Starting a Meditation Practice: Part 1.
In the last post, I highlighted the difficulty in implementing positive habits - specifically the fact that we can have all of the knowledge regarding how and why something improves our quality of life, but when it comes to actually putting it into practice, the wheels come off.
Unpacking all of the reasons we suck at establishing good habits is more fit for a book than this post, but I’ll quickly introduce two terms that are helpful in making sense of our frequent failures (and hopefully helpful in starting a meditation practice).
Technical change vs adaptive change.
Change (in this case adopt a new habit) often fails because folks focus solely on their behavior. New habit development instead requires a combination of both the technical - skill development, and the adaptive- an actual mindset shift regarding the change itself.
Adaptive change allows an individual to see “blind spots”, competing/hidden commitments, and eventually frees us from our own limiting beliefs.
The reason why I’m leading with this is that the “tips” for developing a meditation practice I’ll present in the next post are really only one small piece of the puzzle.
I think the first step should instead be more adaptive oriented- meaning, an individual must first address their mindset regarding the practice itself before trying to jump into “15 minutes a day, every day” or some other prescription.
The difficulty in this however, is that facilitating an adaptive change is tricky (and even trickier to facilitate via a blog post).
However, I think there are a few simple things a person can (should) do to address their mindset while embarking on the challenge of integrating a meditation practice into their life.
Create a LOT of clarity around the “why?” - establish the ways you want meditation to impact your life.
Remind yourself of that intention each time you sit down to practice (it might evolve over time and that’s great too).
Gain awareness of your “hidden commitments”. Meaning, spend a few minutes identifying those things that you know might sabotage your practice - not getting out of bed, scrolling, etc
This last one sounds funny but begin telling yourself that you ARE someone who maintains a dedicated practice - not someone “who can’t sit still”, not someone “who doesn’t have enough time”, etc. To sustain a practice, you have to tell yourself that you are that person.
I really believe “prepping” for habit adoption is worth it. If a person can spend a bit of time before day one of a new habit journey to “set up” the experience, I think the likelihood of success is markedly greater.
Just a quick aside, the few mindset tactics listed above apply well to really any other behavioral modification you’re interested in - moving more, eating differently, etc.
And finally as I mentioned, in the next post I’ll shift to the “technical” and suggest a few more tangible tips that should be helpful in starting a practice and sticking with it.
Buena suerte!
“Each of us has a soul but we forget to value it. We don’t understand the great secrets hidden inside of us.” - Teresa of Avila