A Common Misconception of Meditation

The point is not to “blank out” your mind.

Photo by Álvaro SF on Unsplash

I hated meditation the first time I tried it.

Besides the fact that I was super skeptical about meditation, the moment I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing my mind exploded with activity.

I thought about what happened earlier in the day. I thought about what I was going to do later. I thought about how hungry I was, how bored I was, how restless I was. I paid attention to all the things, besides my breath.

I was relieved when my phone timer finally went off. It had only been two minutes, but that had felt like an eternity. I sprung up from my bed where I had been “meditating”, desperate to engage in something else, anything else.

All this made me think, meditation is just not for me.

I had no idea that meditating would be like that. I always thought that meditating meant switching off the mind to achieve perfect calmness, like a still lake on a clear summer morning.

Is that will you think meditation will give you? An escape from the endless stream of thoughts and emotions bombarding your every waking moment?

This is where many of us are wrong about meditation. We are not silencing or “turning off” our minds when we meditate — we are observing our…