Category Archives: Mindfulness and Meditation

I have a confession to make: I haven’t meditated in weeks.

It took me a while to figure out why I’d stopped. The slowdown in my routine was so gradual that I didn’t realize it was happening at first, but there have been some changes in my life recently that have lead to me feeling less of a need to meditate regularly.

Change #1: No Caffeine

I never drink coffee or caffeinated tea, but for a while there I wasn’t eating or drinking anything caffeinated at all. Even small amount of caffeine have been known to make me feel anxious, so I’ll often go several weeks or even longer without having any chocolate at all.

When my mind is calm, I don’t think about meditation as often as I do when I need to consciously clear out my thoughts.

Now that I’ve started to occasionally eat chocolate again as a delicious result of post-holiday sales and my local grocery store suddenly carrying a whole bunch of new chocolate bars that I’ve only begun to start tasting, I’m expecting to mediate again more regularly in the near future.

Change #2: Nice Weather

Spring has arrived in Toronto, so there have been some beautiful days here over the last few weeks. Meditation is a tool I’m more likely to use during times of the year when it’s too hot or cold to spend much time outdoors at all. When the weather is warm and dry, I tend to take a long walk outside instead of sitting at home.

Nothing clears my mind more quickly than being outdoors. There are many quiet, shady streets in Toronto to explore, and I love walking up and down them with no particular destination in mind. Not only do you meet the most interesting people and places  this way, it’ll show you a side of the city that is rarely seen elsewhere. Some of the buildings here have been around since the city was in its infancy, and they have stories to share about that time period in history if you know how to listen and who to speak to about them.

The peacefulness of these walks is wonderful as well. When you don’t have to think about crossing busy streets or dodging folks who stand on the street corner and try to talk you into something, it’s easy to let your legs carry you down the street and soak in all of the beauty around you.

This leads me to a question that has been rolling around in my mind for a long time. Can walking be thought of as a non-traditional form of mediation? I’ve read articles that agree that it can, and others that don’t think this habit is disciplined enough to count as a meditation session. What I can say is that both meditation and walking give me similar benefits.

• They clear my mind.
• If my mind can’t be cleared, they help me to accept the thoughts that stubbornly stick around.
• They help me to live in the present instead of the past or the future.

I’ll leave it up to the experts to decide if long walks can be a form of mediation. For now, I’ll accept the peace that I find in these activities and leave it at that.

Change #3: Boredom

There’s a fine line between falling into a comfortable routine and beginning to feel bored when you do the same things over and over again.

As much as I enjoy the benefits of meditation, sometimes I honestly do need a break from it. Doing it daily would be like doing the same exercise routine every single day. Some people may be perfectly capable of doing that without ever growing bored or wanting a chance to rest, but I need to switch up my routines sometimes.

Taking a break from something – even if it’s something I deeply love that I know is good for me – makes me feel more committed to going back to it after I’ve had a chance to try other forms of relaxation.

Try, Try Again

Now that I’ve had the chance to mull over it, I don’t think of my breaks from meditation as a failure. I’ve had an on-and-off again relationship with this practice for years, and I’ve more or less come to accept the fact that I will occasionally stop doing it for a while.

My meditation breaks are gradually growing shorter and less frequent, though, and that makes me happy. I’d like to imagine that this means my meditation practices are changing my brain for the better.

Think of it like training yourself to eat a healthy diet or exercise regularly. There will be times when you fall off the wagon, so to speak, for any number of reasons. You might become sick or injured and be physically unable to exercise for days, weeks, or months.  Other things going on in your life might demand so much attention that you don’t have the energy to juggle it all for a while. You might be travelling and have trouble finding healthy food while you’re out of your element.

All of that is perfectly normal. Such a routine might not work for everyone, but it does work for some of us. Rather than focusing on what happened yesterday, think about what you’re going to do today.  The nice thing about meditation is that no one is keeping track of how often you do it, and there’s no reward or punishment for doing it a specific number of times a week.

There is always another chance to try again. This is why I’ve returned to this practice so many times after taking a break.

Both of these terms regularly get tossed around on this blog. I recently realized that I’ve never defined them or talked about the subtle differences between them. It’s high time to change that!

Meditation Is an Action

Meditation requires you to arrange your body in a certain position and actively clear all of the thoughts from your head.

It is a deliberate pause in your day that has a specific beginning, middle, and end. Think of it like brushing your teeth or doing some other routine

This isn’t something that can be multi-tasked. When you meditate, it is the only thing you’re doing at that precise moment in time. There’s no room for distractions or breaks during it.

Sometimes it even requires you to willfully continue to keep your mind clear of thoughts and focus on your breathing if you’re having a lot of trouble.

Mindfulness Is a State of Mind

Mindfulness, on the other hand, does not require this level of focus. It is about remaining aware of what’s happening to you at this precise point in time without living in the past, worrying about the future, or passing judgement on what I’ve observing.

I can and have practiced mindfulness while standing in line, listening to the rain patter against my window, waiting to hear the results of medical tests, feeling annoyed by a careless stranger who wasn’t paying attention to where he or she was walking, and watching a dog chase squirrels at the park.

There are usually other thoughts floating around in my head when I practice mindfulness. As long as I remain focused on whatever is happening in the present moment and aren’t making judgements, I allow my brain to think whatever it wants to think.

Often it begins to focus on the details of the room, park, store, or other place where I happen to be that day. I like the thrill of noticing little things in those settings that many people overlook like the color of a pet’s leash or how many pigeons were wandering around while they waited for someone else to feed them. I usually tend to rush past those things myself, so slowing down enough to pay attention to them is a wonderfully healthy thing for me to do.

You Can’t Have Meditation without Mindfulness

The biggest reason why I file the meditation posts under mindfulness here is that you can’t meditate without first learning how to be mindful. Every time I pause and pay close attention to my surroundings, I get just a little better at meditating as a result.

There is something so joyful about seeing how mindfulness affects my meditation practices. As I’ve mentioned in the past, meditation is something I struggled a lot with when I first began practicing it.

My mind really hated the idea of sitting quietly and doing “nothing” for any length of time. Learning how to quiet it without physically sitting down and participating in traditional forms of meditation was eventually how I learned to slide into this practice.

Mindfulness became a habit for me long before meditation did.

(Incidentally, I’ve also pick up some fabulous ideas for poems and stories as well by watching people! You’d be surprised by how much you can learn about writing dialogue as well as human nature in by quietly observing how they interact with each other in public. Perhaps this should be the topic of a future post? What do you think?)

There are certain stages people seem to go through when they first begin meditating. Today I’m going to walk through them with you, so buckle your seat belts and prepare for a fun ride.

Stage 1: Confusion

A lot of guides make meditation sound so easy. Sit down somewhere comfortable, close your eyes, and clear your mind, they say.

Sitting and not thinking is going feel really weird and confusing in the beginning, though. This isn’t normally how people behave. Our minds really aren’t used to it, so they need some time to figure out what is happening. While they adjust, you might feel confused or like you’re not meditating the right way.

Don’t worry, though. This is all part of the process.

The desire to move your mind or your body is strongest when you first start out. I know that I still get the urge to open my eyes or wiggle a limb when I’m meditating. In fact, I just wiggled my left foot as I was writing that last line. The mere thought of sitting perfectly still was enough to make me want to move.

This is why I recommend guided meditation for beginners. It is so much easier to stay still and stick with a routine if you have someone telling you how to breathe or which parts of your body you should focus on relaxing at a particular point in the process.

That outside guidance also reduces confusion. You don’t have to worry about where you are or when you’ll be finished if someone else is gently nudging you along.

I’m not going to be recommending any one particular guide here because I haven’t found one that is well-rounded enough to meet my expectations. I jump among a few different products depending on how I’m feeling on a particular day and what I can find online for free.

These things work well for my purposes, but you might want to take a different approach to the question. If one single program meets most or all of your needs, that’s great!

Stage 2: Boredom

This is so boring. Why aren’t I getting anything out of it?

One of the biggest reasons why I had so much trouble getting into the habit of meditating when I first tried it out is that it didn’t seem to be doing anything for me. I’d sit in mental and physical silence for X amount of time without feeling any different at the end of a session than I did beforehand.

Like losing weight, learning a new language, or beginning the long journey home after completing some kind of sacred mission, though, this isn’t the sort of thing that you’ll see quick results for.

Don’t concentrate on the end goal. Focus on your task at hand especially if nothing seems to be changing. This is how it is supposed to be. You will get better at it as you go along.

Yes, it’s going to feel repetitive and mundane some days. This is completely normal and not anything to be concerned about in the least. Boredom isn’t necessarily a bad thing in this case. Your brain will adjust and so will you if you give it some time.

I also think that our technology-obsessed society would really benefit from learning how to handle being bored again in general. I know that I get restless more quickly than I used to because my smartphone is so accessible whenever I need a distraction.

The nice thing about meditation is that it will give you the opportunity to sit with those feelings without trying to find a solution for it. Sometimes boredom can’t and shouldn’t be fixed.

Keep plugging along at it.

Stage 3: Thoughtlessness

There will eventually come a time when you clear all of the thoughts out of your mind and no new ones will rush in to fill their place.

It’s hard to describe what this kind of experience is like because there are no words or thoughts at all when you’re in the middle of it.

Have you ever woken up just as your final dream of the night was leaving your memory for good?

It feels like a calm version of that.

You’re dimly aware of your own existence and of the fact that something special is happening, but you don’t have any conscious feelings about any of it.

The other metaphor I like to use to describe it is that it is similar to floating around in a little bubble. All of your needs are being taken care of, and there is nothing you need to do, say, or think at the moment.

It is peaceful and invigorating all at once, although neither of those words come to mind when I’m in this state.

Even now this isn’t something that happens to me every single time I meditate. Some days I can’t clear my mind out fully for whatever reason, and that is okay. The nice thing about meditation is that there is no punishment for doing it “incorrectly.” The simple act of trying is enough, and there will always be another day to sit down and see if your mind is more relaxed.

One of the things that made me stick with meditation over the long haul was the fact that there’s no such thing as failure here. It is what it is.

This leads me to the last stage…

 Stage 4: Peace

Meditation can have some nice benefits for people who practice it regularly.

I recently took a break from meditating while healing from an accident. The (thankfully mild) injury I sustained during it prevented me from moving in certain ways, and the discomfort of it was also enough to cause a distraction when I attempted to quiet down my thoughts for those first few days.

There is peace to be found once you settle into a regular rhythm of meditation, though.

The first time I saw the picture on the right, I giggled.

The second time I wondered about how long the subject might have been meditating before she was captured in this precise moment.

Look at how relaxed the muscles in her face are. A small part of me wonders if someone could have gently placed the hat of leaves on her head while she was meditating without her necessarily noticing or caring what was happening.

I still see the humour in this shot, but it also reminds me of how I feel after some mediation sessions these days. It is so relaxing to open your eyes after 15 minutes of perfect stillness and slowly grow accustomed to the sights and sounds of our world again.

It will be fascinating to see how this develops the longer I practice meditation.

If you haven’t given it a try yet, I highly recommend doing so. This is one of the most positive things I’ve ever done for my mental health. I can’t praise it enough.