Why it’s Worth Persevering with Meditation

What changes when you meditate? 

I have been reading a book called The One Thing by Gary Keller. I bought it because I heard good things about it and was curious. It’s really interesting. If you’ve not read it, it’s about cutting through the clutter in life to achieve better results in less time while reducing stress, overcoming the feeling of ‘overwhelm’, increasing energy and mastering what matters most to you. 

My reason for buying it was to help me focus on building clients for my Mental Health First Aid training business which is how I earn enough money to keep my cats in the luxury to which they have become accustomed.  

But here’s the thing. The Universe keeps on directing me to ‘just the right thing’ or to meet ‘just the right person’ and this seems to be ‘just the right book’ for me right now.  

Today I have been reading the chapter about Discipline (no, it’s not a dry read, it’s really interesting – well I think so anyway!) and came across the following:  
“You don’t need to be a disciplined person to be successful. In fact, you can become successful with less discipline than you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not doing everything right.
The trick to success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it. That’s it. That’s all the discipline you need. As this habit becomes part of your life, you’ll start looking like a disciplined person, but you won’t be one. What you WILL be is someone who has something regularly working for you because you regularly worked on it. You’ll be a person who used selective discipline to build a powerful habit.” 

Aha! There it is. Almost everyone who starts to meditate but stops; or who doesn’t think meditation works for them; gives up not because they lack discipline, but because they don’t understand the benefit of creating a habit. 
But if you want to become a long-distance runner you need to start with short distances to begin with and build up to the long distance. And then you have to practice every day – that means creating a habit.  

Meditation is the same. 

The other thing people often say about meditation is that they don’t have time. But you get back the time invested in meditation because you will have the often-unexpected outcome of reduced stress and anxiety, plus physical health benefits like lowered blood pressure. All of which leads to a longer life. And in the short term many people find meditation helps them to achieve focus, to think more clearly, sleep better and reduce negative responses to stress. 

So how do you know if meditation is ‘working’?
I can’t really tell you how you will know…….
But I can tell you how I knew. 

There were two things that told me meditation was doing something positive in my life.

1. I felt different – the same only different. It was as if I had developed a little cauldron of joy in my chest that meant that no matter how challenging life was on the outside, I could dip into the joy and feel OK on the inside.
2. My brother and sister-in-law suddenly announced they were booking the same retreat facility that I had visited. I was surprised, as I hadn’t really talked about it with them, so asked why. They said it was because they had seen the difference it made to me and they wanted some of that!

So it’s what other people notice that usually indicates that meditation is doing something interesting.
It’s most often the people close to you who notice something different. It might be a kind of serenity they see in you – you appear more relaxed and less stressed; it might be that they notice you smile instead of arguing when they know you disagree with someone; it might be they see you staying chilled in a traffic jam or on a stationery train when you have an important meeting to get to. 

I teach meditation because I want other people to experience the good things I’ve experienced.
If you apply a little discipline, to create a daily habit, after a while you will notice that meditation has a positive impact in your life.