The 1st Key to Meditation
Welcome to my mini course on the 3 keys to a successful meditation practice!
I’m so pleased to have you here and am honored to have the opportunity to share these powerful meditation secrets with you.
Learning the few key things I’m teaching in this course can help you avoid a lot of the problems people experience when they start to meditate.
Armed with the knowledge you’re about to learn, you’ll be ready to start your own meditation practice and experience all the amazing benefits that meditation brings.
So I’m guessing you’re here for a couple of reasons.
Maybe you’ve heard about meditation and looked online for help, but you’ve got no idea where to start.
If this is you, you’ve come to the right place.
What I’m going to share with you will help you get started meditating and help you avoid some of the problems people have when they first start a meditation practice.
Or, maybe you’re someone who knows about the benefits of meditation and has tried to do it, but you still haven’t been able to ‘get it’.
You’re struggling with meditation – both making time to meditate and getting the most out of it when you finally get a chance to try.
If this is you, I’m excited you’re here because I know I can help you get over these problems.
I first started experimenting with meditation over 25 years ago.
But in that time, it took me years to really ‘get’ what I was supposed to be doing.
Then after I figured this out, it took me years more to get myself to meditate regularly!
The reason I put this course together is to help people like you start and continue with a meditation practice, avoiding the problems that most people face.
A Common Meditation Problem
The problems people have with meditation are very common.
Most people experience the same set of issues that stop them meditating regularly, or even stop them meditating at all.
I asked my over 120,000 social media connections from all over the world for the reasons they struggled to meditate.
It was amazing how many people said exactly the same thing.
I know many of you reading this have tried to meditate, but quickly gave up because you thought it was either too difficult, or even “impossible” for you to do it.
I learned that the most common belief of people who’d given up trying to meditate was they thought they couldn’t do it!
And the main reason people gave when they believed they couldn’t meditate was:
“I can’t stop my mind thinking!”
The First Key
So, now I’m going to share a secret with you…
Meditation is NOT about stopping thought!
Meditation is not about ‘not’ thinking, not about emptying your mind.
When I first tried to meditate, I thought the same thing.
I would sit down and try and force my mind to stop thinking.
You can imagine how successful I was at doing this.
Not very.
The whole idea of trying to stop my thoughts only seemed to produce more thoughts!
So, me sitting down and trying to stop my thoughts, trying to create a calm mind was having the exact opposite effect – I was just becoming more stressed and frustrated.
What I didn’t understand at the time was…
IT’S THE MINDS JOB TO PRODUCE THOUGHTS!
That’s just what it does.
You can’t force your mind to stop making thoughts.
It just won’t work.
So your goal during your meditation isn’t to stop your thoughts.
Your goal during meditation is to not focus on the thoughts that your mind produces.
You allow your mind to create whatever thoughts it likes,
BUT…
You don’t follow these thoughts.
You don’t attach to these thoughts.
And therefore, you don’t encourage the mind to create more of these thoughts.
The underlying purpose of virtually all meditation techniques is to give you
a point of focus for your attention that is NOT your thoughts.
That’s it.
One thing to focus on that isn’t your thoughts.
Focus on that one thing, and allow your mind and thoughts to do whatever they like!
Take the example of going and watching a really great movie.
When you sit in the cinema and watch the movie, you actually ‘loose yourself’ in the story.
The outside world fades away, your own thoughts fade away and you become totally engrossed in the movie you’re watching.
Now, what if I told you that you ‘were’ the movie?
You’d probably say I was crazy.
But that’s exactly what happens with us and our thoughts.
We get so engrossed in our thoughts, we believe we ‘are’ our thoughts.
But through the practice of meditation, we come to realize that we are the observer behind our thoughts.
You help guide your thoughts, but you don’t actually create them.
YOU are not your thoughts.
Meditation Science – Stress
Numerous studies have found that meditation is a great tool to help alleviate stress.
Some of the most uncomfortable symptoms of stress are caused by activation of the amygdala – often referred to as the brain’s fear center.
Scientist’s have found one of the ways meditation helps reduce stress is by actually reducing the size of the amygdala.
As the amygdala shrinks, meditation also seems to cause the part of the brain associated with ‘higher’ brain functions like awareness and decision making to grow.
The clinical treatment protocol – Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) – has been developed as a direct result of this success. MBSR is now used throughout the world successfully treating a variety of ailments, with stress related illness the top of the list.
- Lazar, S., Kerr, C., Wasserman, R., Gray, J., Greve, D., Treadway, M., McGarvey, M., Quinn, B., Dusek, J., Benson, H., Rauch, S., Moore, C. and Fischl, B. (2005). Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. NeuroReport, 16(17), pp.1893-1897.
- Hölzel, B., Carmody, J., Vangel, M., Congleton, C., Yerramsetti, S., Gard, T. and Lazar, S. (2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 191(1), pp.36-43.
- Desbordes, G., Negi, L., Pace, T., Wallace, B., Raison, C. and Schwartz, E. (2012). Effects of mindful-attention and compassion meditation training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6.
So back to the movie example.
Imagine this time that you’re not engrossed in the movie.
It continues to play in front of you, but you’re also aware of the people sitting near you.
Maybe you have some thoughts about a particular camera angle used, or a line spoken by the actor on screen.
You are consciously observing, but gently detached from the scenes that are unfolding.
This state of gentle observation of your thoughts is what you need to cultivate during your meditation practice.
I’ll talk more about this in the next lesson.
So, try not to become frustrated with your mind and the thoughts it creates.
Your mind can be one of the most powerful tools in your life when you understand its purpose.
When you can effectively guide your mind so that it works for you, not against you, in everything you want to accomplish it can change your life.
And the most effective way I’ve found to do this is through a meditation practice.
Lesson Summary
- The goal of meditation is ‘not’ to stop your thoughts
- The goal of meditation is to be aware of, but not focus on, the thoughts your mind produces.
Today’s Exercise
So, I’ve got an exercise for you to do over the next couple of days till I send you your next lesson.
I want you to start to strengthen the observer part of your mind.
One of the keys to any program of personal development is the simple, but often difficult act of remembering to remember!
If you don’t constantly remember to do the new thing you are trying to learn, you’ll never succeed in making it a habit.
So, to help you remember to remember, to help remind you to do this throughout the day, I want you to draw a circle on the back of one of your hands.
It doesn’t need to be large, just big enough so you’ll notice it throughout the day when you glance at your hand.
When you see the circle, notice what you’re thinking about, notice what your mind is doing.
Notice what thoughts are bubbling up to the surface of your consciousness.
And as you notice, try not to get caught up in your thought stream.
Just notice how thoughts appear and disappear all on their own, without any real input from the ‘you’ that’s doing the noticing.
Now, don’t put any pressure on yourself when doing this.
Just use your attention lightly.
When you do get caught up in your thoughts, that is OK.
When you notice that you’re caught up in your thoughts, gently bring yourself back to your role as the quiet observer.
Congratulations on getting through your first lesson of this mini-course!
Good luck with the exercise over the next couple of days.
I’ll be in touch soon to reveal the next key to your meditation practice.
Meditation gives you an opportunity to come to know your invisible self. It allows you to empty yourself of the endless hyperactivity of your mind, and to attain calmness. It teaches you to be peaceful, to remove stress, to receive answers where confusion previously reigned.
– Wayne Dyer