Do you lead a specific style of meditation? What should I expect in a session with you? Am I going to just sit quietly and try to be still?

 

I promise I won’t make you sit quietly all by yourself.  This is a guided meditation where I take you on a little journey.  I like to integrate elements of different types of meditation into my sessions.  I work with awareness of the body and breath, visualization, and silent mantra.  My mantras vary, but they are all secular.   A mantra we do might be an affirmation like “Peace/Release” or a point of concentration like “In Breath/Out Breath”.  It’s just another tool to help us drop into a deeper level of relaxation.  Overall, I make little tweaks and changes during each different session.  While there is a continuity of elements in my practice, I like to switch the order and add and remove things to keep it interesting for all of us.  A degree of unpredictability keeps things fresh.

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Do you follow a specific dogma or ideology?

 

No, I don’t.  Dogma and ideology have no place in my practice.  I make it a point to be open to the many different experiences that can happen during meditation.  I’m not a fan of “This is the CORRECT way to meditate and the ONLY way to do it.”  That kind of thinking puts us in a box and just doesn’t sound very fun to me.  There are plenty of un-fun things to do in life.  Let’s not let our meditation practice be one of them.

 

What benefits can I get from meditation?

 

The first and foremost benefit is a sense of calmness and relaxation.  It’s like rebooting the mind and starting with a fresh slate.  That, alone, is one of the main drivers that keeps me coming back to the practice.  I’m much less prone to being agitated and anxious when I’ve consciously worked at getting my nervous system to a nice and calm baseline level.  In plain words, it’s more challenging to get pissed off when you’re calm.  Know what I mean?  When you have more control over your emotions, you have more control over your life.  This leads me to my next point, which is….

 

Another major benefit of meditation is being a a LOT less reactive.  Instead of existing in my default state of  reacting to whatever is coming at me, it’s like there’s a buffer between stimulus and reaction.  This buffer allows me to think things through before acting on autopilot (ie. getting angry, defensive, offended, hurt, lashing out, etc.)  I work at controlling my responses instead of letting my responses control me.  Am I perfect with this all of the time?  Nope.  Definitely not.  In a large majority of cases, though, I am able to practice enough self awareness to keep my cool and not give in to a knee-jerk reactions.  In time, you will probably notice that your own habituated responses to emotional triggers start to change.

 

I would like to note that it’s not just human interaction that can trigger habituated emotional responses.  Familiar (and unfamiliar) physical sensations in the body can also be a trigger.  Think of experiencing shortness of breath and suddenly thinking that you’re having a heart attack when, in fact, you’re most likely experiencing anxiety.  In my case, as I dealt with chronic pain for a long period, I unwittingly developed habituated emotional responses to any kind of physical discomfort.  My nervous system was so overtaxed and fried that, as soon as I felt discomfort setting in anywhere within my body, I would tense up and feel panic starting to arise.  I “knew” from repeated experience that my discomfort was surely going to balloon into acute pain very quickly and that I would probably become incapacitated.  Time to grab the meds!!!  Back then I never thought of stopping to try and calmly observe what was actually happening within  my body.  I just jumped to the radical conclusion that I was in for a world of hurt.  My reaction was panic followed by pain killers.  Becoming aware of that pattern and stopping it before it had a chance to take hold was key to my being able to start the journey of healing.

 

Is meditation just a way to check out and escape from reality?  

 

Meditation is not meant to be an escape.  It can certainly ease suffering and bring about a greater state of well being.  It can also, yes,  provide a bit of respite from our busy everyday lives (aka: checking out).  On the flip side, it can also bring issues to the forefront that we might have been burying and avoiding.  When we go into a meditative state and get rid of immediate distractions, the mind has a tendency to wander.  Sometimes it wanders into territory that that has been neglected and brings it to the surface.  During our practice we can acknowledge the underlying issues that present themselves, work through them, and then let them go.  It can be temporarily uncomfortable, but also very healing.  

 

I have a very busy mind. If I have a lot of thoughts during meditation, am I doing it wrong? Shouldn’t my mind be empty?  If I have thoughts, should I try to push them away or stop them?

 

There’s this misconception that if we find ourselves lost in thought during meditation that we are somehow not “doing it right.”  I’m here to tell you right now that this is absolutely NOT the case!  Everybody has thoughts during meditation.  Yes.  Everybody.  The mind thinks.  That’s what it does.  You can’t tell it not to think.  Would it be reasonable to tell your eyes not to see?  Probably not.  That’s what they do, after all.  So it goes with the mind.  It is programmed to think.  That’s not to say that we should just get lost in thought and start daydreaming about skydiving, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, romance on the beach at sunset, or earning 5 million dollars this year.  What we want to do is to catch ourselves and recognize when we’ve gotten lost in a stream of thought.  I do what I call “recognize and release”.  If I catch myself wandering off into thought, I recognize that I am thinking and then I release the thought.  Recognize the thought and then release.  Recognize…release.  It’s a process that happens over and over.  As you move deeper into relaxation, your “thought energy” will hopefully slow down and be less frequent.  Just remember that thoughts will occur and that it’s not “wrong” when they do.

 

What expectations should I have when practicing meditation?

 

I would politely advise that you don’t set ANY expectations beforehand.  Expectations in our meditation practice, as in life, can frequently lead to disappointment.  There’s really no way to predict what kind of experience you’re going to have.  It’s best just to roll with it and to approach the meditation with a sense of curiosity and openness.  You may find that during one meditation you feel super relaxed and chilled out.  If so, then that’s great.  It happens that way more often than not and is very pleasant.  You might find during another session, though, that you’re distracted and having a tough time letting go of outside events occurring in your life.  That’s okay, too.  It doesn’t mean that you’re doing anything wrong.  Sometimes life events have a strong energetic pull and end up spilling over into our meditation.  It’s not out of the ordinary.  The important thing to remember is that even though you might feel distracted, your body is at rest and is recharging while you sit.  You are reaping the rewards of stillness and that’s a good thing!

 

Can I sit in a chair or lay down while meditating?

 

Absolutely, 100 percent, yes.  I don’t expect you to sit like an ascetic yogi in a strict posture.  I’ve tried it in the past on a few occasions but it’s just not my jam.  I don’t like bending my long legs like a pretzel for an extended period.  It’s hard to untangle my legs with my creaky knees and get my muscles stretched back into alignment afterwards.  I’m all about being comfortable and not in pain.  I didn’t come to meditation in search of adding discomfort and physical stress to my already elevated level of chronic pain.  I wanted relief.  So, I sit in a comfortable chair and get my relaxation on.  And you can do the same.  Be comfy.  Be happy.

 

 

What if I fall asleep during a session?

 

Ummm…. I’VE certainly never ever fallen asleep during a single meditation.  Never in my life.  Ever.  Okay, maybe once.  Or twice.  Three times?  Yeah.  It can happen.  No one’s perfect.  And please don’t forget that we’re not trying to be perfect here.  We’re just trying to relax and let go.  Sometimes when the body and/or mind is tired, meditation will be that slight little push that sends you over the edge into the abyss of…..SLEEP!!!!  It’s not a problem.  It just means that you were tired and needed the rest.  Good for you.  You got it.  Thumbs up!