Why Is Meditation So Hard for Me?
What’s getting in the way when you meditate?
If most of your effort goes into sitting still, try a minute of walking somewhere familiar. You can do this right in your living room. Walk at a comfortable pace and feel your feet meet the floor. If you start thinking about what to make for dinner, see if you can feel the next step.
If paying attention to your breath turns into trying to breathe “right,” give yourself something else to pay attention to. Listen to the hum of a fan or the rain against the window for a few moments. If the sound is irritating, you could rest your eyes on an object in the room instead.
If you get stuck when a teacher asks you to picture something, try a guided practice that gives you something you can notice right where you are. That could be the sound of the teacher’s voice or the weight of your hands in your lap.
If you keep losing track of what you’re doing, see what happens when you realize your mind has wandered. Say you were listening to the rain and now you’re halfway through a conversation you need to have tomorrow. You can pick up with the next sound you hear. Coming back is part of this kind of meditation. You can do it as many times as you need to.
You sit down to meditate because you’d like a few minutes where nothing else is asking for your attention. Then you remember the test you forgot to reply to. Your leg starts to twitch.
The teacher says to picture a beach, and while you’re still working out what she means by picture, she’s already talking about the waves. By the end, you’re wondering how something you tried to feel better became one more thing to work at.
What happened before you sat down?
If you’re finding out in midlife that you’re neurodivergent, or beginning to wonder if you might be, you may already be looking back at how much effort goes into getting through an ordinary day. You spend an afternoon answering questions at work, stop for groceries, and come home to a TV you can hear from two rooms away. Then you sit down and expect the same meditation to feel the way it did on a quiet Sunday morning.
Give yourself some room to work with the day you’ve actually had. You might keep your eyes open, find a quieter spot if there’s one available, or walk for a minute before you decide whether you feel like sitting. Some days, that minute of walking can be the whole practice.
Try changing one thing
Think back to where you got stuck last time and start there. If you spent most of the practice waiting for permission to move, try walking. If you lost the thread as soon as the teacher asked you to picture a scene, choose a practice without imagery.
When you finish, give yourself a moment before you reach for your phone or get up to do the next thing. What was it like to pay attention that way? Would I choose it again on a day like today? You might find that walking gives you a place to start after work, and that listening suits you on a quieter morning. Getting to know yourself that way is part of what yoga can offer.
If you’d like to try a practice without having to picture anything, start with my free guided meditation, Meditation Without Visualization.