Anna sank onto her overstuffed sofa, closed her eyes, and wanted to forget about everything. She told herself, "I'm going to meditate for an hour." She paused for a moment... All assured me that meditation would be beneficial to my health. It doesn't seem to be healthy, but the books insist it is. What's the matter with me? Then her words took off like a rocket. Perhaps I should try yoga instead. Alternatively, you might use guided animation. Can I be sitting on the board, cross-legged? Perhaps it would make me a better meditator. Her cat snuck up to her and jumped on her lap, seeking affection. Anna gave up after five minutes. Meditation shouldn't be this difficult, she reasoned.
Meditation isn't quite as difficult as it seems. Anna had set some lofty goals for herself, and she was discouraged that she couldn't achieve them. She had a tough time after that because she had not adequately prepared herself for meditation.
This will assist you in preparing to meditate by providing an overview of meditation methods and behaviors before going on to practical guidance. You'll be ready to master the methods and values of mindfulness meditation in the book until you have a clear understanding of postures, positions, pacing, and other aspects a beginner should remember.
We encourage you to try meditation with a very particular attitude—one of scientific exploration—in the spirit of self-discovery. You may have seen some parallels between mindfulness and empirical inquiry in the science section.
Now we encourage you to try meditation as a scientist—a scientist with your own mind, to be precise. Don't believe that mindfulness is a dogma to be blindly followed when you first start doing. A decent scientist will look at proof to determine whether or not it is useful.
So, whether you're initially cynical or have a bunch of doubts, that's a great mindset to have. Investigate meditation as if you were a physicist.
When you starting your mediation session, pay attention to how you feel.
Keep track of how you act both before and after. Take this mindset of inquiry and intensive analysis with you as you work over the coming months, even though you don't see an immediate effect. Your stress level, as well as your physical and mental health, can change over time.
If those improvements are beneficial in your life, they could be enough proof that mindfulness meditation is successful, a valuable tool, and worthwhile enough for you to keep doing it. However, if you discover over time that it is not for you, there are also other practices to investigate.
Our brains become labs for inner experimentation in this way. When practicing a new approach, whether it's mindfulness or some form of meditation, always trust your intuition. (In fact, this is a good rule of thumb for pretty much anything!) Take Juanita, a 52-year-old medical technician, as an example:
In the mediation class, I was motivated to approach my practice using a scientific approach. And it's a good thing, too, because I had my doubts. My psychiatrist advised that I take the class in order to lower my blood pressure and feel less depressed. Mindfulness seems like a new age concept to me, because it's not something we do in my family.
As a result, I had a lot of doubts, a lot of questions. And I continued to pay attention to how meditation affected my life. Did it make sense in light of what I already knew? It happened a lot of the time. Any stuff didn't make sense to me. I was able to let go of those. And over the course of a few months, as I continued to examine matters, I began to see differences—in reality, it was my colleagues that first noticed it: “You seem so much calmer.” “Are you on something?”
I'd tell them, "Meditation." It was true: I was becoming calmer, less jittery, and less susceptible to rage outbursts.
You may also want to read more about Mindfulness Meditation and Healing here.
