The ONE Thing You Need to Understand Before You Start Meditating

I was having a conversation with one of my clients yesterday and I was thrilled to hear about her starting to meditate on a weekly basis. Meditation is something I encourage my clients to try to integrate into their lives to help manage stress. We discussed what this can look like for her- someone completely new to the meditation game and unsure how to approach it in general.

She decided to start with just two minutes every day, with intentional deep belly breathing and I thought this was a fantastic place to start. What caught my attention yesterday during our conversation was when she said,

“After two minutes I find it difficult to stay focused. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong!”

Then I realized, she was getting so caught up in the idea of needing to sit down in “silence” without thoughts coming into her mind she was missing the bigger picture.

That bigger picture was that thoughts are inevitably going to come into our mind when we sit down to mediate- period. The concept or idea of meditation only “working” when we can silence our mind is BS.

Here’s the reality: meditation is a PRACTICE. The more you do it, the more you can harness your thoughts and quiet your brain.

But initially, you’re going to be thinking about everything under the sun when you sit down to meditate- especially if it’s under 15 minutes. This is going to happen naturally because we’re human beings! On average, one person tends to have between 60,000-90,000 different thoughts per day. So It’s literally impossible to sit down and NOT THINK.

I realized after she said this that many people believe you need to “focus” during meditation but in fact, it’s the opposite. Meditation is giving yourself the chance to allow your brain to wander, but pulling it back into something you can use to stay grounded- something like a mantra. It’s the practice of acknowledging your thoughts, but understanding and knowing that you are not your thoughts. It’s the practice of controlling your thoughts, not allowing your thoughts to control you.

My meditation teacher, Light Watkins, once shared an analogy I thought was so helpful, especially in the beginning when I was just learning how to meditate. The analogy went something like this:

Say you’re having a big party for yourself. All your friends are there. When you walk into the party, you need to make it to the punch bowl which is in the middle of the room. But all your friends are around you and wanting to greet you and say hello. Would you be rude to them and push past them without greeting them? No. You’re going to say hello, thank you for coming, exchange a few words with each of them, but continue making your way to the punch bowl. The punch bowl, in this case, is your mantra. Your friends are your thoughts. When you sit down to meditate, remember this- greet your thoughts as they come in and don’t judge them. Try not to spend so much time focused on just one friend. Greet them, say hello and get back to making your way to the punch bowl.

Believing that you need to focus on anything during meditation is a misconstrued idea of how meditation is supposed to work. Understanding what meditation is a practice and simplifying it to understand that the goal is just to become present may allow you to drop unnecessary pressure you might be putting on yourself. Remember that thoughts are naturally going to come into your mind and that’s OK! Greet your thoughts, acknowledge them without judging them, and then get back to your mantra.

The goal of meditation is to bring your awareness to the present moment while also realizing that you are NOT your thoughts.

There is a freedom and power in the ability to separate yourself from your thoughts. What we put our attention to grows, period. Once we understand the simple fact that we are indeed separate from our thoughts, we can harness what we put our attention towards and completely shift our reality and life as we know it.