I tried multiple times to start meditating over the years, long before I had even heard the word ‘enlightenment’, because I had heard it helps with handling stress and I had plenty of it. I also liked this idea of attaining some sort of ‘Nirvana’ experience but each time I failed to make it work and gave up.
In this article I’ll explain how I made it click in the end and how you can do it right now.
Some myths
OK – one of the biggest areas that held me back was advice that I read about how to meditate so I’ll dispel some of these right now:
- What should I think about? – lots of choice here which I’ll come to in a moment.
- When should I meditate? – once or more a day if you want to get better at it.
- How long should I meditate for? – 3 minutes or more, yes 3 minutes is fine!
- Where should I meditate? – it doesn’t matter
- What should I wear? – it doesn’t matter
- How should I sit? – it doesn’t matter
So let’s get down to it.
What should you think about when meditating?
You see the only real question is “Why are you meditating?”. The answer is either to stop the constant chattering in your mind or to observe the constant chattering in your mind. There is an important difference here so I’ll cover these two practices now and then more about the when and how bit.
Meditation to stop the constant chattering
Well we all know that our minds are constantly full of thoughts and many of those thoughts are either worrying about the past or worrying about the future. It certainly helps your mental health if you take a break from them.
To do this all you need to do is distract the mind enough with an activity. That could be doing a jig saw, throwing a ball in the air and catching it or observing your breath.
One of the first books I read said to focus on an image like that of a lotus flower but I could never make that work. I couldn’t decide exactly how my lotus flower would look and it felt so static and boring that my mind wandered very quickly. For advanced meditation, perhaps, but not at entry level!
My preference is observing my breath. Breathing in – feeling the air rush over my tongue and being aware of my lungs filling up with air. Breathing out – feeling the air rush over my tongue the other way and being aware of my lungs emptying out. There is so much to observe here at every moment that it makes it much more difficult for the mind to wander.
My other favourite is just to become aware of my surroundings. To observe all the things which are going on around me without giving them thought. The tree in my back garden, the people in the queue ahead of me, that building across the road, the tiles in my bathroom, etc. You’ll be surprised how much you notice about things you’ve looked at every day but never really seen!
Remember though you are just observing them, not judging anything like “Why don’t I have enough money to replace these awful tiles!”. At times, to the external observer you will look quite mad – running your finger over the grout between the tiles, focusing really up close on an individual tile. Don’t worry about it, you are noticing things they never did and stilling your mind at the same time.
But it really doesn’t matter what you do so long as the activity needs enough focus that there is not room for your mind to chatter.
Most importantly of all be prepared to accept that you will fail to do this successfully for very long to start with. You might start by focusing on something but your mind will quickly wander off into thought. Don’t worry about it.
Each time you become aware that the mind has wandered off just reset yourself. Go back to the activity that you were doing without giving yourself a mental slap.
Meditation, just like marathon running, takes practice. Your mind is going to drift a hundred times, maybe even a thousand times, before you master it. But each time you catch it and return to what you were focusing on will help you catch it earlier and earlier in the future. Eventually – and when this actually happens is different for everyone – you will catch your mind at the moment when it is about to be distracted by a thought and not long after that you won’t get distracted again.
Whether that happens at the end of week one or the end of year ten is of no importance because it is the practice which is doing your mind no end of good. It is the journey that is just as positive and the destination.
Meditation to observe the constant chattering
This is the slightly harder way to meditate. Instead of distracting your mind with an activity like observing your breathing you are actually stepping back and observing the constant chattering. Watching all those thoughts and feelings enter your mind and leave again.
Some describe this as imagining you are the sky and your thoughts and emotions are the clouds. Some thoughts and feelings come and go very quickly, others move slower, but as the sky you can only observe them – you cannot interact with them and you cannot change them.
Others suggest seeing it as sitting beside a busy road – your thoughts and emotions are the cars and trucks passing by. I prefer the cloud analogy because it more accurately reflects that some emotions can hang around for a very long time while others seem to skit in and skit out.
The most important thing is you are not judging those thoughts and emotions or getting involved in them. You can only observe “Ah there is that stress” and “there is that feeling of depression”.
I say observing the constant chattering is harder than focusing on something like your breath because it is much easier to get distracted. As Eckhart Tolle says “A thought will enter you mind and say, ‘I am very important, you must follow me and give me your full attention’.”
And you will. When you become aware that you have don’t kick yourself, everyone goes through this because this is how our minds have been conditioned and deprogramming – like marathon training – isn’t going to happen on day one.
Just return to observing the thoughts and emotions each time and in the coming days and months you will get faster and faster at becoming aware that your mind has wandered until eventually you will even be aware that your mind is about to wander and you can let the thought go without following it.
OK – so now lets get into the Whens, Whats and Hows!
When should I meditate?
As you’ve seen above, when you get started with meditation you have a fair amount of mental training ahead of you and it is no different to physical training. If you do physical training once a month its not going to make much of a difference to your physical health. Same goes for meditation.
And given that you can do this within three minutes (I’ll explain that in a moment) without having to change into sweat pants there really isn’t much of a reason why you can’t do several short meditations in a day or one longer one.
More about how you can fit this into your life in a moment.
Just don’t do what I did, think you have to make a specific time and if you miss that time you missed your meditation. Then you start to see it like going to the gym and feeling that if you missed all of last week then missing all of this week isn’t going to make much of a difference either.
How long should I meditate for?
OK so in the ideal world 15 minutes to half and hour would be great when you get started. But we aren’t all able to go somewhere quiet away from others and be left alone for 30 minutes, let alone an even better 60 minutes.
This was also one of the bigger issues I had when starting out. I kept getting told I needed to meditate for an hour and so I was constantly saying “well I don’t have time today with all the things I’ve got going on” or “no point now then as I know I’m going to get interruped by someone before an hour is out”.
So how long is “the minimum”? 3 minutes.
Yes really. 3 minutes is enough. Actually even in periods less than 3 minutes you still have time to either focus on your breathing or watch your thoughts or observe the environment around you. I’ll show you some of the places I do this where I have less than 3 minutes in a moment.
But 3 minutes means that even if you live in a situation where getting time to yourself is hard you can still disappear off to the bathroom for a few minutes and have a quick meditation. Set your phone countdown timer or alarm for 3 or 5 minutes so you are not constantly worried that you might end up blocking up the bathroom for an hour(!) and then you are free to focus on your breath or observing your thoughts.
I would be very surprised if you made it through those 3 minutes to start with, without your mind wandering anyway.
As and when time allows you can go for longer periods. If you can go for a walk outside to get away from interruptions then do that but never feel that you can’t meditate today because you won’t be able to get an uninterrupted half hour.
On a side note I still set the timer on my phone even if I am meditating for half an hour or longer. Otherwise my mind is always distracted by the idea I might have meditated too long and I’ll be late for whatever else is coming afterwards.
If you are super mega lucky and you have all the time in the world you don’t need to do this – eventually you’ll get hungry which is your internal timer!
Where should you meditate?
Yes, most guides will tell you that you need to find somewhere quiet. I’ve just even suggested scuttling off to the bathroom if you live in a busy house or flat. But it isn’t an absolute must and not having that place shouldn’t be seen as a reason to stop you meditating.
If, for example, your partner is glued to the television then its an ideal time to literally tune out and focus on your breath or observe your thoughts or become aware of your surroundings. I won’t deny it is harder as the television will constantly be vying for your attention and your partner may interrupt you at any moment. But actually you will probably make far greater strides in your meditation long term if you practice it in surroundings that have distractions.
Here are a few places I meditate
- On the bus (or waiting for a bus)
- While waiting for a lift
- While in a supermarket queue
- While waiting for a kettle to boil
- While washing the dishes
- and so on
Literally anywhere that we have become accustomed to whipping out our ‘phone and going online because some situation is ‘boring’ is ideal for meditation. For me personally stepping back and observing my thoughts or becoming aware of my surroundings in detail beats flicking through social media hands down, every time.
You might think that you have stood at that bus stop a thousand times and you know it like the back of your hand. Maybe you do because, if you look closely, you don’t know the back of your hand at all. There is so much to see at a bus stop when you really get into the detail that it is dizzying.
If you have the resource here is a fun test. There is a 3D modelling programme called Blender which is available for free. It doesn’t take long to get a handle of the basics for building a model using this. Start trying to build a model of the bus stop (and the immediate surroundings) you have been to a thousand times and you’ll quickly realise how much you don’t know about it.
Then, next time you are there, fill in more gaps by observing what you missed and slowly continue each evening to build the model.
As I mentioned earlier going outside for a walk or to a place like a public library is also a good way to find a quieter space where you can be for longer.
If there is any way you can work towards a regular quiet space where you can be for 30 minutes or an hour several times a week to meditate then all well and good but don’t get in the mindset that you can’t start meditating until you have that place.
I know some people like to go to meditation classes because it provides the space and some routine. Personally I see it as unnecessary and in fact the person leading the class can often be so distracting that it negates the purpose. But if it works for you that’s great – just don’t forget to get some other meditation in at other times.
What should you wear to meditate?
Again a lot of guides suggest comfortable clothing but I don’t buy this. If you are meditating by taking time to become aware of your surroundings then uncomfortable clothes are almost an ideal thing to have as you can focus your awareness on those tight shoes or that scratching shirt. They actually provide you with something to focus on rather than distract.
I’m not saying you should go and dig out your most uncomfortable clothes but don’t let clothing get in your way. I remember several times that I would not end up meditating because I thought I needed to get changed first!
What you certainly don’t need to do is go out and buy any special clothes like a hessian robe and some wooden beads or whatnot! You can meditate in your swimming trunks on the beach, in a suit while waiting for a meeting or while wearing absolutely nothing!
How should you sit to meditate?
On this one I always found it difficult to get started because if I cross my legs it cuts off the blood and its just generally really uncomfortable for me. But this idea that I needed to take up some special yoga like position with a straight back in order to meditate was just yet another reason why I struggled to get started.
As you’ve probably guessed by now if you can meditate while waiting for a bus, even while waiting for a lift, you don’t even need to be seated at all.
Your sitting position becomes a little more important as you start to do longer meditations. I found at first I would fall asleep very quickly as soon as I emptied my mind and focused on my breath. Sitting cross legged with no back support makes that a little harder! I won’t say impossible – I’ve managed to nod off even then.
And besides you might not always have the space or environment where its possible to sit cross legged on the floor.
My way around this was to not only focus on my breathing but also practice closing my eyes and becoming aware of everything that is happening. In my flat this might be the sound of the fridge switching on, a car passing by, someone shouting in the street.
In the countryside the sounds of each individual bird, the sounds of farm machinery, leaves moving in the wind … and so on. There is a surprising amount of stuff going on everywhere when you turn your attention to it!
You see originally I thought hearing these sounds and being aware of them was ruining my meditation. I was somehow failing because the sounds distracted me from my central focus and then my mind would become very busy thinking about how rubbish I was at meditation. Now I realise that simply being aware of those sounds is all part of meditating.
Fine, as you become more and more advanced in your meditation you will probably tune those sounds out more but that will happen naturally over time. At the start don’t make them a barrier to mediation, make them part of meditating.
And if you are focusing on your thoughts and watching them come and go then there really isn’t a dull moment!