Photo by Afonso Coutinho on Unsplash
I started meditating. Not after a dark night of the soul. Not to chant myself into bliss. Mostly just to try and not feel bad.
My practice didn’t have a dramatic beginning. It started with a woman on a wellness podcast, who didn’t sound anything like what I expected. She was warm, not pretentious or unreachable. She laughed, made jokes, told stories about her life. She made this whole thing, “mindfulness,” feel like it could be something easy and natural — if you just let it be.
I realized that, up until then, I’d dismissed “meditation experts” as creepily disconnected, monotone robots who sat in caves and floated on enlightened clouds of self-righteousness. But had I ever met one? Maybe some of them could be humans. At least one of them seemed like she was.
The podcast led to some internet research. The research led to an app download. And that led to me sitting alone and cross-legged on a bed, eyes shut.
The first thing they tell you — they the mysterious meditation experts — is that the point is not to shut off thought. That shutting off is, in fact, impossible. Willing yourself to stop thinking is akin to willing your own heart to stop beating. It creates a frustrating loop, where you think really hard about not thinking, and then beat yourself up because, surprise, you are still thinking.
I’ve spent many years on paths like that one, and I can assure you they all lead to madness.
The big secret (that many seem unwilling to accept) is that meditating is the act of sitting and feeling things as they happen. So I did that. And then did the same thing for a few minutes the next day, and the day after that.
At first it was just for one day. Then two days. Then a full week, and nothing scary had happened. The whole thing actually felt good. Not nirvana good, just… quiet. I didn’t feel anything different, but I had realized something surprising: that my mind did not naturally want to hate itself. It just wanted to be, and observe, and have ideas.
Some nights it did all of the above with the full-blast force of a firehose.
Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s blissful. Sometimes it’s nothing.
Just sit like that for a few minutes. And then a few minutes more.
And see what happens.