The Truth About Meditation: Busting Common Myths

While a consistent meditation practice often leads to greater calmness and equanimity in daily life, it is not about striving for specific outcomes or reacting negatively when those expectations are not met. Our meditation practice often mirrors our lives, so there will inevitably be moments when we feel less focused or have a harder time staying present in life and in our meditation practice. This does not indicate regression or incorrect practice. In these moments, it is important to avoid creating negative narratives about our progress and instead simply acknowledge and accept our experience as it is. As mindfulness guru Jon Kabat-Zinn puts it, “meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity, which at the bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are.”

The goal of meditation is not to empty the mind, but to be aware of thoughts without getting carried away by any one particular train of thought. We can’t simply turn off our thinking minds, and research shows that trying to stop thoughts isn’t very effective. In fact, attempting to suppress or stop thoughts often makes them persist even more. Instead, meditation encourages us to become observers of our thoughts, like sitting beside a stream and watching leaves flow by without jumping in. This process of non-reactive observation can lead to reduced stress and increased resilience in the face of everyday challenges.

Again, the goal of meditation is not to eliminate thoughts; it is about becoming more aware of them. Success comes from acknowledging that your mind wandered often in a meditation practice. Mindfulness is a practice in self-observation, and recognizing moments when staying present is difficult is a crucial part of that process.

There’s no need to make meditation more complicated than it really is. As mentioned earlier, there is a common misconception that meditation means relaxation, inner peace, or equanimity. If you sit down to meditate and don’t immediately feel those things, you might think you’re doing it wrong or that meditation isn’t for you. Meditation is not about achieving a certain mental or emotional state, and it’s not about silencing the mind. It’s about being with whatever you’re thinking and feeling with a nonjudgmental awareness. When you approach it this way, you realize that anyone can meditate. If you find that you don’t enjoy this practice of being aware of your thoughts, it’s more accurate to say, “I don’t want to meditate” rather than “I can’t meditate.”

Meditation can be integrated into even the busiest of schedules. Short sessions of just 5-10 minutes each day can yield noticeable improvements in mental clarity and focus. Meditation can also be utilized during short breaks during your workday, in moments of waiting, or during your downtime. Mindfulness is most effective when it is interwoven into the fabric of our daily lives, and it doesn’t need to only be meditation. Instead of going for a walk with music or an audiobook playing, go for a walk and bring awareness to the experience of walking. In this way, it doesn’t require any additional time. Another way to think about it is that these practices may help you be more efficient with your time, which may even create more free time.

There really is no special way to practice mindfulness or meditation. While it may be helpful to remove distractions when preparing for a meditation session, we can practice mindfulness or meditation anywhere. As mentioned before, mindfulness becomes more beneficial when it is woven into the fabric of our daily lives as an attitude we adopt no matter what we’re doing. We can do the dishes mindfully, eat mindfully, have a conversation with someone mindfully, walk mindfully, etc. While it is beneficial to set aside time each day for a formal meditation practice, we can practice mindfulness in many other ways in our daily lives.