can do it,

So can you.

And meditation isn't something we do on the side.

It really becomes something like cleaning our teeth,

Drinking water,

Getting sleep.

It's something that is so important.

And it's a simple habit that we can build every day,

Just with some consistency,

A couple of minutes,

That's all you need to do.

So if I can meditate,

So can you.

And I look forward to seeing you in my other videos.