10 Powerful Lessons from 30 Straight Days of Meditation
In March of last year, I joined a Transcendental Meditation course. I knew very little about meditation, except for the fact that it could help with mindfulness. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of benefits, just that benefits do exist.
I didn’t really know much about TM either. I just picked it because there is a center nearby to where I live in Johannesburg, and because I learned in a podcast interview with Ray Dalio that he practices TM.
I thought that if TM was good for Dalio — a billionaire hedge fund investor — then it was good for me too.
I initially opted to take an in-person course, as opposed to using a meditation app, because I thought that would better indoctrinate the practice.
I wanted to challenge myself — I felt that meditation is a single player game, and that I’d be better off learning how to meditate by myself, rather than relying on an app to do so.
I also felt that the financial commitment to a TM course would compel me to stick with it for the long haul.
I was wrong.
TM, as a practice, consists of 20-minute meditation sessions, two times a day. During the practice, you sit and recite a mantra, to transcend into equanimity.
After just four days of learning TM, from an incense filled house, my fellow students and I were out on our own to face the world with more mindfulness.
My meditation practice didn’t last very long after the course ended.
I have a love/hate relationship with meditation.
It’s really, really hard for me, and I often don’t want to sit and practice. Yet, I believe strongly in the merits of deliberate practice, and the value of enduring short-term discomfort for long-term benefit. I am wholly convinced of the benefits of meditation.
Months after my short stint with TM, I was compelled to try to regain my practice after speaking with a friend who recommended I try the Headspace app.
I have worked hard to make it a daily habit, and I am very proud to say that I have now meditated for 30 days in a row!
I am still far from an expert. I’m not always sure if I’m doing it “right” and I still don’t really know what equanimity is or feels like.
I don’t know much about the different types of meditation, or its benefits from a scientific standpoint.
However, I have learned several very powerful lessons during the past 30 days, that I believe are important to share, and that I am very proud to share. And I believe these are especially powerful for those considering trying to start a practice of their own in the future.
1. Meditation isn’t about what you feel when you’re meditating. It’s about what you do and feel when you’re not meditating.
During my TM practice, our instructor would ask us how we felt each time after group meditation. She would ask if our minds wandered, if our thoughts took over for the mantra at any point in time, or if we experienced no mantra and no thoughts during the practice.
I felt like I should be feeling something, but the majority of the time I just felt like I was sitting there quietly.
I had created this expectation that meditation would be this super blissful, transcendent feeling. And it may be, but that’s not how it’s been for me. Not yet, anyway.
I’ve learned that meditation isn’t as much what you’re feeling while you are meditating, but your feeling and actions throughout the day.
If one had blissful meditation experiences, but then was angry all throughout the day otherwise, we wouldn’t view that person as mindful.
However, even without blissful, transcendent meditation experiences, an increase in mindfulness, calm or presence throughout the day — or even for a moment — is the aim of the experience.
2. Take stock of, and celebrate, moments during the day when you notice you’re a bit more mindful, or handled a situation differently.
To that end, it’s important to take stock of, and celebrate, little wins. I’m far from as mindful as I’d like to be, but it’s reinvigorating — and reinforcing — to notice little moments throughout the day where I feel that my practice has had a positive impact on that moment or on my mindfulness.
3. Meditation is called a practice for a reason.
Mindfulness doesn’t happen overnight. And I may never get “there”. But my hope is that I make incremental progress through habitual practice.
4. Start small and easy.
I think part of the reason why my practice didn’t last long after my TM course is because I started too big. I was trying to meditate for 20 minutes two times a day.
When I re-started my practice, I used the Headspace app and started by meditating only 5 minutes at a time.
I only moved up to 10 minutes after 10 straight days, and I don’t plan to move up to 20 minutes for quite some time.
5. Make meditation a non-negotiable daily habit.
I take a shower and brush my teeth every single day, without thinking twice about it. My aim is to make meditation a similar habit.
6. There is always enough time in the day.
On your iPhone, go to Settings > Screen time. What’s that number say? How many hours and minutes is social networking or entertainment?
Take 5 or 10 minutes from that and go meditate.
A distinct challenge for me has also been finding a place to meditate. I greatly prefer doing it at home — which means making sure I wake up 10 minutes earlier before going about my day.
However, I’ve also locked myself in other peoples’ offices to meditate, sat in the corner on the floor in a workout room in the gym, meditated in the car (while parked) and on the train. I haven’t sat in a toilet stall yet, but I’m open to it!
The point is, when mediation is a non-negotiable daily habit, it’s possible — and required — to find time and a place to practice.
7. Be flexible about your meditation practice.
At the beginning, I would stress about ensuring that I could meditate first thing in the morning. However, that stress flies in the face of the intent of meditation.
Life doesn’t always allow for such rigidity, and I’m happier meditating at the end of the day than if I stress myself (and others) out because I couldn’t meditate at the time in which I was “supposed to”.
8. (Don’t be afraid to) tell people that you’ve started a meditation practice.
I have found, especially on the weekends, that it’s easier to find the time when others know — particularly close friends and loved ones — that I need to take 10 or 15 minutes for my practice.
People are, at the very least, understanding but more likely than not also interested in your practice.
9. Don’t worry about whether you are meditating correctly.
Practicing correctly is important. But don’t worry too much — you’ll figure out right from wrong, and a method that works best for you, along the way!
During my TM course, I was concerned that I wasn’t feeling the same things as my counterparts, and I think that played a big role in inability to maintain my practice after the course.
10. Get started today!
One of the things that I’m most proud of with this current 30-day streak is that I started it the day I had a conversation with my friend who suggested I try Headspace.
In hindsight, it was actually a particularly difficult time to start — the 30 days stretched through Christmas and New Years, and during a time in which I was traveling and severely lacked my normal routine.
I started on November 29th. Today is January 1st — as good a day as ever to develop a new habit.
But if you’re reading this on January 6th, or any other day, it’s just as good of a time to start!
Thanks, as always, for reading — today was Day 15 of my 30-Day Blogging Challenge.
Have you subscribed to my newsletter? You can do so here.
See you tomorrow✌️.
