For most people trying meditation for the first time, the experience follows a predictable script. You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and try to clear your head. Within 60 seconds, you notice how many random thoughts are flying through your mind. Frustration sets in and before you know it you’ve decided “I can’t meditate. I can’t stop the monkey brain.” That conclusion is the single biggest mistake that novice meditators make, because having a clear mind is not the goal of meditation.
The Real Goal of Meditation
To understand the real goal, let’s quickly define a couple of terms.
- Mindfulness: noticing the present moment non-judgmentally.
- Meditation: an activity you engage in to help you be mindful.
A big misunderstanding on this topic is conflating meditation and mindfulness, which are not the same thing. Meditation is an activity, something you do to help you engage with mindfulness. This is why there are so many different ways to meditate. You can focus on your breath, or body scan, or say a mantra, or envision a special environment, or listen to a ticking clock, the list could go on for eternity. What they all have in common is they are attempting to bring your attention to the present moment—your breath or your body right now, or the sound of the clock right now, or the mantra or the vision as it is happening, you got it, right now. Once you are doing that, you are being mindful.
And what happens once you become mindful? You start to notice your mind and the thoughts it generates, one after the other. Make no mistake, it didn’t start doing that when you began the meditation. It’s always doing that, you’re just noticing it now. And that, my friends, is being mindful, which means the monkey brain, hamster wheel is not interfering with your meditation. The fact that you are noticing it is evidence that you are being mindful, and that is actually the goal!
The Success Paradox in Meditation
There is a quote I love that describes the paradox of change:
“Change occurs when one becomes what she is, not when she tries to become what she is not.”
In meditation, this idea plays out because you don’t get to a quiet mind by trying to empty your head. Instead, you notice non-judgmentally when your mind wanders and simply practice bringing your awareness back to whatever it was you were focusing on. Paradoxically, the more you practice just noticing the wandering rather than trying to prevent it, the less wandering occurs. It’s the act of letting go of trying to change what is happening that allows things to settle and become less effortful.
A Couple Meditations to Try
With this mindset, here are a couple of meditations that I find work very well for people.
1. Thought Descriptors: Get into a comfortable position, close your eyes, and focus on your breath. Whenever your mind wanders describe the thought succinctly (preferably one word) and neutrally. For example, a thought about your job is simply labeled “work”, or a noise you hear becomes “environment.” Thinking about a partner, or child, or parent is “family.” Once you’ve described, just come back to the breath.
2. Walk & Watch: As you walk outside, observe descriptively. Think only of what you see. For example, “woman with cell phone”, or “car driving.” Begin to notice when you are adding information. For example, does the woman with the cell phone make you think “distracted” or “news” or some other conclusion that is not something you actually see with your eyes?
And always remember that meditation is a practice. It takes consistent sessions over time to see change. Don’t rush yourself, just be there.
