Meditation is taking a break from the relentless stream of bullshit-thoughts that constantly populate our mind and influence our feelings, usually to our detriment.
Sounds like a relief, right?
So how do you meditate?
Pick a focus point. It can be visual if your eyes are open, like an icon on the computer screen. I prefer my eyes closed, in which case it’s easiest to focus on the rise and fall of the breath.
When the relentless stream of bullshit-thoughts pull you away, which they will, bring your attention back to your chosen point of focus, rather that continuing to follow the bullshit-thoughts with more bullshit-thoughts.
Repeat this at least three times.
Don’t worry if it takes a few moments to notice you’re swimming in thoughts over and over again; noticing and shifting back to your chosen focus is what makes what you’re doing meditation.
Congratulations. You’ve just meditated.
What you’ve done by meditating is repeatedly abandon your ‘train’ of thought and stayed in the actual room you’re in for a few moments.
Neurologically this is helpful because when we meditate we activate the prefrontal cortext from whence the actual solutions to our problems are generated. That’s because it’s the area of the brain in charge of empathy, curiosity, innovation and following our heart, not our rage and fear.
Rage and fear are fuled by the limbic system. I’m not a neuroscientist, but I believe it is also the source of the relentless stream of bullshit-thoughts.
The more you take breaks from your bullshit-thoughts through meditation, the more you actually grow the gray matter in your prefrontal cortex from whence we generate and experience happiness. Conversely, studies have shown that meditation also shrinks the gray matter in the limbic system.
If you’ve tried and think you’ve failed to meditate before, it’s important to realize that nobody is “bad at” meditation. They just haven’t learned to do it yet.
Learning anything takes practice. Not “trying”
So never “try” to meditate. Practice instead.
