10 Weeks of Daily Meditation: Here’s What I Learned

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I'm exploring the concept of meditation. A few people reach out after that, interested in hearing how I’m getting on with it. It's been over ten weeks now since I started, so I thought I'd do an FAQ-style blog post about my experience so far.

Why did I become interested in meditation?

I talked about this in my last post in more detail, but the short answer is that I want to be more aware of my thoughts and less at risk of getting stressed about things that are out of my control or haven't even happened yet. I want to get better at staying calm in stressful situations and not letting things I can't control ruin my mood. In a nutshell, I tend to get too emotionally caught up in things I can’t change – and I want to change that! 

How did I go about getting into meditation?

A book! Of course :)

I followed an 8-week programme outlined in the book Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World, by Mark Williams and Danny Penman. Over eight weeks, the book guides readers through a series of meditations. Each week, a chapter explains an aspect of the theory of meditation and then asks the readers to follow a specific meditation practice for the week – before moving on to another one the following week. 

Some weeks, the programme asked me to meditate twice a day for 10-20 minutes, other days it was just one meditation a day. 

I really enjoyed this approach. As most of you know by now, I love reading, and it's part of my daily morning routine. That made it easy to integrate meditation into my day – I would just add it after the reading habit I already had. I also felt that reading about it before doing the meditation put me into the right mindset, and I feel like I got more out of it than I would have from just doing the daily meditation. 

What type of mediations am I doing?

The meditations covered by the programme range from simple breathing meditations to body scans, mindful movement and kindness meditations. They all take between 8-15 minutes. 

Now that the ‘official’ programme has finished, I like to do a combination of two every morning. My favourite routine is a 10-12 min mindful movement + 10 min breath and body meditation. However, the mindful movement session requires more space than I have in the van, so if the weather is terrible or I am in a very public area, I tend to combine the breath and body meditation with another one I can do inside – like the body scan. 

Did I find it hard?

Some days I really did (still do). But the longer I keep going, the more I find it enjoyable. For me, the hardest part is to justify the time to myself – which seems crazy given I don’t exactly have a very busy life, especially this time of the year. But I find that my brain is always trying to think ahead and plan what I have to do (or just want to do) that day. Meditating feels like unproductive time to me, and even though I technically know it's not, some days it's hard to convince my mind. Not surprisingly, I find it much harder on days where I have a lot going on, and there is a lot that my mind wants to plan for – ironically, those are probably also the days where it’s the most valuable. 

In the beginning, I also had some days where I felt a strong inner resistance to the whole practice. I would sit down, close my eyes and focus my mind, and there would be this intense feeling of resistance inside of me. It's hard to describe. It was just this strong feeling that I really don't want to do this. No idea where it came from. I pushed through it most of the time – once or twice I gave in and tried again later in the day. Whenever I pushed through, the feeling would usually disappear a few minutes later. But on occasion, the whole session was a struggle. 

I haven't experienced this for several weeks now, so I hope I've overcome that stage.  

So, am I an oasis of calm now? 

Honestly, I'm not sure. I do enjoy the experience, and I have definitely noticed that I'm more aware of my thoughts at times. I more frequently catch myself when my hyperactive mind is taking me down rabbit holes before it’s too late – and that’s what meditation is all about: mindfulness and awareness. 

But on the whole, I find it hard to say exactly how much of a difference it has made in my life. I think this is partly due to timing. I decided to get into this practice at a time that has been relatively quiet and relaxing. It would be easy to say that I've been less stressed than before I started, but that would have probably been the case with or without meditating. The real test will come next time work, or just life in general, get busy again. 

For the last three years, winters have been mentally challenging for me, and summers have been amazing! My goal is to use this summer to put in place the habits and tools I need to cope better this coming winter. So I knew going into this that I probably won't notice a huge difference right away. My goal is to stick with my daily practice and hopefully, by the time winter comes around, I will be better equipped to stay positive, motivated and focused.  

What was my biggest AHA moment?

When I fully understood and REALLY internalised that mindfulness and meditation are not about shutting up the mind or stopping myself from thinking. It's not about being able to sit still for several minutes without any thoughts crossing my mind. It’s about being aware of what my mind is doing. It’s about realising what thoughts are valuable and which aren’t – and then reducing the later. It’s about noticing when my mind is going down rabbit holes filled with things I can’t control or that haven’t happened yet. 

I like thinking. I like daydreaming and contemplating life. I have this really rich inner world. I can spend hours in my own head without getting bored. I love that, and I don't want to change that. But I do want to have the awareness to realise when my mind is going places that are not valuable or positive. And I might not even always be able to spot it, but at least I'm aware.  

What advice do I have for others wanting to try meditation?

Everyone is different, so we all have to figure out what works for us. But here are some things that have worked well for me. 

• Make it a daily habit. Do your mediation practice at the same time every day, so it becomes part of your daily routine. 

• Find a programme instead of just starting random meditations. Having an 8-week programme was a big motivation for me. I told myself that I would stick with it for the full 8-weeks and if I don't like it after that, I can stop. And by the time eight weeks had passed, it was part of my daily routine. 

• Learn about mindfulness and meditation alongside your practice. I found it valuable to understand the theory behind it, and it helped to get into the right mindset. 

• Try different types of meditations to find those that work best for you. 

Subscribe

Sign up to be notified when I published new blog posts.

---