Why you haven't started meditating and how to give it a chance

?In the Arena is LinkedIn News’ weekly human potential podcast hosted by?Leah Smart . You’ll hear from some of the world's brightest minds and bravest hearts about how to show up daily to live a better & more meaningful life.?Every week, Leah writes an op-ed about the conversation. This week, global spiritual leader, Deepak Chopra ?joined for a conversation about?healing from trauma, cultivating abundance, and finding your own way into spirituality .

?? click the play button to listen:

Becoming a meditator is not peaceful...at first

When I first heard about meditation, I had what I’ll call a mild curiosity, mixed with judgment and disbelief in the benefits espoused. How could just “sitting there” do much of anything other than waste time?

For starters, I’m a person who enjoys being busy. It’s fun. If you were to call me on a typical Saturday morning, I’d say I didn’t have anything planned. But check-in that night and I’d found my way to finishing a 6-mile run, a meal with friends, a book, 3 walks with my dog, and a date. Oh, and I’d learned some new random fact from my mom (like the word chameleon means "lion on the ground" in Greek).?

So not long ago, I was the worst prospect to buy into meditation. I can remember investigating it online, only to see pictures of so-called "meditators" who annoyed me. They had soft smiles and linen outfits. I could just feel them saying, “I’m better than you” in a long spiritual tone of voice. I clearly didn’t belong—though I do love linen—and I was officially repelled.

I think this might be why you hate meditation. Why you say, “I’m not a meditator.”

?Or maybe you’re someone who has sat down and tried to quiet your mind for 5 minutes alone, only to find you just can’t. It won’t shut up. So you give up, assuming quiet minds belong in folklore and monasteries.

My road to regular meditation was neither a hand-in-glove nor a “release the doves” experience. It was littered with:

• trial
• error
• forgetting
• making excuses
• getting “too busy”
• dumping the whole idea
• being frustrated with my monkey mind

Sometimes I’d sit to meditate in the morning and spend the entire 10 minutes planning my day while the harp plucked. When it was over, I'd resolve that at least my planning was accompanied by music. Then I'd find a way to hide my envy and pick my jaw up off the floor when someone remarked they meditated for an hour that day. To me, they weren’t just saying it, they were raking my failure over the coals. See, my personality can be competitive and I like to be good at things. This, I couldn’t seem to get “good” at.

?? click the play button to listen:

Consider changing your perspective

Ok, pause. If any of this sounds like you, this is where you’re getting yourself stuck. Let’s call this the, “I don’t meditate” perspective. In order to get unstuck, I’m going to ask you to move into a new, “what’s the point of meditating?” angle. To do that, let’s first remove the word meditation and I'll illustrate why I keep coming back to this practice today:

Picture a person you love. Now imagine their day looks like this: they wake up and read the news. Check email. They realize they forgot to steam that shirt they’re wearing today. Barely make it to their first meeting on time. They definitely are not prepared to speak during said meeting. Their kid’s school calls before lunch about bad test scores. Their boss sends a slack message to see if they have time for a “quick connect” this afternoon. After knowing they still have a job, post “quick connect”, they hurry home to get ready for?a dinner out.??

What do you imagine this person most needs before their big dinner? I’d imagine, it’s a breather. Not a distraction, but a moment to calm down. This person’s mind is sort of like a snow globe. And each new event shakes the snow globe. The snow globe doesn’t fully calm in between these crazy moments. Instead, it quietly simmers, bracing for more agitation.

A question: knowing what your loved one has been through, would you ask them to make an important choice or give you strong advice in between coming home and their dinner meeting? Or would you perhaps, wait until morning?

These types of moments happen to all of us on a regular basis and yet we brush them off as the backdrop of our lives and "soldier on". Except they aren’t. Because as each of these moments happens, we’re simultaneously juggling decisions, planning, tasks, and our relationship with others in our world.

Now imagine that loved one is you and fill in your events. Racing from task to task. Stopping only to eat, gasp and take bathroom breaks. A constantly agitated snow globe.

Quieting your mind offers a reset and a whole lot more.

?

Some science about meditation and work

If you’re still not convinced, this study shows what you could get out of quieting your mind:

In 2019, the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology published an article about a study that asked 238 employees at 2 large UK companies to meditate for just 10-20 minutes, a few times a week, over an 8-week period (Bostock, S., Crosswell, A. D., Prather, A. A., & Steptoe, A. (2019)). ??

After 8 weeks, the group reported significant improvement in these areas compared to the control group:

• well-being
• distress
• job strain
• perceptions of workplace social support?

The researchers even followed up 16 weeks later and found sustained positive effects.?

?? click the play button to listen:

So where do you start?

First, I’d recommend not over-thinking meditation. Though there are many forms, we’ll focus on the simple practice of sitting still with your eyes closed and allowing your mind to settle.

In my recent conversation with Deepak Chopra , he talked about the concept of simple awareness” which he describes as “being present without judgment,” and says the easiest way is to “close your eyes and do nothing.”

“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” -Lao Tzu?

What to expect when you start meditating

I could give you a long list of all the apps and links to meditation tools, but those are easy to find. Instead, I’m going to give you some insight into what’s going to get in your way as you start this practice:

1. You are going to try to convince yourself you can’t.
2. You are going to tell yourself you are too busy/tired/stressed.
3. You are going to feel awkward at first.
4. You might feel embarrassed to tell people you’re trying it.
5. You will try for a few days and you’ll say, “nothing's happening.” So you'll stop.
6. You’ll feel guilty you tried and couldn’t keep up with the commitment.
7. You will want to try again but won’t want to repeatedly let yourself down.
8. You will drag your mind, kicking and screaming, the next time you sit to quiet it.?

All of this, I share from experience. And it’s not meant to deter you, it’s meant to light your path. I wish someone had sat me down and said all the above would happen before all the below would eventually come to fruition for me:?

1. I do not get out of bed until I meditate for at least 25 minutes.
2. I fiercely protect my peace, even when it feels especially challenging.
3. I feel a deep sense of self-worth and love that cannot be shaken by external circumstances. It’s different from confidence or self-esteem.
4. I am training my mind to pause and respond instead of spiral and react.
5. I am more compassionate with myself and with the people I love. This one is ongoing but there is a material difference.
6. I have a reliable and guilt-free way to manage stress and anxiety. And I want less of the things that create guilt: ice cream, alcohol, Netflix etc.
7. My mind is clearer, calmer, and more relaxed.

To be completely transparent, the incredible benefits meditation provides do not happen overnight. And they require some commitment. But they last longer than your 10-minute sit. The Journal of Cognitive Enhancement published a study from UC Davis sharing that the gains in the ability to sustain attention were maintained 7 years after people attended an intensive meditation retreat and continued meditating regularly afterward. And if you speak to any regular meditator (clothed in linen or not), you will likely hear they've gotten even more out of their practice than what I've shared above.

If there’s one desire I continue to observe in every person I meet, it’s that we all want the internal experience of joy and peace, as often as we can have it. And we yearn to be entirely seen for the complex, messy, beautiful humans that we are. And finally, to love and be loved through our messiness.

Why else is “bringing your whole self to work” now, a thing? We want the richness of an authentic life in every part of it.

Sadly, we've been trained to seek so much of this from the validation of others without first looking in the mirror and giving it to ourselves. Meditation offers an avenue to explore that richness, starting with you. So, why not give it a try?

Until next time…how has meditation impacted you?