My First Year Of Meditation

[RossE]

Hey fellow self-actualizers 

I write on the year anniversary of the beginning my DAILY meditation practice. I have meditated every single day since Sunday 24th July 2016. I want to share how I made this possible, my journey, some hints and tips etc. I want to inspire you if you are feeling unsure about starting this habit or if you are currently meditating but need some more inspiration.

Feel free to ask me any questions about meditation either on the thread or by messaging me 

THE BEGINNING

So, why did I begin this habit?

In May 2016, I was feeling pretty despondent about my life. I found out the girl I had been seeing for a few months had cheated on me multiple times. I had just finished my penultimate year at university, and had no real plans for the next 4 months over the summer break due to the lack of a career-related internship, and my PT job had come to a seasonal end. I liked playing guitar, going out drinking, watching TV, the very common things that a 20 year old loves doing. In hindsight, at that time, I was looking for something. I was lost and uncertain.

After flicking around YouTube for a while watching various videos, I stumbled upon videos about meditation - how to meditate, the benefits, the reasons for doing it. I was intrigued. I'd heard the word meditation before, but had never tried it. After coming across Leo's video on how to meditate (the one with 2M+ views), I decided to give it a shot, using the technique he provides in that video. His description of the benefits appealed to me.

Over the next couple of months, I did it intermittently, maybe 3 or 4 times weekly. I didn't notice much effect so didn't get serious about it. It was honestly a pain to meditate for even 15 minutes and I'd spend the last 5 minutes of the sit in hell!

This pattern continued until a year ago today. Having been out clubbing the night before, I was feeling hungover, and had a lot of negative thoughts coming up. I was feeling rubbish the whole day. I decided to meditate. 20 minutes of active detachment. After that session, wow, I felt fantastic. My body felt all soft and relaxed, my thoughts had subsided, my negative emotions had dissolved. I had a taste of what meditation can offer me. It was at that moment where I finished the sit that I promised myself to do a 30 day challenge. I remember sitting and telling myself I would do it, no matter what! 

I followed through on that commitment, and I felt pretty great over that month. I decided to just keep doing it every day, no excuses. To keep me on track, I started a note in my phone where I log the number of minutes I do per day. I'm still adding to the same note.

THE PRACTICALITIES

Over the last year my practice has evolved considerably. I now use a variety of techniques, a variety of postures, I have experimented with 5-7 days of hours and hours of meditation, I have experimented with many teachers, many practices, I've done a week-long group retreat and a few days solo retreat. It has become a huge part of my life, naturally through repeatedly practising it!

I aim to do one hour per day, but this varies, and I'm not too hard on myself if I'm, say, 15 minutes under. The main thing is that I sit and do it at least once a day. For example, while I was in Spain for 10 days in May this year, I actually only did around 20 minutes per day. But I wasn't hard on myself - I still felt the effects of the meditation that week and hey, I still meditated every day! I think the trick to sustain the habit is being disciplined enough to do it daily, but not beating yourself into sitting for 2/3 hours every day. I think such a harsh approach is difficult to sustain.

One hour per day is the perfect balance for me: it is relatively easy for me to sit for one hour now, and I don't have to beat myself into doing it, but it's long enough for me to know that it will be effective, and it still requires a little bit of discipline. It feels like the perfect amount.

I agree with Leo when he says setting the habit is the most important thing. I had some really, really bad days during meditation over the last year. Days where I'd have to squeeze it in after being out of the house all day, days where I'm exhausted, days where I'm feeling moody and annoyed. Meditation on these days is usually pretty tough. It was honestly easier to just not do it and do something else instead. Make no mistake, doing something every single day is not that easy to begin with!

But sitting and doing the habit on these days just further ingrains into your mind that you will make this a daily habit, meaning that you will do it for days, months, years on end and will experience the amazing benefits of it, even if it feels like you've plateaued or even regressed. 

Now, I meditate every day and there's very little resistance. A lot of days it's a pleasure to sit and meditate. Some days I may put it off and go shower instead, then do something else, but I know that eventually it will get done. Even if it's 11pm and I've still not meditated, it will get done. There's nothing I can really consciously do to stop it even if I wanted to. I am programmed now. This is just through repeated practice. This means I can be easier on myself because I know that it will get done!

Another important thing to know is not to expect anything from one particular session. Don't go in expecting your mind to be calm, or your posture to be good, or your face to be relaxed, anything. Just sit, do the technique and accept what happens during that 20/30/45/60/90 minute sit. What's most important is your implementation of the technique, and the long-term repetition it. I've almost found that individual sessions are almost completely unimportant now in and of themselves. Even if it's pleasant, I don't care. If it's horrific, I don't really care. The thing I care about is doing the practice and letting the practice work on me, which in my experience and research, is not conscious most of the time.

There are a lot more practical things I could discuss, but I think I've said enough. Onto the benefits and effects this has had - the exciting part 

BENEFITS AND EFFECTS

I can't really describe with words the change this has had on me. It's easier just to say "do the habit and you'll see", but for people who are unsure, it's probably best to give some concrete examples.

It's hard to strictly categorise or organise the benefits myself, the list would be very long and messy. To give some insight into how it has affected me, I'm going to use Shinzen Young's five categories from his video "Why Meditate?", which always makes me emotional when I watch it!

 

 

The categories are: reducing suffering; elevating fulfillment; understand yourself; improve behaviour; improve the world. I'll go through each and give examples of how meditation has affected me in that category.

• Reducing suffering: When "bad" things happen to me, for example, breaking a glass, getting rejected by a friend or girl, being ignored, I am a lot, lot, lot less affected by it than I would otherwise be. They just wash over me like a cleansing wave, I actually see these things as an opportunity to open my heart more and keep improving. I see them as an inevitable consequence of living in this world, not as something to avoid. I can sit with physical pain in my body or undesirable emotions and just see them doing their thing, be an observer, without all the attachment to them that I used to have. I am a lot, lot more equipped to experience bad events in my life and carry on without crippling emotions.
• Elevate fulfillment: Everything I do is more pleasurable and fulfilling than it used to be. This includes going to the supermarket, which can be quite a joyful experience - seeing all the colours, the sounds, the people. Also, nature looks AMAZING. Even a single tree is very beautiful now, I can appreciate it's intricacy and complexity. I am into simpler hobbies such as walking, reading and can appreciate silence and stillness more. When I'm alone I feel complete and can sit in my house quietly without needing to be elsewhere.
• Improve behaviour: this is HUGE for me. I may forget a few things here. Here's a list of negative things I've dropped in the last year, which I'd put mainly down to meditation: porn, gambling, coffee, fizzy juice, TV (I occasionally watch films or documentaries), chasing girls, chasing sex, binge drinking (I'm moving towards being completely dry), unhealthy food (I'm now on a whole food and plant-based diet), masturbation (I only get urges once a fortnight or so), my ED problem is gone, I've lost weight. I ditched my ambition for a success, money-driven career about 6 months ago. I'm also much more compassionate, gentle and calm than when I started. My responses and engagement with others is being optimised on a daily basis. There is still a lot of behaviour I would like to change though - it's a lifelong process.
• Understand myself: I'm more aware of how my thinking alters my perception of life and how almost all of it is geared towards creating separation and putting me into unhappy, unconscious states. Before, I was completely oblivious to my thoughts and had no way to process them. This is huge. I have a better handle on why I dipped in and out of depression for about 4 years, and I've identified an inferiority complex within me which, in hindsight, has affected my relationships for years. I'm slowly working on this. I've ridded myself of a lot of inauthentic things and it feels like I'm drilling to the core of who I really am in this world and how I will carry myself. I've had many enlightenment experiences - glimpses of the deepest self-understanding there is.
• Improve the world: I now have a spontaneous tendency to help others. Even if it's something as small as a cuddle, sending a text, being present during a conversation, smiling at people, I want to help people, and I feel like I'm not using my tools optimally if I'm not. All my future career ideas are based around this. I look around in the world, I see so many people suffering unnecessarily, and I feel sad that they don't know how to overcome their attachment to these problems. I want to help them. I also have much more love for all animals and plants that I see, and even inanimate objects. They have an innocent beauty to them, and I feel obliged to prolong and nurture that beauty. 

There are many other things which I've noticed change within me that are hard to describe, and I don't want this post to be an exhaustive list of them all. I want you to look at these changes and see the impact this could have in your life.

 

I've realised recently that pursuing this meditation/inner growth/self-actualisation/mindfulness journey is the only way to truly live in our modern world. I have recently dedicated to meditating every day for the rest of my life. There's no option for me. I compare what I'll be like after doing this for 10,20, 30 years, and if I quit today. There's only one choice, and that's to get down, set a timer and close my eyes for an hour per day. That's how powerful this habit is.

If you got this far, thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your experiences with meditation, and I'd also love to know how my practice is likely to evolve and change my life over the next year/two years/ five years, and so on.

 

[Mastral]

@RossE thanks for taking the time to write!

I've been meditating for a year now but sometimes it's difficult to see the benefits so I enjoyed reading it.

[Afonso]

Thank you so much for sharing! I'm on my 9th month of my practice, and I'm facing some deep rooted insecurities which surfaced up and needed to be faced. It inspires me to see people meditating and sharing their results ❤️

Two questions:

1) Have you experienced a lot of emotional turmoil and rollercoasters from your meditation habit?

2) Have you faced any super strong inner demons?

[RossE]

@Mastral My pleasure! Keep going my friend.

@Afonso No problem. That's great that you're getting that, your psyche is being cleaned out, refreshed, purged. Embrace it.

Oh yeah you better believe it! Especially about 2 months into my practice when I began self inquiring and then having glimpses of the truth. I felt really lost and confused, and I still do to a lesser extent as my old habits slowly die and are replaced.

Super strong inner demons, I wouldn't say super strong. I am working on them but it hasn't crippled me.

[Norbert Somogyi]

Thanks for writing this down!

I've been meditating for more than a year now, however it's been inconsistent just like your first few months, making 4-6 times a week. Now I see what might be the difference if I make it a daily, life-long practice. You've inspired me to do that, thank you again.

Let life come to us in it's natural beauty!

[RossE]

@Norbert Somogyi That's why I posted my friend  You will notice the difference going from irregular to daily practice.