Meditation: when is the right time to start?

I remember my first meditation teacher, with her 86 years of life experience, always said: “Please, do not wait till you NEED to meditate to start. Go home and practise, so that when you REALLY need it, you will have perfected your practice and you will have this wonderful tool at hand to help you.”.

There is no righter time to start meditating than NOW. And while we’re at it, meditation is not something that you do right or wrong. It is simply something that you DO. And this might be the first life lesson meditation will teach you. LET GO OF EXPECTATIONS. Whatever your experience, it is JUST THE WAY IT SHOULD BE! You know that cheesy quote that says “Happiness is not a destination, it is a journey”? Well, that’s the same concept: it is the experience itself that counts, not where you want it to take you.

When I first started meditating, I was in  “performance” mode, thinking that my practice had to lead me to that magical place of complete silence where thoughts do not exist, where I would feel different, in trance, in love with the world, or light as a feather. That was the best way to miss out on everything I could get from it.

Meditation is not blocking the mind from any thoughts, but rather, taking a step back from the flow of thoughts. Because very often, in our everyday life, we are right in the middle of our thoughts. It’s like being in a cocktail room with people talking all around you, conversations  about a myriad of topics happening all at the same time.

My idea of meditation at that time would have been like taking a microphone and shouting to all those people to shut up! But it turns out meditation is not putting a stop to whatever is going on in our mind, but rather shifting our focus from everything that’s going on around us to everything that’s happening WITHIN us. It is taking a break from those conversations and letting them shift to the background while we take some time to (literally!) breathe.

Meditation Techniques

Contrary to what many of us might think, meditating does not always mean sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed, reciting a mantra. Of course, that’s one way of doing it, but to be honest, there are thousands of other ways to do so. Sometimes, washing the dishes or going for a run can work as well.

For years, I practised Iyengar Yoga. It is often referred to as “Precision yoga”. I remember my teacher used to call it “meditation in action”. And to me, that’s exactly what it was. The moment the class started, my mind actively focused on the different postures. Tadasana, standing pose, was SO MUCH MORE than just standing. I can still hear my teacher’s voice saying: “Distribute the weight of your body equally between the front of your feet and your heels. Stretch your toes open and feel the contact with the floor. Activate the muscles in your legs. Let the muscles in your calves go into this direction while your abductors rotate in that direction. Activate the muscles in your butt. Rotate your shoulders open. Pull your sternum up, but not too much. Tuck your chin slightly in. Imagine a string holding you, from the top of your head to your sacrum, in such a way that all those parts of your body are aligned. And don’t forget to breathe!”.

Now you tell me, how can you do all these things AND still think about that email you forgot to send, that project you have to finish by Friday, that client you have to call back, and of course, what’s for dinner tonight? I’m telling you, it’s physically IMPOSSIBLE!!! So, if I didn’t want to get my ass kicked by my teacher, I had no choice but to put all those thoughts on hold until the end of the lesson. And damn, that felt good.

On the day of my first Iyengar yoga lesson, I remember being in the middle of a rough patch. My mother-in-law had just been diagnosed with colon cancer. Emergency surgery, post-op tests, worries about what was going to happen next, that was all I could think about. But then I stepped into that yoga class. My first lesson. The teacher didn’t know me, so I couldn’t afford to make a bad impression by being distracted on my first day. I dived into the lesson, and when it ended, I couldn’t believe I had actually spent one hour and forty-five minutes NOT worrying about the current situation. For me, that was a miracle.

And that’s just one example of the immediate benefits of meditation. In our everyday life, our brain is constantly processing information:  we need to think, make decisions, assess situations, our mind is constantly active. Well, let me remind you that the brain is a muscle. And like any other muscle, you need to give it a chance to recuperate. Give it a break so that when you get back to “normal”, you might actually see things from a “fresher” perspective.

Of course, you could do that by sleeping, but not always. Plus, it’s a far more complicated process. Especially during the day. I can’t sleep on command. And there’s a bunch of factors that are required: no noise, a comfortable place, an alarm clock to make sure I don’t sleep through the rest of the day (!!), and last but not least, time to get my sh*t back together once I wake up. Nah. I’d rather meditate! And in any case, the fresher your mind is, the better sleep you’ll get!

So, don’t wait a single more minute. Start exploring, find the technique that works best for you, and get started!

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