Busting The Meditation Myth
Downloads:
Welcome to day 2 of the theme of body. Yesterday I talked about the importance of slowing down. Today I want to bust a myth that to deal with anxiety, we have to meditate.
One of the reasons I fought against getting into my body was whenever you hear the words "get into your body," the next word you often hear is "meditate." Anytime I talk about my anxiety, the next question I get is have you tried meditation?!? Or when I hear someone talking about their anxiety, they often talk about their meditation practice and how it changed their life.
This is a great example of how this pattern shows up for me.
I read online that calm people get up early in the morning, take a long walk, meditate, and journal. I decide I want to create more calm, and here is the formula! I set my alarm for 5:00 like a good little self-development soldier. And then 5:00 rolls around, and I wake up filled with anxiety; what am I going to listen to on my walk? Can I listen to something, or is that breaking the rules? Should I listen to a meditation or be quiet? How long should I meditate? AHHH, so many questions and doubts and insecurities!?!
This was a personal place of shame for me for years. It served as the ultimate I will be better when idea. Meaning I will be better WHEN I meditate. Clients say, "I JUST need to start meditating." Implying all will be healed IF I can meditate.
The problem with having that belief and holding up meditation as the ULTIMATE cure for all my anxieties is that meditation becomes that new magic button that I think, oh, once I start doing meditation, then everything will be healed, and this self-loyalty stuff will be easy. The other side of that thought is until I do that meditation thing, I'm not going to get anywhere near that self-loyalty stuff.
My Monger convinced me that there was only one way to get into your body, and it was through meditation. So if I couldn't meditate, I would never be able to slow down and be present. (See how wily the Monger can be?!) So meditation becomes this block or this excuse for why we are not implementing the ideas I know will help because I am holding out for when I am magically inspired to meditate.
Finally, I had to be honest that I wasn't going to become a master meditator. No matter how hard I tried, I could not implement a meditation practice of sitting still for five to 10 minutes every day. Or every other day; it just wasn't in the cards for me. So I had to get serious about, okay, if I'm not able to do that right now, how will I add mindfulness, groundedness, and peace into my daily life?
Meditation is awesome if you can meditate and/or have a regular meditation practice. You can use that practice with the second step of A.S.K., S. Slow down and get into your body. Rock on.
The reason meditation is so powerful is threefold.
One, it slows down your brain and allows you to notice your body.
Two, it allows you to notice your thoughts and how they are constantly there, spinning and jumping from thing to thing.
Three, it helps you build a relationship with yourself so you can cultivate more self-loyalty.
Just as running is not the only way to exercise, meditation is not the only way to get into your body and quiet your anxiety.
I wanted to create something that gave me the similar benefits of meditation without doing meditation. So if I can't do 5 minutes all at once, maybe I could do 5 minutes broken up throughout the day. I call them Mindfulness Hacks which also allow me to slow down, build a relationship with myself and notice my thoughts spinning and spinning.
Mindfulness Hacks Examples
Wiggle your body
Dance to your favorite song
Touch your toes
Reach for the sky
Roll your neck
Sit up straight
Take three deep breaths at a stoplight
Be in the shower, notice the smell of the shampoo, how it feels in your hair, etc.
Drink a glass of water slowly.
Check in with your five senses: what do I see, hear, taste, smell, and feel?
Feel your feet on the ground
Balance on one foot
Do one thing at a time.
A common thread running through these mindfulness hacks is they usually include a full-body movement so you are 100% getting out of your head, and they require you to check in with yourself. Even if I just touched my toes or wiggled my body for a few seconds and took some deep breaths while doing it, I was able to shift out of the headspace of the Monger.
Tomorrow I will be diving more into these mindfulness hacks, how I use them and why they are helpful.