3 Strategies For Creating A Meditation Practice: Episode #2

I want to start this episode of the Meditation School podcast by admitting something about my meditation practice.

When I started,

It took me years to ground a consistent practice.

And in today's episode,

I want to talk about the three strategies we can use to make sure that we do create a consistent practice,

Because it doesn't need to take years of fumbling around.

I went to India and I sat in ashrams and lived all over in Hawaii and found so many different gurus and teachers and techniques and read hundreds and hundreds of books.

And sometimes it was great and sometimes it was all a distraction from just sitting and closing my eyes.

So let's jump right into it.

So the first,

I think,

And one of the most important parts of a meditation practice of creating a structured practice is having a consistent place to meditate and making that space sacred.

So I'm super simple.

For me,

I literally meditate on two pillows from my bed.

I do it in the same place in my room all the time.

And I have no incense or candles or pictures or music or anything.

It's just that,

Just two pillows.

But it is the same bubble,

The same space all the time.

Obviously,

You might travel and be in different places.

That's fine.

But wherever you live,

If it's a house,

An apartment,

A yurt,

A van,

A tent,

If you do it outside underneath a tree,

Make it consistent and make it sacred.

So if you do want to bring in any items that make you feel comfortable or make it feel special,

Do that.

And know that this bubble is just for meditating.

Just like the kitchen is for eating.

This bubble is for meditating.

So every time you sit down in it,

There's some kind of almost like subtle calmness that comes over you.

You go,

Ah,

Yes,

This is my bubble.

I get it.

When I sit in this space,

I'm here to relax into stillness.

Okay.

So first strategy here is find a consistent sacred space.

The second one for me is timing your meditation practice.

Okay.

One of my teachers would always say,

Sometimes when we feel like the farthest away,

That's when we're actually the closest.

And the reason I like sharing that quote when it comes to timing our practice is because usually when we're halfway through or two thirds,

We get this thought.

You know,

That thought that you get when you exercise and you've done like seven out of 10 reps and you're like,

Ah,

My arm's going to fall off.

I quit.

Or I I'm done.

I've had enough.

I have to go back to work.

You know,

Those like fake excuses,

Obviously your,

Hopefully your arm isn't really going to fall off.

There are these fake excuses that arise because they're really just bubbling up out of resistance or pain.

Right?

So you're meditating and you're just spinning out on some ruminating thoughts or some moment in your recent past that keeps replaying.

You hit some kind of resistance and you convince yourself it's time to get up.

And cause you,

You might think that you're not making progress,

But that's when you're actually the closest when you feel the furthest away.

So if you're sitting in a boatload of resistance,

That's why you want,

That's when you want to time yourself because you want to sit through that and get through it.

Don't let it knock you out of meditation.

Use the resistance to help you grow and deepen.

So if you're upset or about something or stuck on something that might be what you need to focus on in meditation.

And you know,

I have another 10 or 15 minutes left,

So I'm going to sit through this.

When I used to do Buddhist meditation practices like Vipassana and we would sit on these retreats for like 10 hours a day for 10 days in a row,

There was nowhere I could run or hide.

They wouldn't let you go anywhere.

They took your phone.

And so I would have to sit through all of this resistance and pain.

And I'm so glad they made me do it because there was always something beautiful on the other side.

I can't tell you how many times I fell into a deep,

Deep stillness or my heart opened or I had this enlightening awakening experience from sitting through what seemed like impossible pain or resistance to sit through.

So in the beginning of our meditation practice,

We want to time ourselves.

When you're further along,

If you've been meditating for years and years,

You might not feel like you need that anymore.

I know for me,

Sometimes I'll sit for one or two hours and I don't need to time myself because I know I'm not going to get up.

I'm going to sit for a long period of time.

But if you're somebody that struggles staying on that cushion or in that chair,

Then time yourself.

Okay.

And then the third strategy here for creating a structured meditation practice is finding an actual technique or practice to work with.

That might take some shopping around if you haven't found one yet.

You know,

I teach on apps like Insight Timer and you know,

There's seven,

8,

000 teachers on that app.

There's so much content.

You can go on YouTube,

You can go anywhere and everywhere.

There's so many great books and you can find a style that works for you.

And then I would say you want to stick with it for two or three months at least until you find out if it's really working or not.

It's just like timing yourself.

If you go,

Let me try this transcendental meditation practice or this Vipassana or this intuitive energy practice and you give it 10 minutes,

There's no way it's going to work for you.

Right.

I had a cousin who said to me once,

Hey,

I tried that meditating thing.

It closed my eyes.

I couldn't get to three breaths without thinking.

So yeah,

That's really hard stuff.

I quit.

Yeah,

It can be if we don't give it consistent effort.

I know meditation is supposed to be where you have no effort,

But we have to put in effort.

We have to put in effort to get out of bed,

To sit on the cushion,

To time ourselves,

To focus.

So it does take a certain kind of effort.

So whatever that practice is,

Give it a shot at least a couple of months worth and then move on to something else if it's not working.

That simple,

Those three strategies to help your meditation practice get going,

Find a consistent space,

Make it sacred,

Time yourself and find a technique that really works for you and stick with it for a couple of months to see what it can do.

All right.

That was enough talking.

Go close your eyes and meditate,

Except if you're driving or cooking dinner or doing open heart surgery.

So appreciate you being here with me and I hope to see you in the next episode and beyond.

Enjoy yourself.

Take care.