How to Experience Deeper Meditation by Overcoming Its Biggest Obstacle
The 5 major misconceptions about meditation.
I meditated every day for the past 3-years. I studied it as an art, read countless books on the topic, experimented with various styles from traditional mindfulness, creative visualization to breathwork and mantras to even just sitting on the floor staring at a candle.
But I didn’t always have this great affection and dedication for meditation. My attempts to endure a practice started back when I was a teenager but I could never keep with it.
I would always get frustrated and impatient — leading me to give up before I even ever started. Looking back I realized it came down to one thing which I believe is the reason why many people are averse to meditation, give up too soon, or say they “can’t” meditate.
Expectation.
The biggest hurdle to having a deep, rewarding, consistent meditation practice is our expectations. These expectations are badly informed by some common misconceptions about what meditation is and what its purpose is in our lives.
Below is a list of the most common expectations that I have experienced throughout my own practice and the corresponding misconceptions they are born out of.
Misconception 0: What is Meditation?
Meditation is such a loaded word these days. It is mindfulness? Is it relaxation? Is it watching your breath? Is it lucid dreaming? Is it manifesting?
I like to keep things simple and adhere to the definition from its Eastern roots which literally means:
“To become familiar with.”
At its heart, this is exactly what you are doing in any form of meditation; you are becoming familiar with your thoughts and emotions. You are becoming more aware of a deeper part of yourself.
This is always the intention, and for any new meditator, extra focus should be given to this point. Without clarity of this purpose, it eventually leads to these other misconceptions cropping up in your practice.
5 Common Meditation Misconceptions
1. We have the expectation that we are not supposed to have thoughts.
Thoughts are not the enemy in meditation. Allow me to repeat: thoughts are not the enemy. Nor are they a hindrance, rather they are the driver of our practice and literally what we use to cultivate our awareness of the present moment. We watch our thoughts, attempt to observe them without judgment, notice when we drift off with them, and then return to our awareness of the present moment.
The biggest misconception that creates this expectation: we believe meditation is about clearing our mind and emptying it of all thoughts.
Instead, accept thoughts as an essential part of your practice. Expect them and love them. They are the tool you are using to create mental stability and when they pull you out of the present moment be grateful because it is a great opportunity to reclaim that stability, cultivate presence, and witness yourself being different in the moment.
2. We have the expectation that we are supposed to be vibrating or levitating.
This is the old paradigm of meditation that associates it with images of zen monks who are cut off from the rest of the world hibernating in a cave somewhere.
The biggest misconception that creates this expectation: we believe that by meditating we are going to become enlightened. We have this perception that meditation is literally like flipping on a switch in our minds which will reveal the answers to all our problems.
This leads us to constantly be wondering (especially for new meditators) while we’re in the middle of our meditation if what we are doing is “working” yet.
Inevitably we are disappointed every time we hit the cushion because we are waiting for something mystical or otherworldly to occur. Instead, keep in mind while meditation can lead to insights and greater meaning but that’s not the focus. It’s about the journey of everyday sitting in stillness with the intention of creating benefit for yourself and the world around you.
3. We have the expectation that meditation will turn us into little bliss babies.
Similar to number two on this list, this expectation associates meditation as a little magic pill that’s going to give us a “special feeling” that will transport us to a “special place.”
We think meditation is supposed to make us happy 24 hours a day and take away all the chaos in our life.
This leaves us always grasping for a feeling in our practice, seeking to receive some type of emotional “high” or enter a blissed-out state. Then we are left disappointed because we didn’t feel the way we expected to during our session.
The biggest misconception that creates this expectation: we think meditation is supposed to give us some amazing emotional experience or mental trip that renders us unconscious.
However, through meditation, we are not trying to put ourselves into a coma; it’s just the opposite: we are trying to wake up.
4. We have the expectation that meditation is a numbing tool for our feelings.
In contrast to number three, this is the expectation that by meditating we will be cut off from all our unpleasant feelings.
The biggest misconception that creates this expectation: we believe meditation is going to take away our demands, anxiety, or sadness.
In actuality, meditation will make you feel those unpleasant emotions even more because you are becoming more aware of them.
This means that you will undoubtedly experience some unpleasant emotions during your practice. Feelings like anger, sadness, and irritability are more than ok in meditation and it is what you are building a deep awareness of. Any sensation you have during the process is your body’s way of trying to communicate something to you. Welcome it and just notice it.
Something to keep in my mind, when you sit down to meditate sometimes the things you are struggling with or causing you stress in your life might become heightened during your practice. Those issues may start to feel worse before they start to feel better.
As the founder of Ziva Meditation Emily Fletcher commonly says:
“Things get highlighted before deletion.”
Meditation is a tool to reset from stress, not as a way to numb yourself to it.
5. We have the expectation that we need to be really good at meditation.
Since meditation is viewed as a skill, we think that means we need to become awesome at it. This is especially true for beginners. Inevitably, when we get distracted during our practice, it feels like we are failing and that we aren’t “good” at it.
Every new meditator at some point has asked themselves: “am I doing this right?”
The misconceptions that create this expectation: all of the above. We think by having thoughts, the fact we’re not levitating, strung out on bliss, or that we’re experiencing even the tiniest bit of discomfort means we’re failures.
More importantly, deep down this reveals that our natural inclination is to want to be good at everything we do. Like everything else, we want to “succeed” at meditation. We want to feel like the time and energy we are investing in the process is actually “working.”
Therein lies our mistake: we bring success and failure into our practice.
However, there is no success or failure in meditation. Success and failure are constructs that exist in the world outside your practice. Duality of this kind has its time and place in your life. On the cushion though is not one of them.
So instead of seeing meditation as something you need to be good at, view meditation as an experience. The thoughts, distractions, and unpleasant feelings are all part of that experience.
The Secret to Meditation?
You are still going to be human after all. And therein lies the rub. Just like having thoughts, unpleasant feelings, and an incessant desire to always want to succeed, so is having expectations.
So now if we go back to the definition of meditation “to become familiar with”, the question now becomes, when you have those expectations, can you do just that?