If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while, you’ll know how much I love trying different techniques or ideas to grow either mentally, emotionally or spiritually. From therapy, coaching, energy healing to self-help books I’m willing to at least attempt it. My reason for trying them all is to find what works for me. And I can undoubtedly say it all doesn’t work for me. It was the same with meditation. I’ve been meditating on and off since I was a child when I was introduced to transcendental meditation. I remember this clearly because my grades improved for that one term and while I may not have noticed the difference, the results were there, in my report card. And then I forgot about it. Until later when my journey started again.

I’ve heard many people say they’ve tried meditation but it doesn’t work for them. I’m currently doing a sugar-freeing 6 week program (you can check it out here: holisticmaymay.com) and one of the discussions was on exactly this point. What many people do not understand is that meditation covers so many different techniques and ways that if you’ve only tried one way and it doesn’t work, there’s potentially a hundred other ways that you could still attempt. In a world where we’re constantly kept busy, the idea of doing nothing is potentially crazy…fearful and what we probably need to do more than anything else.

Bring in the Ted Talk by Andy Puddicombe, called “All it takes is 10 mindful minutes.” (https://www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes/up-next). This is a 10 minute talk (see what he did there?) that describes how it helps. Not the how to do it, or what to do…simply the why. I believe more and more that unless you understand why you want something or why you’re doing something, making it consistent or a habit becomes harder. And by the “Why” I don’t simply mean, saying “It’s good for me therefore I should do it.” I mean deeper, more specific (and ideally with no “should” in it). Is it because work is stressful or you’re not focused enough or you’re not sleeping well or you want to improve in a certain area of your life?

If meditation is something you’ve thought of but aren’t sure of the why other than that you’ve heard it’s good for you, watch this talk. It’s a start. Then read up on the different ways, such as mindfulness or meditation, or walking meditation compared to transcendental meditation or guided compared to silent meditation. Then there’s the time allocation…5 minutes, 10 minutes or 1 hour. It’s all up to you. All because you may have a different need or want to everyone else. Figure out your why.