Meditation 101

Why Therapists Suggest Meditation:

As a holistic therapist and wellness consultant, I’m often suggesting meditation and coaching first-timers. It’s a touchy subject, which a lot of folx in the west find intimidating or mysterious. There is no magic involved, no secret path to enlightenment. It simply takes effort, dedication, and persistence, just like learning an instrument or working on fitness. Why bother? There are as many reasons for meditation as there are different types of meditation. Stress reduction is one evidence-based benefit that most of us would appreciate, which can lead to great improvements in our thinking, relationships,  and mental health. As an analytical, science-aware counsellor, the main benefit I see in my clients is a training of their awareness. Greater awareness of where our attention is placed is cultivated through the many repeated cycles of distraction, awareness of distraction, and refocusing of attention that happen during meditation. Greater awareness supports us in obvious ways (we become more cognizant of procrastination, avoidance, and rumination). It’s also super important for a less obvious reason: Undoing negativity bias. Our brains favour negative thoughts (scary things, worst case scenarios, potential future problems) over positive ones (ideal future circumstances, best case scenarios) – this is a protective design feature that causes us to anticipate and avoid problems as early as possible. The problem is, we can’t turn this off when we’re really safe and OK, so we constantly tend towards negative thought, just like a car with a flat tire will veer to one side. Greater awareness of our attention allows us to recognize this veering towards the negative. And when we can recognize it, we can take active steps to restore the balance (like imagining the best case scenario, or stopping and smelling the roses instead of always powerwalking to the bus stop). When we make this change, life becomes a whole lot more pleasant, because we aren’t constantly in fear, stress, and hypervigilance. 

Another important benefit of meditation is getting practiced at just “being” rather than “doing”. In our culture, we’re kind of indoctrinated that we should always be doing something, always be productive, hard working, making progress. This leaves us with relatively little familiarity and comfort with just “being” (noticing our experience, without any mind to what comes next). Getting practice at “being” helps us connect to our bodies, which is a prerequisite for much of the work in many forms of counselling. In a nutshell, we’re all real good at thinking and talking, but we need to learn to pay attention to our bodies and experiences as they are, while disengaging our tendency to judge and strategize. This is super hard for many of us, but meditation really helps, as we are intentionally focusing on present-moment experience. 

These basic instructions for silent sitting meditation use the breath as the “object” (focus) of meditation. In my experience, this is easier than a focus on thoughts, the body, or an external object. If sitting still is a challenge, learn more about walking meditation. 

Things to Know before Starting:

The main objective of meditation is mindfulness, which involves both concentration (focus) and awareness (of the object of meditation – in this case the breath). In any moment, one of these aspects is usually dominant, but both must be developed to cultivate mindfulness. Throughout any meditation session, there will be periods where you lose your concentration and awareness (e.g. when we remember a difficult experience, or fantasize about what we’ll eat for lunch) – we are not trying to aim for uninterrupted concentration and awareness, really it’s about recognizing when you have lost your focus, and then returning to your object of meditation without judging what’s happened. Getting practice at doing this is the essence of meditation. The more you do it, the less you will beat yourself up for being distracted by thoughts, and at the same time, the quicker you will be able to notice it when you do become distracted. 

All too often people starting out quit early due to judgment and self doubt. Setting a timer can enable us to give it a fair shot; If using a timer, I suggest setting a modest time to begin with (five or ten mins), and increasing it by two or three minutes each sitting. Don’t go beyond 30 minutes for the first few months. If the timer goes off and you feel you want to keep going, don’t immediately break your concentration and react to the timer; take a moment to acknowledge what’s happening, then very slowly and mindfully open your eyes, reach over and turn off timer, and resume your meditation for as long as you like.

You may like to keep a journal to note down what works and what doesn’t, and any observations about your state of mind or feelings pre and post meditation (you could try rating your groundedness (or any emotion states you have going on) on a scale of 1-10 before and after).

Darkening the room and having something in your stomach before meditating is often helpful for those who tend toward anxiety and self-criticism, but they can also cause drowsiness– experiment, and do what is best for you.

Find a time when you are unlikely to be distracted by time pressures, interruptions, or noise (turn off or silence phones and other noisy electronics). Many people like to meditate first thing in the morning, before being flooded with reminders of everything you have to get done. 

Find a comfortable way to sit. There’s no need to sit on the floor, but avoid sofas or chairs with reclining or deep back
rests. Laying down in bed is fine as long as it’s not going to cause you to be too relaxed/sleepy. There’s also no need to take a special posture – any positioning that is comfortable but supports you to stay alert is helpful. 

Close eyes or cast gaze downwards, finding a spot on the floor to focus on.

Take a few deeper, slower breaths to start. When you feel grounded, allow your breath to return to its natural pace.

Observe the breath by focusing on the sensations of breathing. The easiest places to notice breathing sensations are 1- around the nostrils, where the breath tickles the tiny little hairs inside and below the nostrils, or 2 – the belly, which rises and falls, and can be felt by focusing on the skin of the belly (feel the skin spreading out to make room as you breath in, or the friction of the skin with your shirt as it moves in and out). Pick one of these places (wherever you can notice the breath most easily) and stick with it. If you can’t notice it at first, just keep sitting still; when we stop moving and being distracted, it can take a couple minutes for the background static of our senses to quiet. Once this happens, we are better able to notice the subtle sensations of our body which we usually ignore in favour of grater stimuli. 

Sooner or later, your mind will wander from your focus on the breath. As soon as you realise your concentration on the breath has strayed, acknowledge this (with compassion and understanding that automatically shifting focus is the mind’s nature), and resume focus on the breath at the spot you have chosen.

Final Tips:

As long as you are trying to meditate, you are successfully meditating. Don’t expect some special trance or psychedelic experience to occur. In fact, the best way to judge if you’re doing it right are signs of struggle: Frustration, boredom, irritability. Meditation is simple, but it isn’t easy. Those who say they don’t find meditation challenging at least sometimes are likely just daydreaming rather than meditating. 

It will get easier. Just as with going to the gym, it doesn’t so much matter what happens in any one session, or even whether you complete every session. Most important is consistency; that you at least try to have a meditation session each day. If you always plan to but never get to, again, try doing it first thing in the morning. There is no better investment of your time, as meditation has the power to help you think more clearly, have more patience and awareness, and transform your experience of everything in this world.

5-Min Audio Guided Meditations on YouTube:

Guided Mindful Breathing – A guided version of the above breath meditation

Progressive Muscle Relaxation – Good to cultivate more body awareness

Sound Based Meditation – Uses awareness of sounds instead of breath

Written by Michael Indermaur, RCC.