Am I Meditating the right way? Can you do meditation wrong? Am I even cut out to meditate?
Anxiety or self-doubt are somethings I hear all the time from people new to meditation. Not knowing how to meditate correctly is a huge obstacle for most beginners. Unfortunately, this obstacle often means the end of the road for some of them.
how to know if you are meditating correctly
To know whether you are meditating the right way, you first need a clear understanding of why you are meditating in the first place.
Meditation shares linguistic origins with the word ‘medicine’ because it aims to heal and restore. Medicine doesn’t provide a temporary reprieve from sickness but rather a lasting state of health and well-being.
Once you understand the true purpose of meditation—to restore the mind suffering from stress, worry, and artificial conditioning back to a natural state of clarity and a oneness with yourself and the universe—you will find it easier to practice meditation the “right way.”
Don’t Worry About Being Perfect
Many people experience difficulty meditating at first, so try not to linger on being perfect at it. Meditation takes practice, and at first, it might feel like you are not making any progress.
Keep in mind that you are trying to destroy old habits while building new ones, which can be unpleasant at first but always gets easier with time.
If you are dissatisfied with the progress of your solo sessions, consider joining a meditation group, or take an online/in-person meditation class, or working with a seasoned meditation instructor 1-on-1.
If you are a little more experienced we sometimes have a bad session. We might be highly distracted or phoning it in at times. We might be too tired or just uncomfortable. Our goal should never to be creating a perfect meditation session per se, but a lifelong practice and lifestyle. You see meditation is really a practice with a cumulative benefit over time.
Yes a quick breathing exercise can offer quick wins, but I’d also say try to take a long-game approach to your practice and when you have a “bad” session, just move on and try again later or tomorrow. Understand that this one session isn’t making or breaking your practice. A bad practice is at least helping to build the consistency and habit. Stick with things.
Learning How to Create a Clear Awareness
The most important first step to learning how to meditate is commitment. Commit to meditating daily for 7 days, then 14, then 30, and then forever. If you are committed to more than just a single practice, then we can try practicing creating clear awareness.
Creating a clear awareness (or sometimes called self-directed focus) of the objects in your experience, especially as a replacement for judgmental thoughts, allows you to recognize them for what they are.
To create awareness while meditating, you could use a mantra. Mantras are ancient meditation tools that will help you understand the objects of your experience without developing attachments or aversions to them.
You could try something like this for a mantra…
Sometimes using words like this can make the mind wander or making up stories so if this one only ads to the thoughts you might be able to try one Thich Nhat Hanh shares…
You could also simplify this one to…
In
Out
This keeps things simple and helps anchor on your breathing with this easy saying.
Then there are mantras that are not typical words to help your brain NOT create stories or start thinking about the words. Here is a common one…
I hope one of these mantras works for you. Let’s move on to experiences.
Experience can be separated into:
- Body – Your movements and postures.
- Feelings – Your mental and physical sensations of happiness, calm, pain, etc.
- Mind – Thoughts of the future or the past that arise in your mind, whether good or bad.
Using a mantra to acknowledge your experience without deeming it good or bad empowers you to:
- Avoid attachment and addiction to pleasurable experiences
- Avoid anger and aversion to negative feelings
- Avoid worry and stress over experiences you cannot control
A Lifelong Journey
Meditation is not a tool for temporary happiness and peace. It will not bring instant peace and happiness to your life. As I mentioned, 3 breaths can start easing stress but to get the real benefits from meditation it takes commitment and ongoing practice.
It takes time to see the effects of meditation, so be patient. You will stumble and fall along the way, but the undeniable truth is that, with practice and persistence, meditation will change how you experience the world. Just remember the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step so start where you are and do what feels best.
It’s changed my life and my relationships with others. I hope you find the same to be true for yourself. Have a great day and happy meditating!
WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN ME ON A MISSION To Positively Change The World? Lets Build A Daily Meditation Practices Together!
In March 2022, I set a goal to teach 1,000 people learn how to meditate daily. This was after seeing the results 3 groups got from this 30-Day Daily-Meditation Habit Builder Challenge I built and started rolling out. This is a new goal and to-date I have taught 18 students in 4 different cohorts.
The beauty and surprising data behind these groups was that many were regular meditators even a few very seasoned meditators. I assumed it would only be people looking to get started with meditation. This past cohort had at least 2 newbies and they learned and enjoyed the practices and experiences shared in this challenge.
Early on many students have/had a background in the medical industry. Serving these folks and seeing them learn a few new things, and/or level up their current practice or improve their wellness and resilience was really exciting to see.
This challenge is focused on two main topics, covering many types of mindful meditation practices and also moving into the science of habit building. These classes are as science-based as I could create and based on my on decade of firsthand experiences and several years of my own research.
What these 18 students proved was…
in as short as 30 days one can really build something that can send them on a more healthy path and lifestyle. Of course it takes ongoing work to leverage the real value of these exercises but I couldn’t be more happy with the students and their results.
The idea of BEING the change you want to see in the world starts with you and living your best life and being your best self. Meditation is one tool to support this. If you would like to step up your meditation game or create a new practice and/or learn how to get started, this program could be great for you.
OTHER RESOURCES on How To Meditate
I’m not sure if you ever watched or attended one of my Mindful Monday video episodes, but in them, I guide my viewers through a 5-minute silent meditation. Here are some you may like or head over to the Hellagood Life YouTube Channel and find one that suites your needs. I’ll also share a sample of my son leading a guided meditation.
Here are a few audio meditations to try these ideas out…
COMPASSION MEDITATION: FOUR INFINITE THOUGHTS
Here are a few other articles about how to meditate that you may enjoy.
- Mindful – How to Meditate
- SELF – How to Meditate When You Have No Idea Where to Start
- Headspace – Meditation for Beginners
Want to try adding mindfulness and meditation to your self-care routine? Click below to get details about the 30-Day Daily-Meditation Habit Builder Challenge.