I have realised recently that I take it for granted that meditation can be a useful skill for mental wellbeing. When I guide clients through meditations I don’t always stop to talk about why it is going to help. I have now started to break down the advantages of meditation, as I see them, into a couple of key areas.
1 – Practising meditation can develop the skill of putting your attention where you want it.
2 – It is totally fine if your attention wanders. This is to be expected and can even be useful.
3 – You can find a safe and/or grounded place to put your attention when you are feeling overwhelmed.
4 – You can learn to witness your pleasant and unpleasant experiences with less resistance.
5 – You can bring beneficial qualities to your experience such as acceptance, curiosity and compassion.
6 – You can set aside unhelpful judgements and stories about what you experience, allowing you to see things more clearly as they are.
I can see that I am going to end up revising this list repeatedly to distil what I want to express to clients, but this seems pretty good for now. The first two steps are most important, especially when dealing with trauma.
It is possible to encounter highly overwhelming states during meditation, so it is useful to practise being with experiences that you find safe and comforting. One way of working with challenging inner feelings is to meditate through sensory activities rather than sitting still with your eyes shut. Involving movement and involving your senses are good ways to keep your practice grounded and less abstract.
I also wanted to say that meditation is not about stopping thoughts. It is my experience that even when practising concentration meditation one is turning attention to one particular experience, rather than specifically trying to shut down other experiences. As one becomes more absorbed in the object of concentration, other experiences can drop away more naturally without being forced.
If you are interested in trying some meditation, then I recommend trying a guided body scan meditation. The following link is for a body scan guided by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of the modern mindfulness movement: Body Scan Meditation – Jon Kabat-Zinn It is very common for people to fall asleep when they are doing a body scan, so don’t worry if it happens to you, just enjoy the rest.
You can also try sitting comfortably and choosing something to pay attention to for 5 minutes or so. Breathing is a good thing to pay attention to because it’s always available; but you can equally pay attention to an activity such as tooth brushing, eating or walking, to name a few.
I hope that this post inspires you to try some meditation. It has certainly helped me to keep developing my own thoughts about my personal practice and the work that I do with my clients.
Until next time, I wish you well.
Will Farmer Counselling 