Top 4 Meditation Misconceptions

1.You will feel an euphoric feeling from your very first meditation practice or for every meditation practice– This unfortunately can be a misconception that people have in their mind when starting their meditation journey. The truth is yes sometimes you may feel this powerful surge of positivity and energy deep within you when you connect with your inner self which will lead you to a state of complete calm and contentment however, majority of the time the aim of meditation is not to achieve a certain state of feeling or being but just to accept and sit with what is there for you in this current moment, whether that be feelings of euphoria or calm or anxiousness or stress. The point is whatever the feeling for you is at this current moment, just sit with it, accept it and let it pass.

2.You have to be a certain type of person to practice meditation- We all know what happened in the 60’s with the peace & love movement. Individuals were walking around with long messy hair, sporting tops with peace signs on them, living in vans, connecting with themselves through various forms of meditation and shouting peace & love bro from the top of their lungs, we coined these individuals with the term “Hippies”. For some reason this term seemed to follow on into the current century and was applied to anyone who was spiritual, practicing meditation or simply had an interest in astrology and therefore in order to practice any of the above you had to fall into this hippie category. However, this idea is completely untrue no matter what age you are or your background or what industry you are in, anyone can practice meditation. In fact every single person has the ability to be present if they are given the right tools. 

3.Recurring negative thoughts or negative self-talk will disappear– As much as practicing meditation and building up your own sense of self-awareness gives you the ability to become aware of negative recurring thoughts going on in your mind or how you talk to yourself and therefore the ability to choose not to engage with these recurring thoughts or change your negative self-talk into a more positive form, it does not mean that these recurring negative thoughts will disappear forever and won’t haunt your mind ever again. This can be especially the case if we have experienced some trauma in our life or tend to be over-thinkers or have a more anxious state of mind. Your meditation practice may lessen the frequency of these thoughts or self-negative talk but it does not mean they will never come into your mind again. It is completely okay if they do, the art of practicing your meditation on a continuous basis will give you the ability to become so aware of what is going on in your mind that you will be able to simply see them as thoughts, acknowledge them and let them go. The same goes for the negative-self talk, meditation will help you become aware that you are speaking negatively to yourself in that moment and give you the choice to change your self talk to a more positive tone. 

4.You will be a meditation guru overnight– Building a strong sense of presence and awareness takes practice, some people can achieve greater results sooner than others but the reality is meditation takes time, patience, discipline and overall daily practice so my advice would be to try and incorporate a daily meditation routine into your life whether this be sitting with yourself for 10 minutes in the morning before you start your day or practicing mindful eating at each meal during the day. Whatever way it is that you would like to incorporate meditation and presence into your life just remember that this practice will take time before you see any results. You need to remind yourself that your brain has been stuck in a certain thought process for a number of years so it will take time for you to rewire it.

If you would like to find out more on how to incorporate a meditation routine into your life please click here.