2 things you can do to Enhance Your Meditation Practice
Shame and pride are complex feelings that can result from a variety of things, including our accomplishments and the methods we used to get there. Although it's normal to feel pleased of our successes, we could also feel ashamed or guilty about the strategies we employed to get there. Let’s talk about why this happens and how to face this reality, and let’s learn how to boost our meditation practice from a place of compassion tours our experience.
(Note the general idea/mindset applies wether you meditate or not).
One study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people tend to feel more proud of their successes than the process leading up to them, because outcomes are more concrete and observable than the steps taken to get to where they wanted to be. I would also dare to say we feel shame because maybe that process looked clumsy, and also because it was not linear or straightforward as we were told, as we were expected to deliver, or as we imagined.
ACCEPT THERE MIGHT BE RESISTANCE
In any case, I think the first thing we can consider before embarking in a new main habit or dramatic change, is accepting that the path to a goal can and will probably be uncomfortable, however “uncomfortable” doesn’t have to be a cue for quitting it.
When starting your meditation practice for example, we know there might be some resistance, I would like to ask you to sit on that, reflect and think in your particular experience how does that resistance look like? How can I understand that resistance from a place of acceptance so I can move forward, put my shoes on and go…?
Once I have identified where the resistance lives, its cause and its effects at large, I get more knowledge about my relationship with my environment and I gain autonomy over my actions and outcomes. To give you a very silly example to keep this light: It took me years to go to an actual gym. For years I told myself it was about privacy and social anxiety. While some of it was true for a while, my main limitation there was feeling I was not in control of my time or representing myself well, if I had to invest more of it in commuting. In reality: the solution had nothing to do with my issues with privacy, I just needed to find a place near work with a locker and learn to be ok with taking care of myself if this was more attainable with my new routine and need. It means that to an extent, I favor convenience, and if I favored “convenience” maybe I was not being as much of a go getter? See? Negative association = shame. Also, none of it was real, I was simply not flexible to my routine and needs changing to better serve myself and my loved ones.
However, when I finally identified the real implication of this resistance and the line of thought that came with it, I realize how I was depraving myself of a healthy experience that actually fits my lifestyle, current needs, and helps me overcome my social anxiety and ultimately create this great community. Of course, this was not the ONLY thing that led me to what I appreciate but you get the point. At the end it was about embracing the messiness of a process with a more corrective and less judge mindset. That’s how I found the acceptance of my resistance.
Sometimes, the expectations and pressure we put into what are seemingly good behaviour/habits are big enough to leave us in perpetual state of doubt, procrastination or anxiety as a respond to how demanding they might be/feel. If you mind wonders like mine, the stress of day-to-day life can be enough to overwehlaem you. In that case, I can’t stress enough how important it is to take note of these thought patterns.
As you know, we are all learning here, and while I am using my experience as a way to explain the things I learn from the questions you have asked in the past two sessions, I can understand if these don’t resonate with you. For this reason, I want to leave you with a couple of concepts that might be useful to read if you are curious about how accepting our resistance can be similar to exercising self-efficacy which is a term commonly studied from anthropology to corporate psychology.
The study found that the positive subscales of self-compassion were positively associated with self-efficacy, while the negative subscales of self-compassion were negatively associated with self-efficacy. The findings suggest that clinical interventions that focus on cultivating self-compassion may help improve individuals' sense of self-efficacy.
The other one talks about how self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. The author provides examples of how self-compassion can help individuals cope with stress and failure, and can encourage them to pursue their goals with greater persistence and determination. It is also suggested that self-compassion can help individuals adopt healthy habits and behaviors by reducing feelings of guilt, shame, and self-blame.
If in this case there is something that prevents you from meditating that doesn’t sink-in quite yet, it’s ok! Just allow yourself to ask the question and come up with a supporting a loving solution. Talking to another person and, hearing their own experience with the subject, or when trying something new, also helps a lot and can serve as a conductor of compassion and understanding.
TAKE IT INTO SMALLER BITES
Now onto the second tip: Making small and controlled incremental improvements precedes the acceptance of resistance. According to Halvorsen et al. (2011), the key to successfully incorporating meditation into your daily routine is to create habits that break down the world into little pieces. Each habit or thought modification should be small and manageable but impactful enough to create a sense of accomplishment. It's about focusing on one piece of the puzzle at a time and allowing those pieces to come together in the overall picture of a healthy you.
One of the most important habits is simply showing up to your meditation practice. By prioritizing this time in your schedule, you can create a habit of consistency that will make it easier to stick with the practice. Even if you only have a few minutes to spare, taking the time to focus on your breath and connect with your inner self can be hugely beneficial.
Depending on where the resistance comes from, you can create a plan of small actions you can take to correct the urge of complying with the resistance. We are not short of silly personal examples today, so I’ll have to resort to this again: in recent conversations with my therapist, I remember a very simple advice he gave me when I was dealing with long-covid and I felt very exhausted and sad and short of patience about it. I came to the session with a feeling of defeat finding very difficult to relate to other people and my job when on top of my general anxiety, I was also dealing with feeling physically weak due to this infection.
First, we were tapping on the importance of exercise, which at the moment I found particularly annoying given the fact I was also in a boot for 9 weeks due to a sesamoid fracture. I proceeded to complain about that too and linked the feeling with the fact I was not very fond of my social life in the United States either. Then he just looked at me and said: action precedes motivation.
Slowly this comment sunk -in and I simply told myself I needed to complete one goal only a day: showing up to the gym. I was not thinking about how and for how long. I only showed up. This happened for months, until the next challenge became establishing a routine. In the meantime, motivation to complete other projects such as this meditation group, started to happen: action preceded motivation.
Let's create little habits together! Join our meditation group for a journey of self-exploration and spiritual growth. Register HERE for Friday secular meditation every Friday from 5:15 pm to 6:00 pm at the Foundry, Cambridge.
#LittleHabitsBigImpact #MeditationTips #DailyDiscipline #MeditationJourney
Much Love,
Mari
