I've been meditating wrong for years

Meditation has always been a struggle for me—I’m not going to lie. I always liked the idea of meditation as being part of my self-concept; I identified as someone who meditates, or at least likes the idea of meditation, because in all honesty it didn’t really become a regular practice of mine until quite recently. And although it’s taken me years to become someone who does actually meditate, I have found it to be very beneficial in a variety of ways, some unexpected, and I hope to share my experience here in the hopes that it may help you on your meditation journey.

Being born in Japan, I was exposed to the concept of buddhism at a very young age. Although it’s an integral part of Japanese culture, most Japanese people would probably not identify themselves as especially religious people, and I felt the same. Visiting a Buddhist temple is just something you do, for important life events like funerals, or when visiting a new place when traveling domestically. From studying the world’s major religions in school, I also had an idea of what Buddhism was as a belief system, and I have to say many of my personal beliefs align.

But how am I supposed to incorporate these Buddhist ideals into my everyday life? Do I have to give up all my worldly possessions, become a vegetarian, and relegate the remainder of my life to that of an ascetic? This is my polar extreme opposite way of thinking that I think prevented me from taking smaller, more manageable steps in integrating some Buddhist practices in my daily life. And to be fair, meditation isn’t only a Buddhist practice, but this was my early understanding of it. I liked the badge of claiming it as part of my identity without the hard work of actually practicing.

Things began to change when, as many people in their mid-late 20’s do, I had a quarter-life crisis and moved across the world from New York City back home to Tokyo where I hadn’t lived since I was 8 years old. This transition was simultaneously inspired and spurred on by a deep sense of discontentment that launched me headfirst into a spiritual awakening and journey that I am still on today, and will be for the rest of my life. I discovered that changing my external circumstances without addressing the underlying causes or ways of thinking in myself may lead to momentary cessation of these feelings of lack, but ultimately they will come back.

When I realized that I was the problem, not the place I’m living or the people I’m around or anything else external, I began to consume many books, podcasts, etc. on the topic of self-help, self-improvement, spirituality, wellness, and the like. And with this concept of mindfulness, the practice of meditation kept being brought up over and over again by all the spiritual teachers I was hoping to learn from. So I decided to take another look at what meditation meant for me, and what it could look like.

I had a yoga phase when I first moved to New York, and I have on many occasions reached a blissful flow state where I was extremely present in the moment with my body and my breath, and disconnected from the constant stream of thoughts that usually animate our daily internal monologues. And it felt great. From what the spiritual teachers were describing, this was my closest reference and what I would aim for. But that was much easier said than done.

To get started, I tried a guided meditation app that would gently prompt me to move through a short 5-10minute meditation practice, and it was great! I realized that in a sense, I was trying to meditate all wrong for years, and that’s what defeated my efforts before they really started. Here’s what I learned about meditation, both from the many people I’ve listened to speak on the matter, as well as through my own experience.

Trying to clear your mind is not the purpose of meditation.

This kind of blew my mind. The way Buddhism had been explained to me in school, it was about these monks who devote their lives to trying to reach “enlightenment” which was described as a complete detachment from suffering. The way in which these monks reach enlightenment was through meditation, which is a complete clearing of the mind. But that is the biggest misconception. You may reach a state during meditation in which your mind is clear, but setting out to achieve that as a goal, and judging the outcome as bad when you inevitably find your mind filled with thoughts, will set you up for failure.

The way to truly meditate is to witness the mind without becoming identified with thoughts.

This took a while for the meaning to really sink in. But when you really think about it, the true cause of our suffering is thoughts. Thoughts are stories our minds tell us about reality, about our life, and when reality doesn’t match up with these stories we’ve told ourselves, we feel a sense of unease, discomfort, injustice, inadequacy, self-loathing, and the list goes on. But we can create gaps in these incessant thought spirals by sitting still, quietly, and witnessing these thoughts with our full attention, without believing them. That last part is the most important one.

We don’t have to believe our thoughts just because we’re having them. The point of meditating is to witness these thoughts, acknowledge them, and then let them go without judgement or reaction. And when we can do this on a regular basis, it helps us maintain a bit more presence in our daily lives, and maybe help us make decisions from a place of calm, non-judgement than from our ego minds.

Meditating can bring us more in touch with the universe’s divine energy.

This might be a bit woo woo for some people, but I believe it to be true. I believe that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience, but the matter of this physical world is dense. Inhabiting a body in physical space on this earth makes our experiences more concrete and definable, but I also think it limits what we can perceive greatly. In identifying with a physical body, and relating to the world in this way, we rely on what we can hear, touch, see, smell, and taste. But there is so much more out there that is beyond what meets the eye, and only when our minds and bodies are completely still, can we get a taste of that energy.

There’s a saying I like that goes “beyond the clouds there’s always blue skies”. In this metaphor, our mind is the sky and thoughts are clouds. The thoughts are inevitably going to come. But what if we just let them be rather than getting bogged down in them? We can enjoy the blue sky. If we approach our inner relationship with ourselves as a practice of allowing stillness, sitting with ourselves as we are, and making this a integral spiritual practice in our daily life, I believe there’s no challenge we can’t surmount, no obstacle we can’t overcome.

I’m definitely not perfect, so my meditation practice definitely won’t be as well. But what I can say is that the more I meditate, the more I show up for myself to create space, the more in-tune I feel with the universe’s creative energy, and the more at peace I feel within myself. And my only with is that you can experience this for yourself too.

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Recognizing growth & celebrating small wins

Something really occurred to me recently that I felt I really had to recognize and celebrate. Since I first embarked on my spiritual journey more than 7 years ago, there have been many ups and downs in my internal and external life. There were times where I felt I made a lot of progress and things were going well, and then there would be some setback that would make me feel like I was regressing to a place where I thought I had graduated from. But overall, there was progress. I would take two or three steps forward, and then maybe one step back. But in those times that I was taking a step back, it was so easy to beat myself up, get weighed down by whatever was bothering me, and lose sight of the progress I was making.

My spiritual journey began from a place of true pain and suffering. I was engaging in unhealthy behaviors to cope with what I was feeling, or to completely avoid what I was feeling, and it got to a point where I knew I had to make a change if I was going to survive. Since then, it’s been a continuous ebb and flow of progress and regression, but ultimately in the direction of positive change. As I continually cut out toxic behaviors and break negative thought patterns that are holding me back, it feels like I’m unlocking new levels in the video game of life. But each level came with new challenges that were ultimately about me confronting myself, my beliefs, my thoughts, and my emotions.

In those times that I let the negative thoughts and feelings get the better of me, sometimes I would be helpless. I could easily stay in bed all day, or lie on the sofa for hours binge watching TV, ignoring other responsibilities because they just felt like too much to handle. I would wake up with a tight feeling in my chest, anxious before I even fully woke up, and the entire stretch of the day in front of me just felt like too much to bear. Especially in my current life situation where I don’t have a regular office job and a lot of what I do is dependent on me taking initiative and doing things myself, it was all to easy to shirk the commitments I had made to myself and just zone out.

But this could easily become a negative feedback loop. I would feel anxious because there’s so much I could do, but the possibilities and potential would feel overwhelming, and my mind would go to a place where I was paralyzed to make a decision to do anything, so instead I would do nothing. But the fact that I was doing nothing made me feel like I was wasting precious time, that I was squandering an opportunity, and the fact that I’m not making any real progress on a professional front is because I just don’t have what it takes. I’m not smart enough. I’m not creative enough. I don’t have good ideas, and I can’t execute the ones I have.

But none of this is true. These are self-sabotaging lies that my mind was telling itself, and I knew it was my job to continually question these thoughts and beliefs, witness them without identifying with them, and ultimately letting them pass through. With this and other tactics that I have honed in my self-care arsenal like meditation and journaling, I gradually was able to deal with these thoughts in a more positive way where I would acknowledge, but not identify, with them, and then let them go.

And over time, I began to notice the positive changes. I recently had one of those mornings where I woke up with that anxiety, and the old self-limiting thoughts started to creep back in, but with the practices that I had been developing and putting to use, I was able to pull myself back off that ledge, and move on with my day. And when we have those moments of recognition like, “wow, hey I’ve really changed,” it’s so important to take a moment to pause and celebrate that. Even just a few months ago, waking up in one of those states would have led me to a decision that would have derailed my entire day. But not anymore.

Now, I’m able to use what I’ve learned, honor my past self for doing the hard work that has gotten me here, and continue to welcome the lessons that life has to offer in reaching my true potential. It’s important not to judge my past self for how he reacted. He did was he could in the moment with what he had available to him, and he survived so that I could thrive. And this doesn’t mean that I won’t have those dark days sometime in the future. And that’s okay. Like any real meaningful progress, it’s measured in small increments, small wins. But really recognize and celebrate when you have those small wins. You’re worth it.