If you think You’re Too Anxious to Meditate? Think Again.
As a wise Buddhist monk once said, “If you’re too busy to meditate for an hour a day, meditate for two hours a day!”
As I like to say, “If you’re too anxious to meditate, then you definitely need to meditate!”
Every single person on the planet can meditate. Meditation—i.e. being present—is our natural state of being. And those who find it most difficult tend to need it the most—the least patient people, the most restless, the most anxious, and so on. These are all things meditation has been proven to help with.
There can be many different reasons why people may find it difficult to meditate
They Might Have A Wrong Perception
They’re doing it wrong. Meditation is more than just repeating a mantra or watching your breath.
Also, these days there are many different things that people call meditation but they are not really meditating and have no proven benefits. Having an experienced meditation teacher is the best way to make sure you are meditating properly.
Maybe The Motive Behind It Is Not Right
Expectations. Just because you cannot sit still or quiet your mind for an extended period of time does not mean that you cannot meditate. This is how it goes at the beginning for everyone.
Most of us have spent the majority of our lives training our minds to only be entertained by big-budget movies, TV shows, video games, and social media sites.
It is going to take some time before we can retrain our minds to be calm, relaxed, and find everlasting peace and joy in the stillness of the present moment.
Just be patient and start small. You don’t have to start at one hour. You can start with just one or two minutes and work your way up.
Maybe Its About Mind Over Matter
Believing your own stories. Usually, the last thought in someone’s mind before they quit meditating is, “I just can’t meditate!”
Whether you’re trying to run a marathon or get a master’s degree in organic chemistry, believing you can’t do it is a surefire way to not do it. Achieving anything requires not believing in our self-limiting, self-defeating thoughts.
Meditation is no different. As you will learn from meditation, thinking something doesn’t make it so and you do not have to be identified with your thoughts.
The more you meditate, the more you will notice that thoughts will come and go, but you are not your thoughts and they actually have no control over you. You are the awareness of your thoughts and it is that awareness that is always calm, still, and peaceful.
The more we become conscious and aware of our thought-patterns and the stories we tell ourselves, the more in control we become of our own lives and less controlled we become to whatever thought happens to pop into our head.
Path to Peace With Todd Perelmuter
A newsletter not just for mental health but also for your spiritual health
Why Do We Experience Anxiety?
Anxiety can be caused by a number of different factors in our lives. Death or separation in the family, an illness or medical condition, financial worries, trauma, and the state of world affairs can all cause anxiety. Or our personality may just be predisposed to anxiety.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is our general feeling of unease created in the mind. It’s our brain’s way of responding to stress. It can lead to panic attacks, restlessness, quicker heartbeat, lack of sleep, worry, and distress which can greatly interfere with our work and personal lives.
What Causes Anxiety?
While certain situations in our lives can put us at risk of experiencing anxiety, some people will experience greater anxiety than others. The root cause of all anxiety however is due to fear or worry of some imagined future based on some painful experience in the past.
A person fully present, simply observing the present moment with no judgment, and seeing clearly without a fog of thoughts clouding their vision, there can be no anxiety. For this, meditation is the cure.
How Does Meditation Help With Anxiety?
In meditation, we slowly train our minds to be present by observing our breath, our body, our thoughts, and our surroundings with no judgment or reaction to them.
We just let them be. We learn to accept whatever comes and let go of whatever doesn’t serve us. By observing what is happening around us and within us, we are training our mind to become present.
We aren’t watching a breath that just happened or a breath that is about to happen. We only see the breath as it currently is.
By doing this, we’re able to break free from the past and future and live in the eternal now. If we spend most of our life reliving the past or imagining the future, we essentially haven’t really lived at all.
Meditation helps us wake up from this dream, which causes nothing but needless suffering, and allows us to live more fully, more joyfully, and more peacefully.
So are you willing to dive into this ethereal experience of meditation and experience the benefits yourself? Let us know in the comments.
