You don’t need to “get better” at meditating
“My mind was wandering.”
“I can’t stay focused.”
“I’m not good at meditating.”
“I need to get better at meditating.”
“I haven’t meditated in 3 weeks [or 6 months, or 5 years].”
If you’ve tried to establish a meditation practice as a high-achieving person with chronic pain, there is a good chance that you have judged yourself for not being “good” at it, not sticking with it, or not meeting your goals.
You may have wondered whether that 10 minutes you spent meditating really “counts” if your mind was scattered and racing.
You may have excitedly signed up for a 30-day meditation challenge, only to find yourself scrambling to find time each day to practice and then being disappointed in your “failure.”
You may have been so distracted by pain while meditating that you gave up on the practice and felt frustrated and hopeless about getting out of pain as a result.
How to make your meditation practice MORE stressful
I have heard about these difficulties countless times from my clients, and experienced many of them myself.
There are some common ways of approaching meditation practice that can set people up for feelings of frustration and failure.
#1: Treating meditation as something to do, achieve, or check off our daily to-do list.
When we bring our achievement- and goal-oriented mindset to the practice, we become very focused on outcomes. We view meditation as something that we can succeed at or be good at, which also means we can fail or do it poorly. Our mindset becomes very all-or-nothing.
On the surface, setting goals for our practice can seem helpful, but it also carries the risk that we will not measure up and feel like we have failed.
#2: Having expectations for how it should look and feel.
If we are focused on outcomes, we are likely to have expectations, either implicit or explicit, for how the practice should look or how we should feel when we are doing it. For example, we may set a goal of completing 30 minutes of early-morning seated meditation practice each day. We may expect our meditation to relax us, calm our minds, or help us focus.
In the best case scenario, expectations like these can be motivating and help us be more intentional, but they can also come back to bite us if we miss a few days or notice our mind wandering all over the place.
What to do instead
As meditation is a time to step out of the stream of ordinary consciousness, we need to approach our meditation practice differently from other goals. Luckily, we can get all the benefits of having goals with none of the downsides with a slight shift in our approach.
Instead of focusing on external metrics or expectations, try asking yourself:
Am I interested in meditating today?
If the answer is no, how willing are you to accept that and respect your own boundaries?
If the answer is yes (or maybe), ask yourself:
How willing are you to practice “imperfectly” today?
How much grace/leeway/forgiveness are you willing to offer yourself as you undertake this practice?
How can you use this as an opportunity to let go of attachment to being good at something?
With questions like these as your starting point, your focus shifts away from factors that can impede your practice (such as a focus on outcomes) and toward factors that can support your practice: willingness, self-compassion, and non-attachment.
My invitation to you: As you start your next meditation session (after you have decided that you are, in fact, interested in meditating today), give yourself permission to notice what is there, exactly as it is, and to gently let go of the pressured part of yourself that would like it to be different than it is. Then return to this same intention 50 more times as your very human, very busy mind jumps around from thought to thought.
Meditation helps with chronic pain when we use it as a tool to help us create more cognitive flexibility, to view our bodily sensations with more neutrality and interest, and to cultivate deep compassion for ourselves and our suffering. Help yourself reap these benefits by going a little easier on yourself in your meditation practice.
Need some support with your acceptance and self-compassion work? Check out my group coaching program for chronic pain and request to join today.
The content shared here is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment. Always seek advice from your physician or other qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen.
