• “I can't stop thinking. How can I meditate?”

 

This is probably the most common thing that people say to me when they are new to meditation. As Jon Kabat-Zinn would say, “Welcome to the club!” This is just the way our minds are, we are programmed to think, analyse and problem-solve. Which can be very helpful, but when we attempt to still the mind, the more we try, the more we tend to think and the more our thoughts get in the way. As Alan Watts put it,

 

 "Of course, you can’t force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flat iron.

Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone”.

 

Mindfulness meditation is not about stopping thinking, it is about observing what comes and goes from moment to moment, including our thoughts.

 

• “I'm not good at meditating. How do I become better at it?”

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This is another phrase I hear quite a lot from group participants and I think it comes from the way we are generally taught to learn. For example, when we learn at school something like maths, we may try hard and the harder we work, the more we can achieve.

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Learning mindfulness meditation is a very different way of learning. For a start, we are not learning anything we don’t instinctively already know from being a very young child, when we were mindful and non-judgemental. In this way, we are learning to drop the layers – of judgement, automatic actions and reactions we have built up over the years – rather than gaining or achieving anything.

 

With mindfulness meditation, there is also the paradox of the harder you try to achieve anything and the more attached you are to a certain outcome – peace of mind, stillness etc. – the more it is likely to elude you. Mindfulness is more about noticing when thoughts like “I’m not good at meditating” arise and how stories and judgements like this can get in the way. This is not to say that practising doesn’t make it easier, but even after 20+ years of practising meditation, I still get days where it seems almost impossible to focus! Mindfulness is holding that in non-judgemental awareness too.

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• “It's too noisy to meditate, I get distracted by sounds. How can I meditate?”

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Unless you live on the top of a mountain or in the middle of the countryside, it can be tricky to find a completely quiet space in which to practice formal meditation. When we first start practising, we can be particularly distracted by sounds, which we may not have noticed or been bothered about before. But this is mindfulness in itself – noticing sounds, and noticing our reactions to those sounds. After a while, we can begin to embrace sounds as just something else to hold in our awareness and we can even use the sounds themselves as the focus of our attention. I once took part in a meditation practice in the middle of Trafalgar Square, with traffic and sirens and the noise of London surrounding us. It somehow felt incredibly peaceful, because of the qualities of mindfulness that we were cultivating.

 

That said, many people who have suffered certain traumas or are experiencing some form of distress, can find sounds overwhelming. If formal practice is difficult for you right now, you could try practising it and sit with the difficulty, or play with practising informally by bringing awareness to anything you are doing. Remember to be curious, and gentle with yourself. If we wait for conditions to be perfect, we would never practice. Mindfulness is, after all, working with what we have and what is already here.

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• I’m too busy to meditate. How can I possibly find time to practise?

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As the old Zen proverb has it, “You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day – unless you're too busy; then you should sit for an hour”, meaning that the busier we are, the more we tend to need to stop and be still. The beauty of mindfulness is that it can be practised formally, with a sitting or lying down meditation, or informally by bringing the quality of awareness to anything you do – washing up, showering, eating, walking, the list is endless. In short, if you’ve got time to have a cup of tea, you’ve got time to practise mindfulness!

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• “I can't focus on my breath without it changing. What can I do about this?”

 

 This is a very common experience too. We can find that as soon as we bring our awareness to the breath, we can’t help but interfere, albeit unconsciously. Breathing is used as a focus for the awareness in meditation a lot for several reasons. Partly because your breath is always with you, partly because our breath is so closely linked to our mood and it usually the first thing that changes when our emotions do, so it can help us become more in touch with our reactions. As human beings we respond to rhythm, so the rhythm of the breath can be quite hypnotic. Focusing on the breath can also help to ‘ground’ us and naturally help bring us back to the present moment, because you can’t breathe yesterday or tomorrow! I would encourage anyone who finds focusing on the breath tricky to persevere, as you will probably find it gets easier, but as long as you bring the quality of awareness to your practise, you can always choose something else to focus on.

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• “I fall asleep when I meditate, how can I avoid this?”

 

Again, this is a very common experience. We tend to be either asleep or stressed and are very rarely in the kind of ‘middle ground’ of relaxed awareness that is mindfulness meditation. Practise can make this easier with time, but there are ways to make accessing this middle ground more likely, or rather to make falling asleep less likely, and one of them is to avoid lying down when practising. Another is to find a time of day when you find you are less likely to feel sleepy, for example not following a big meal. Falling asleep during meditation could also simply mean that you’re tired and need more sleep!

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• “Why does meditating on my body sometimes make discomfort feel more intense?”

 

Pain and symptoms in our body are messages and it’s important that we listen to them, otherwise they can shout louder to get our attention. Listening to your body more means you will hear it more clearly and this includes the uncomfortable feelings. Mindfulness is about working with what is, including discomfort, without denying it or pushing it away. With practice, we often find that as soon as we shine the light of awareness on an uncomfortable part of the body, we are able to release the tension around it and release some of the discomfort. When we fight pain, we tend to increase tension and tightness in the body, which can add another layer of pain and suffering. By becoming aware of this, we can begin to release it and let go.

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• “I feel more anxious when I sit still with no distractions and distressing thoughts and feelings come up. How do I deal with that?”

 

This is also quite a common experience. Practising being aware of the present moment, again working with what is already here and letting go of judgemental thoughts can help us to work through and let go of difficult feelings, again as part of our healing process. A lot of people tend to avoid focusing on difficult or distressing thoughts or feelings, which is a natural reaction to something we experience as unpleasant – we want to push it away. Usually when we try to fight feelings like anxiety, we find that those feelings actually increase, as again it adds another layer of struggling and tension. The more we can learn to sit with our difficult feelings, the more we can learn to process them and let them go. If this at any time becomes overwhelming, try just ‘dipping your toe in’ at first. Be curious and gentle with yourself. Part of being mindful is being aware of what you need in the moment, so please seek help if you need it and keep yourself safe.

 

Think about what you find helpful from other people when you are feeling overwhelmed. Usually we find it most helpful when people don’t try to make our emotions go away or ‘fix’ them, or tell us to “Calm down”. Usually the most helpful approach is to allow us the space to feel what we are feeling, to express it, and to just sit with us until it subsides. Try doing this with yourself, it can really help us to feel more at peace.

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• “How can mindfulness improve my relationships?”

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When we take time to truly listen to others in the moment, and our own thoughts and feelings with compassion, it can make a huge difference to the quality of our relationships and strengthen our connection with others. When we think about what can make relationships difficult, a lot of problems can come down to poor communication and listening can be the most important part of this. People can feel disrespected and unimportant when they feel they are not being listened to, heard or their feelings acknowledged or understood.

 

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• “Mindfulness has changed my life. How can I convince others to try it?”

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This is an interesting one. When we find something that has really helped us, it’s natural that we want others to experience the same benefits, especially when we can see that they are suffering. The problem is that the more forceful we are with our message and the more attached we are to others adopting our way, the more people tend to be put off. In my experience, if we want others to benefit from mindfulness, the most effective way is to ‘be’ mindful, rather than to try ‘do’ anything to convince people. In this way, people tend to ‘feel’ it, they notice it in you, not necessarily consciously, and they become curious in their own time, which can be much more effective. Part of being mindful is also to accept that others may never practice mindfulness in the way that you do, and the only thing that is within your power is to meet them with awareness and compassion.