A Year of Meditation — What I Learned from Sitting In Silence
Quick stats before we get into this:
- ~1800 minutes meditated
- 179 sessions
- Average session: 10 minutes
- Current run streak: 36 days
I have always been fascinated in unlocking the full potential of one’s mind. I have been introduced to one version of meditation back when I was attending university, when some psychology students were looking for test subjects to practice their crafts. The method was called autogenous training and it was actually quite a good fun after you got into it.
Early years
The exercises were concentrating on different parts of the conscious and unconscious mind, trying to figure out what are the reasons behind some physical symptoms in your body. For example, we had to identify what left and right meant for us, by associating words with each direction. So when you felt the right side of your body as more active, it meant that actions and emotions associated with that direction were more prominent at the time. We were trying to warm limbs up just by thinking about them being warm and locate ill areas in the body as well. Funnily enough, there was a section during meditation when we “felt our body getting heavier” and you could suddenly start noticing the weight of your body.
We have been practicing meditation 3 times a week with the guides (psych students) and you were supposed to practice as often as possible without them. Needless to say — being a student and all — I wasn’t necessarily that keen to practice meditation a lot on my own, I wasn’t motivated enough. After the students have gone trough the program they left us to our own devices and as much as I wanted to carry on I didn’t. I was busy, or at least I felt like I was busy and couldn’t incorporate meditation into my daily routine.
I didn’t come away with no knowledge on the subject though. For one, I learned that meditation is not about relaxation, on the contrary. We meditate to achieve a focused mind. There hasn’t been more need for this than today. We are seriously distracted and check our phones all the time. The constant distractions make us absent minded, scattered and hectic. Having a “senior moment” is not reserved for seniors anymore. It effects everyone from preteens to middle aged adults as well.
The other takeaway was how difficult it is to sit in silence. We all love a bit of “me time”, but we don’t know how to handle it. “Me time” most usually means procrastination, or when we are not available to others because we are busy looking at their stuff on social media. Real me time is when you don’t do anything and just listen to yourself. Have you ever tried just sitting for 10 minutes? Does it not feel weird? Do you not think you should do something? Even better, have you tried doing nothing in public? People think you are a weirdo if you just stare at the sky as opposed to your phone screen for an elongated time.
There is an app for that
Some ten years later I found myself in a difficult emotional and physical state and was looking around for help. I like to think of myself as an open minded person, I tend to read often and keep my mind unbiased (I try anyway). Because we live in the Digital Age, I went online to see if there are any good apps available for meditation.
There are. Loads. Since I meditated before I thought I could do this again, right? I soon realised that you have to pay for anything in this life (especially your own well being and happiness) and that most of the meditation apps out there are not free. I mean, it’s completely understandable. If I put together something that works and looks nice, I would charge people for using it. After a short trial period, I chose one app that that looked alright for my needs.
The Journey
Paying for something a year in advance has it’s benefits; you want to make your money’s worth and it can help you sticking to your schedule. I was still concerned, though, whether I will see the benefits of meditating or not. To calculate the ROI on meditation is very hard. There is no definitive moment (at least there wasn’t any for me up until this point) when you suddenly become present from one day to the other. You sit down, close your eyes and hope for the best. But the key to understanding the benefits of meditation is not this. It really is true that meditation is not about the destination but the journey itself.
As you can see from the stats at the top, I haven’t meditated every single day for a year. On average, I meditated every other day. In reality, though, I had periods when I meditated often and periods when I didn’t.
It is not easy to build new habits, especially consciously.
We are constantly changing our ways, but only in small increments, therefore it’s hard to keep track of the process. Tell someone that they have to skip breakfast from now on and they will resist, either consciously or subconsciously. Tell them that they have to lose one breakfast a week and they might consider doing it (given that the benefits of doing such thing is clear for them).
I think — and I will come back to this at the end of this article — we ought to see the bigger picture here. I have learned quite a lot over the past year and some of my learning I attribute to meditation. I might have skipped months at the time but i always went back to meditating and kept on doing it. Most importantly, I’m planning on keep doing it after the one year milestone.
Without further ado, this is how my year of meditation looked like:
In motion
It’s always nice to start something new. You are all fired up to and ready to take on the world! I signed up June 2017 and my initial grace period actually lasted around 4 months. During this period I made steady progress and meditated quite often. I was hitting my milestones and it felt like I was making progress. I felt generally good about meditation and I felt like I was getting better at it. I liked the whole idea of being able to concentrate better and my focus got better. You know that feeling when you read a book and half a page later you realise you have no idea what you’ve just read? That happened less often.
But — as it always happens — after a while I stopped noticing dramatic changes and gradually stopped regular meditation. You know the drill: “I’ll just skip today but I’ll be right back tomorrow” and “I was busy this week but I will start again next week”. At some point, I even started cheating and did meditation while I was doing other things as well, so I wouldn’t lose my streak. I know. I’m not proud of it either.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place
Came early October and I stopped meditating. The steam ran out and I lost my motivation. There were always things to do and places to go. I thought I built up enough momentum to be present all the time, or at least I thought so. For around two months I only meditated sporadically, maybe once or a couple of times a week. I always managed to convince myself that I was still on top of this whole meditation thing and I didn’t need to do this more often.
Around Christmas time I felt another burst of motivation (early new year’s resolution, maybe) and I got back on the saddle for a couple of weeks. Before I stopped meditating regularly, I was at a stage where I didn’t need constant cues during the sessions and I thought I could just jump right back in and pick up where I left off. It didn’t work. I kept on trying the same session multiple times, but couldn’t remember how to do it. It was hard, you know. I felt like I had to start all over again and I didn’t think I wanted to that.
New year’s eve came and one of my resolutions was that I will meditate every day in 2018. A week later, I stopped again and didn’t really start again until March. I set out a couple of things I wanted to do (i.e. the other resolutions) and my days were full, I wanted to do everything in the same time. One thing I didn’t find time for was meditation.
All’s well that ends well
Nevertheless, I was trying to better myself in the early months of 2018. I was very interested in stoicism and minimalism already (more on those in a different article), so I did some more reading on them, I was exercising more (I run 3 times a week and do body-weight exercises) and I also changed diet (on top of being a vegetarian — something I started in 2017 — I also picked up intermittent fasting and cut out a lot of sugar). I’d like to think that I became more healthy and I was gradually changing my habits as well. After all, I got what I signed up for.
Meditation helped me discover a new side of my personality, one that is not afraid of pushing myself a bit more.
After another session of prioritisation I reorganised my daily routine, lost some clutter that surrounded me both internally and externally and made time for meditation. I have been at it since March and honestly, I think I matured into it by now. I found the place in my mind for meditation and by now I’m doing it for the sole reason of doing it. I am still motivated to get better in focusing on tasks and not to be emotionally overwhelmed, but I also enjoy some “me time”. In a true sense of it.
What I learned from sitting in silence
Don’t focus on results: In meditation and in other areas in life, our eyes are always focused on the future and the past. We are looking ahead and would like to get to certain points in our lives as soon as possible. In the process, we forget to experience the present. Ever felt like that time just flies past you? “Oh, god, it’s May already!” — you could exclaim. “The kids are growing so fast! I remember when little XY couldn’t even stand up and look at them now! They are graduating next week!”
By constantly looking forward to our next holiday/break/significant event, we end up living in the past (the memories) and the future (the anticipation), but not in the present.
The answer to most questions in life can be found inside you: I don’t mean you have to perform autopsy on your body. It’s corny to say that people are filling the emptiness inside them with material goods, but it is actually true. You could come to terms with most things that bother you by looking inside. The true achievements in life are the ones that require no external equipment. You can learn a new language in a matter of months. You can learn how to draw or how to play an instrument in a year. Hell, you could learn the basics of rocket physics in the matter of years. There are libraries out there providing free knowledge on almost all topics. We live in the age of freeconomics where people give away 90% of their knowledge for free and only charge for 10%. My grandad use to say:
“The only thing they can’t take away from you is what’s inside your head”
He lived through a world war and suffered from decades of socialism, he knew what he was on about.
Find the right time for meditation: It is different for everyone, but I recommend doing it in the morning. When you are sitting in silence after lunch and in the evening, it’s easy to doze off. Seriously. I fell asleep on numerous occasions. Interestingly enough, I always woke up by the end of the session.
The morning session works well because you are not tired (you have just slept), you aren’t full (or less likely to be full) and your mind is less preoccupied with experiences (again, you just woke up). I don’t eat breakfast, I just have a black coffee, get ready for work and have a ten minute meditation session. Didn’t have time in the morning? No problem. Do it on the way to work (if you are commuting). Or in your lunch break. Or after work. Or after the kids are in bed. You only have to find the tiniest gap in your schedule. Let’s face it: we spend way more time online than what we’ll dedicate to meditating. I meditate 70 minutes a week and spend 4+ hours on YouTube. Go figure.
Don’t set unrealistic goals: Remember when I said it was hard to get back in the habit of meditating after the first gap? I set the bar high (by thinking I can just jump right back in in the same level) and was frustrated that I couldn’t jump over it. Instead of focusing on the results (see above), focus on the experience itself. When you realise that — at the end of the day — you meditate for yourself, you will find joy in not having to do anything for a short while.
Closing thoughts
Meditation has taught me a lot and changed the way i approach things in my life. I am more balanced and I am even more open to new things as I was before. I enjoy doing things for the sake of it and not in pursuit of pointless goals in my life. I haven’t given up on ambition; I simply don’t chase after things. I let things work out in their own rhythm. I would like to achieve things still; but I also know that settings things in stone will only result in frustration, missed deadlines and FOMO.
As I mentioned earlier, I changed a good many things in my life recently and I would love to share my experiences on other topics with you. Please sound out in the comments if you would like to read more on meditation, minimalism, stoicism, books, running or design. Or anything, really. I have a lot of thoughts.
Have a great day!
