10 Points About Meditation I Wish Somebody Had Told Me When I Started Practicing

I started meditating in my early twenties, so more than 10 years ago. This is what I have learned so far, since I first sat on a cushion and tried to ‘not think about anything’.

1. Do it daily. Especially when you start meditating, it is really helpful to create a routine, e.g. sitting every day before breakfast. The mind is incredibly creative when it comes to finding excuses why today there is no time to sit. Do make the time. Set your alarm 15 – 30 minutes earlier. Regular meditation is a tool that can change your life in profound ways.

2. Set yourself realistic goals. It’s better to practise 10 minutes regularly than becoming discouraged because you can’t sit for an hour at a time.

3. Don’t beat yourself up when you didn’t practise. Just carry on the next day.

4. Find a good teacher. There are countless teachers out there and especially at the start of a meditation practice it is extremely helpful to get guidance from an experienced meditator.

Good signs for sincere teachers are, in my experience: they don’t charge too much / make sure that their teachings can be accessed by everyone. They don’t claim to ‘know it all’. Listening to their teachings leads to a felt sense of more clarity and calm. They offer the opportunity to ask questions and allow alterations in the method to suit your needs.

5. Explore different kinds of meditation. Don’t feel that you have to ‘stick’ with a teacher or method that doesn’t suit you. Trust your gut feeling.

6. Don’t force yourself to meditate when you are in a state of overwhelm. THIS IS NOT HELPFUL. When you feel that meditation is not doing you any good right in this moment, stop it. Explore other ways of calming your system, like moving, painting, dancing, talking to a friend. Meditation is a wonderful tool, but it’s important to recognize when it is not serving you.

7. Find a group. It is a lot easier to develop a regular practice when you’re doing it together. If you don’t have a group near you and are not disinclined to Buddhism, I very much recommend the donation based online platform ‘Sangha Live’, which offers free daily guided meditations Monday-Friday and various other courses.

8. Don’t be discouraged if you feel like you are regressing at times. It is absolutely normal that you will have days when you don’t seem to be able to focus for a single second after having had a beautiful, calm meditation the day before. This doesn’t make you a ‘bad meditator’.

The nature of the mind is to jump around and look for distraction. If your mind is running wild, this is not a sign you’re unsuited for meditation. The very REASON for practising meditation is to train the mind to do a bit less of that and to gain more calm and clarity. However, this process takes TIME. If you’ve never run, you won’t run a marathon after a week of training.

9. Find a way of practicing you enjoy. Of course there will be times when practice is challenging, but if it feels like a drag most of the time, try something else.

10. Be kind to yourself.