When Meditation Does Not Work

Does your To Do List still include ” learn to meditate” after several years of trying? If so, you’re not alone! What the many different types of meditation all have in common is that a regular practice can lower stress levels, enhance the immune system, train you to have better focus, improve the ability to self-regulate, reduce anxiety, help you sleep better, enhance creativity and improve mood. An impressive list!

But if you truly want meditation in your life, turns out that you may want to take if off your to-do list.

Put simply, it involves paying attention (with purpose in the present moment) to, for instance, counting one’s breath or scanning the body, and to the thoughts and emotions that come up, without judging them.

There often is a misconception that meditation involves emptying your brain entirely. And that your attention drifting away to thoughts about a shopping list, a work assignment, or someone who triggered a strong emotion the day before is “bad.” On the contrary, that getting lost in thought is actually a key component of meditation.

The moment we notice that we’re thinking about a shopping list and then bring our attention back to our breathing or internal body scan – that is what meditation is all about.

The transition from random thoughts to mindful attention brings more blood to our prefrontal cortex, increasing grey matter and improving focus and attention (study). Meditation thus trains and strengthens our attention “muscle.”

Another advantage of pulling the attention away from our thoughts back to the original focus is that it allows us to become aware that there is a core part of our mind that observes our own thoughts. On a daily basis we apparently have between 50,000 and 80,000 thoughts. Most of it is uncontrolled chatter that passes through the mind quickly without us being aware of it. When we get very stressed or anxious, we can end up ruminating, when repetitive racing thoughts end up overwhelming us.

Space Between Core Self and Inner Saboteurs

Even if we’re not aware of them, these thoughts do influence our behavior. Meditating on a regular basis allows us to effortlessly create space between the calm, observant part of our mind (the “Self” in IFS, or “Sage” in Positive Intelligence) and inner dialogue and thoughts. That space can stop those thoughts from controlling or overwhelming us. Ancient Vedic texts on meditation state that the meditation process takes the mind from the outer realm of the objective world to the inner realm of the inner faculty and then beyond both the outer and inner realms to reach the deep inner Self.

Being able to separate this calm, curious and non-judgmental inner observant “Self” from our countless thoughts is an important skill for personal development. It allows us to observe and listen without judgment to the various voices inside us (called “parts” in psychotherapy methods such as Internal Family Systems and Inner Relationship Focusing). Even if we’re not aware of them, we all have these different parts with often opposing agendas inside us. The most well-known parts in the self-development and coaching world are the Inner Saboteurs.

Just think of what happens when you’re on Social Media for much longer than you wanted. An Inner Critic might say: “You’re such a loser, you said you were going to limit Instagram to 30 minutes a day and here you still are after two hours” while your Avoider part might say; “This is so much more fun than working, just a little longer”. Or one part says: “I’m terrified of making a fool of myself at that meeting tomorrow, I need to distract myself with some chocolate” while another part says: “Don’t eat a thing, everyone already thinks you’re fat” (our inner dialogue tends to be harsh . . . ).  Although these parts all mean well for us – in that their intention is to help us avoid pain and suffering in the short term – they can be very destructive in the long term. If we are able to observe and listen to the different parts, our non-judgmental core self can have an inner dialogue with them, understand them, and over time learn to be the one in charge – an outcome often referred to as self-leadership.

Gut Health

Finally, because meditation helps regulate the body’s stress response, it suppresses chronic inflammation states and support a healthy gut-barrier function (study). In turn, probiotic gut bacteria have an impact on the production of mood-promoting and calming compounds and a healthy balance of good gut microbes can therefore alleviate depression and anxiety.

If it’s proven that meditation is incredibly beneficial and it’s relatively easy to do, why don’t we all do it? Because if knowledge truly were half the battle, fewer people would smoke or overeat. And we’d all be exercising, meditating and sleeping eight hours. In fact, knowing something does not help us at all if those things that stop us or make us ambivalent are stronger. The following are a few of the most common reasons why people don’t meditate or may stop at the first try. Also, if you’re interested in giving it a go, some gentle suggestions that might help.

Pain or Physical Discomfort

When we imagine meditating, we tend to see ourselves sitting in a perfect lotus position on the floor, in a quiet and peaceful environment. Not everyone is comfortable in that position. And we don’t all have peaceful beautiful spaces at our disposal. Fortunately, meditation does not have to be practiced sitting on the floor and it can be done in any space. For many people, sitting on a chair with back support and the feet flat on the floor works well.  But meditation can also be done lying down or even while walking. If your pain is too intense to be able to meditate, then practicing Qigong may be helpful, as it incorporates meditation into gentle movements.

Uncomfortable Feelings Arise

Sometimes we may become aware of strong emotions or sensations that arise during meditation and risk overwhelming us. If these emotions are unbearable, then it may be helpful to get therapy or counselling before trying meditation again. But if they’re simply uncomfortable, it may help to observe and name the emotions and sensations without any judgment, feel if they’re in a specific location in the body and let them be until they flow away, like clouds in the sky.

Simply Too Tired

Meditation is a process that requires physical and mental energy. If we’re too tired, we can be tempted to zone out instead. You’ll feel a strong resistance to pulling yourself back to your breath or whatever else you’re concentrating on. If you find this happening to you at night, meditating earlier in the day may be the better strategy for you.

Shame

The unconscious message behind so many headlines, blog articles and meditation guides is that we SHOULD meditate and that if we don’t meditate, there must be something wrong with us. To quote the wonderful Brené Brown, “You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviours.” In fact, quite the opposite tends to happen. When we feel shamed or pushed into something, our Inner Rebel will usually do its very best to stop us from doing it. The “you should do it” voice in our heads makes us put it on a to-do list or include it as a New Year’s resolution. But the Inner Rebel then helps us find excuses not to start or stick to it. It stays on the list, making us feel like a failure, and eventually we hate the very thought of meditation.

If you want to experience those benefits, you do not have to spend much time on meditation or mindfulness. Why not approach meditation as a fun experiment that you’ll start doing for a few minutes only two or three times a week. Just observing your breath, counting as you inhale and exhale, feeling the air enter your lungs, expanding your belly, and breathing out. Or walking mindfully, feeling the soles of your feet, looking intensely at objects around you. When your thoughts wander off, you label them as “thoughts”, or “wandering” and return to your focus. If you enjoy doing this, you’ll automatically do it more often. When you’re in a traffic jam or lying awake at night, or as a regular practice at a set time. Because you WANT to and because it makes you feel good. Not because someone tells you to or because it’s on your to-do list..

We’re all unique, we’re all different and we can all find our own way of observing with our core self the thoughts and voices that race around inside our mind. And we can let them go, like clouds in the sky. Experiment, have fun, walk mindfully in nature, do whatever is effective for you. And let me know how it goes!

FURTHER READING:

Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) by Chade-Meng Tan

Internal Family Systems – ifs-institute.com

Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness and Healing Your Inner Child Using IFS, A New, Cutting-Edge Psychotherapy by Jay Earley

Wherever You Go, There You Are, Mindfulness Meditation for Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn