5 Meditation Myths and the Benefits of Starting Today

By admin on July 15, 2012

“Freedom is instantaneous the moment we accept things as they are.” ~Karen Maezen Miller

My personal rock-bottom wake-up call came a few years ago when, despite having achieved all of my personal and business goals, I found that I still wasn’t content or experiencing peace of mind.

Feeling frustrated, I realized that I could no longer rely on my future to fulfil me. I knew continuing to work so hard to accomplish bigger and better goals wasn’t going to relieve my eternal itch that there must be more to life than this.

To make matters worse, my increasing frustration led to a rocky time in my relationship, which inevitably ended with my partner leaving. Along with the beautiful child I’d been raising, the great house I was living in, the fancy car I was driving, and the pile of money we’d jointly secured as projects fell away too.

Rock bottom, needing peace, I started exploring alternative ways of thinking, being, and living.

It was around about that time when I met a group of meditation teachers that changed my life. I saw in their eyes a peace and joy that I had rarely seen before. And the more I spent time with them, the more it became obvious to me that their inner peace was consistent.

Hungry to experience the same, I packed my bag and headed off to meditate with them for a few months. I spent 10 weeks on the island of Patmos in Greece, followed by a further 14 weeks in the mountains of Mexico.

During my time meditating I had a total turnaround in thinking. I discovered the real cause of my persistent problems had never been my failings at “thinking positively.”

Instead, my habit of thinking was the ultimate cause of my problems. When I was busy thinking, I was missing the peace that’s always present. And by learning to think less and be present, I found life much more enjoyable.

Meditation serves many purposes, from stress relief to self-awakening. Personally, I started meditating because I was fed up with my mind working overtime. I wanted peace, and through meditating regularly I have become less focused on the movement of my mind and more aware of the pristine peace that is always present.

Despite meditation being so simple, and having such big rewards, there are some myths about meditation that can stop people getting started or make them quit before they get to reap the benefits possible from meditating regularly.

The top meditation myths are:

Myth #1: Mediation is difficult.

Practiced correctly, meditation can be the easiest and most enjoyable thing you ever do. For something to be difficult, it requires effort, struggle, stress and stamina.

However, the truth is meditation requires the exact opposite. There is no effort because you are learning how to do nothing. There is no struggle because you are not forcing anything. There is no stress because you are not resisting anything, and there is no need for stamina because the main purpose of meditation is to relax!

Myth #2: I must still my mind.

“I can’t meditate because I can’t stop my thoughts” is one of the most common reasons I hear from people who’ve tried meditation but quit. However, what’s important to understand is that thoughts are a natural (and necessary) part of meditation.

When you meditate, your body gets rest. When the body rests, it heals. Healing is an active process—stress is released and healing is being undertaken. Due to the mind-body connection, activity in your body is reflected by activity in your mind—in the form of thoughts.

Thoughts are therefore a sign that healing is taking place in your body. Healing your nervous system is a fantastic by-product of meditation. It is not useful to resist having thoughts when meditating. To resist thoughts is to resist healing!

Instead, let the healing process happen, as it naturally wants to, by not resisting the existence of thoughts.

Let them come and go by learning to be at peace with whatever thoughts want to happen when you are meditating.

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