7 Mistakes Intelligent People Make When Trying To Meditate

Meditation is a beautiful and easy practice - really. It’s as easy and natural as breathing but for some reason, we are so used to trying really hard at doing things that we think the same when it comes to meditation. We think it must be hard and make it hard.

In my work as a life coach and meditation teacher, I find that people assume meditation is a really difficult, even mystical thing, and something that they have to ‘figure out’. That’s the wrong way to look at it though.

Meditation does take practice. 

It does take time to get into ‘your zone’ with it and find what works for you.

But also, it’s not that hard.

Below I outline the 7 common mistakes people make when trying to meditate, and ways to overcome each of these blocks. 

1. Assuming that having any thoughts means that you’ve failed

When I teach meditation, I often hear people say afterwards that they couldn’t switch off the thoughts and that it was really hard to quiet the mind - there being an assumption that that means they’ve completely failed to meditate. 

What I say to my students is that it is exactly this - having lots of thoughts and really hearing them - which is the first step in meditation.

When you stop and the mind chatter hits you and becomes loud, the fact that you are noticing and looking at what is going on in your mind, is the perfect start.

This noticing of all the busyness and activity of the mind is a necessary first step you have to go through before you access the deeper levels of meditation. By just becoming aware that you are having lots of thoughts, you can congratulate yourself that you have started meditating, you are becoming aware of yourself.

Hearing lots of crazy thoughts will happen a lot in the beginning and it’s really, really, really uncomfortable to listen to your own mind. We don't like to be uncomfortable, which is why people find this practice hard and give up. But it won't always be like this.

Sometimes you want to run away from what the mind is telling you. You wish it would stay quiet. Maybe the mind says unkind things to you, or maybe when you get quiet, it reminds you of all the things you had buried deep inside. 

Breathe.

Just observe what’s going on.

Be with the discomfort for a bit. On the other side of discomfort, eventually, the mind will get quieter and there is peace.

Tell yourself that thoughts are just thoughts. Thoughts are not your heart, your spirit, or your soul. That part of you sits calmly underneath all of the thoughts and wants to speak to you, if you go into silence for long enough.

It’s like taking a magnifying glass and putting it to the mind, having a look inside and gradually starting to see some colourful layers.

This is where it starts…

The thing is, usually these thoughts will run around in your mind subconsciously. These thoughts will then generate feelings, and these feelings will turn to action. This process happens so quickly, that we aren’t even aware of it and can result in behaviours like procrastination, overeating or insomnia. We are on a kind of automated loop. 

When you stop, you raise consciousness and awareness of yourself. You can then choose how to act and respond. You have power.

Slow down and start to tune in to what’s going on inside you.

You haven’t failed at meditation; this is exactly where meditation starts.

2. Not preparing for meditation

Sometimes you sit down to meditate and the body just wants to move. Sometimes you’re in an environment that’s noisy, or you’ve got this huge thing on your mind and you just need to get it out of your head and write it down.  

My advice is, make it easy. 

If your body wants to move, move it first and get that desire to move out of your system. Do some yoga, go for a run, get the excess energy out of your system first before you sit down to meditate.  

Yoga was designed purely as something that was done to prepare for meditation and clear blocked energy. Blocked energy distracts us during meditation, and movement helps release this energy.  Likewise, if you have something on your mind, write it down, get it out of your brain and onto a piece of paper first, then put the paper away and start to meditate.  

If you’re new to meditation and you find that outside sounds disturb you easily, either find somewhere quieter to mediate, or tell yourself that outside sounds will only help you to go deeper inside yourself and you’ll use them to support your practice. 

It won’t be easy at first, but over time, those noises will start to distract you less.

3. Not creating a regular place and time for meditation

I’ve kept up my regular meditation practice purely because I’ve turned it into a habit and a part of my daily routine. 

I meditate for 20 minutes in the morning and evening and it really helps me to stick to the same time and place every day. 

My brain and body know when I’m in my usual place at the usual time, that it’s time to meditate. Over time, it has become easier to go into a state of relaxation as that time of day approaches. 

It took time but I stuck with it. 

In the first few weeks, it was a new habit for me and I had to get used to it but now, I almost start to relax before I formally sit down. 

So, make it easy for yourself and meditate at the same time and in the same place and turn it into a habit for yourself. Use your mind and body’s Pavlovian response, to help you start to relax and build meditation into a normal part of your day.

4. Thinking meditation happens only when you’re ‘sitting down to meditate’

I’m big on ‘active meditation’. I find a lot of people assume that meditation can only happen when they are sitting cross-legged on the floor, or when they have decided it’s time to meditate. I point clients and students to making meditation an active part of day-to-day life, alongside a formal practice.  

Active meditation means consciously slowing down during the day. Appreciating that view. Slowing down the pace of your lunchtime walk. Active meditation is becoming aware of your thoughts, reactions, emotions and feelings as much as possible throughout the day. 

Eating slowly and tasting your food can be an act of meditation.

Active meditation means slowing down before you respond to another person. Breathing right throughout the day. Active meditation connects us to a deep sense of personal power and takes us from a reactive state to an intentional, empowered and responsive state.

When you’re next taking a walk anywhere, even inside your home, you can bring the act of meditation into that walk.

Slow down your pace, even if it’s a little bit.

Allow yourself to slow down, take a breath and take your attention to your feet.  Focus on how each foot feels as it makes contact with the ground and then lifts off the ground again with each step you take.

Notice what happens to your breathing when you do this. It will immediately start to slow down as you slow the body down. Your focus will shift immediately from the buzz of the activity around you, to a quiet internal focus on your breath and the feeling beneath your feet.

This is active meditation; a kind of turning inward in the day to day experience of life.

5. Trying too hard to maintain a certain posture

When I teach meditation, I see people straining to sit bolt upright, or stiffly holding a certain position. I see discomfort and I always ask them to adjust.

Physical discomfort and strain actually promote the body’s stress response, rather than the relaxation response, so be comfortable. You can become so focused on straining to hold a certain posture, that that posture ends up taking away your focus and energy. It’s much better to sit in a relaxed but comfortable manner, or even meditate lying down if you’re not too sleepy.

The main thing to do when you meditate is to be comfortable. If the body is comfortable, you will be less distracted by your physical body and can then start to go within and check out what’s going on.

6. Not being in the right heart-set for meditation

If you’re new to meditation, like anything you try, it can be hard to figure out and understand if you’re doing it right. However, this is the time to let go of being obsessed with doing everything right, trying hard, striving, and achieving. We do that everywhere else in life and people often take this same obsession with getting it right when ‘doing’ meditation. 

This is the wrong place from which to meditate. In fact, it’s the very opposite place. 

The heart-set for meditation is the opposite. If meditation could talk, here’s what it would say to you:

“Don’t try too hard. Let go.

I’m an opportunity for you to just chill out, hang with yourself and see out what’s going on, on the inside. 

You might like what you find, you might not, but how about we take a moment together for you to just put the focus inside your own heart for a while?”

The whole point of meditation is to access this ‘being’ part of ourselves, the part that doesn’t strive and try and make something happen. In Chinese philosophy this being part is called the yin energy. 

It’s the part of ourselves that holds the emotion, that feels into things, that trusts. It’s where intuition lives. 

For some, it can seem like a waste of time because they want to ‘do’ stuff. Just reflect though: have you ever taken a moment before you responded to someone over email, or in a conversation? 

Have you ever sat in quiet solitude before delivering a presentation, or have you ever had an intuition in a quiet moment before you acted on something? 

That’s the yin part of you that you’re accessing and then using. If you’ve ever accessed that part of yourself, you will know how powerful it is to tune in there, and feel into guidance before you act.

That part of you can only be heard in the silence.

7. Not assuming it’s simple 

The mindset and the intention we set for anything that we do is really key. If we assume something will be difficult, we will find that thing to be hard or at least hard-er as our focus will be on the hardness of the thing. We will focus and hone in on all the difficulty we are experiencing when doing that thing, which is distracting because we build up all this negative energy and resistance around doing it and then don’t want to do it again. 

Remember, that from an energetic and vibratory point of view, what you focus on expands, so if we focus on the difficult, it might start to feel even more difficult than it really is. 

It can really help ease the process of learning to mediate, like with anything, if you assume it’s not that hard. Go into it assuming that it’s do-able and that you will get it eventually.

It’s a shift of perspective around the discomfort, which might arise.

Then, when you hit a tough spot, you’re more likely to say to yourself, "OK this is a bump, but this isn’t an inherently hard thing for me to do. I will get it eventually because meditation is the most natural thing in the world for me. "

Try the above and let me know in the comments below how you get on.

Pooja is a life coach, meditation teacher and qualified solicitor. She works with successful people to help them take control of their direction, access the deeper levels of themselves and live their true life purpose.

For a FREE 30 minute consultation to see if Pooja can help you, contact: [email protected].