Why I Meditate
There are many reasons why a person might start a meditation practice.
A common one is stress reduction but let’s throw in all emotional suffering. It’s true, meditation can help, but don’t be fooled as to how that’s done. It’s not achieved by affirmation or thought suppression per say, but by observing how thoughts and emotions arise. In that curious observation, insight can happen, and with insight (sometimes) comes equanimity.
Now, you still have the problem from which the suffering gets triggered, but your capacity to handle the problem can, ever so slightly, be increased. To quote Jon Kabat-Zin…
“Being mode is the antidote to the problems that the “doing” mode of mind creates. By cultivating the awareness in a being mode, we can get out of our heads and learn to experience the world directly…”
Why I meditate
In 2018, my father got cancer which began a 6-month journey through treatment, hospitalization, then to his passing, followed by myriad challenges cascading from that. In 2020, along with the pandemic, my wife lost her father to cancer along a similar but more accelerated path.
Our story is just one of the millions of stories of loss and challenge. You likely have one. I only call mine out as it is mine. And I call it out only to say that having a meditation practice (having already established one prior) was a huge help to me through it. But I’m not sure I can tell you why.
I’ve learned that “being with” an emotion allows me to process it faster. Trying to run away from something you cannot run away from is a sure slide into neuroticism, prolonging whatever negative emotion is there.
Meditation helped me stay put, emotionally, if you will.
There is more to it, I’m sure. When I would take a break from Dad’s daily palliative care, knowing it was a matter of time, I would go outside, place a chair under a tree, and sit. There, in the quiet, I would try to tune in, feel the wind, see the sun and just be aware, be present.
During one of those times, when my thoughts settled, a leaf fell from the tree I was under. It floated slowly to the ground and in that moment, something above all the emotion reminded me of the cycle of life; inevitable, never stopping; trees grow, leaves fall, babies are born, people grow old and people get sick. Trite and cliche as this may read, at the time, the clear reality of it all moved through me; it gave me peace. I was happy to be with Dad on his way through that cycle.
A psychology of subtraction.
We accumulate memories, both good and bad over our lifetimes and because of how we evolved, our brains tend to quickly retrieve bad memories for threat forecasting. But this backfires on us when our mental processes keep working on jobs no longer needed.
Meditation is not a replacement necessarily for psychotherapy or counseling. I consider it more of a way to debug the human operating system — a way to clear all the stories hogging memory cache. And once done, other applications (like psychotherapy) can be properly installed and work better, in my opinion.
I consider it more of a way to debug the human operating system — a way to clear all the stories hogging memory cache
The word meditation to people who don’t meditate, might come with baggage. Maybe it seems a form of religious practice. I have an allergy toward religiosity and religious terminology in general, so I certainly understand.
In reality, meditation is a practical psychological skill. And although it’s not the goal, enhancing awareness of thoughts, feelings, and sensations, i.e. getting closer to them, paradoxically results in some measure of objectivity about them.
My latest podcast is about this practice.
Listen now
I speak with meditation teacher and author Loch Kelly.
Loch has collaborated with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn and NYU in the study of how awareness training can enhance compassion and wellbeing. As a licensed psychotherapist, Loch has been teaching seminars, supervising clinicians, and practicing awareness psychotherapy in NYC for 30 years.
Effortless mindfulness
Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, and ancient wisdom traditions, Loch discusses what he calls the next stage in the ongoing mindfulness movement he calls effortless mindfulness.
I hope the term effortless has captured your attention. One reason I have Loch on is he is making deeper meditation practices very accessible to people like me.
Loch says that if you have ever experienced losing yourself in a long jog or felt one with nature on a hiking trail or bike ride or anytime you really lose yourself in an expansive activity- you’ve experienced a form of meditation or meditative state. Since most of you have likely had such an experience, Loch says it’s proof the experience can be had by anyone. It’s a natural condition.
So, I invite those of you who don’t meditate to explore the subject via this conversation and learn how to step out of yourself temporarily. For those of you who do meditate, I think you’ll find something here that can deepen your practice.
