5 Tips For Creating A Consistent Meditation Practice

Transcript

hey welcome back to being integrated i'm jude this is one of the most common questions and challenges i hear come up around meditation which is the challenge of creating a more consistent practice meditating regularly everyone seems to have challenges with this in some degree so here are five tips that i found really useful and i've really struggled with this as well this has probably been one of the biggest challenges in my own practice i've been practicing on and off for like 17 years now so it's really been uh on and off i can definitely admit to that but these tips have absolutely been the big ones that made a difference for me and the last one is without a doubt kind of the biggest one for me of course i'm always going to save the best to last to kind of keep you hooked and hopefully you watch the whole video the last one really was the the big one that changed the whole paradigm the way i meet my own practice with meditation and consistency so the first tip is to set up a nice space to meditate so you want the space to be inviting you want a space that feels good and if you create a nice space then it will kind of call you in you'll look at the space you'll see it and you'll say yeah i kind of want to go there and i like to say that if you create that nice space and you go and you meditate there regularly then it starts to have that feeling and when you go to sit there it's almost like getting into a warm bath and i told this to somebody years ago and she was like yeah whatever and then like months later she came back and she said it really is like getting into a warm bath i'm not promising that you'll have that experience but it's been my experience uh traditionally people set up altars uh in most traditions they set up alters not in all like in zen kind of it's a bit different they just kind of stare at a wall and but but in most traditions they set up a nice altar so you can set up your own altar and it doesn't need to be religious at all uh people like to put flowers on their altars uh often there's different things representing the elements like there'll be a candle you know for fire there'll be a glass of water and if you have a glass of water and a candle the the water glass kind of reflects the light it looks really nice and then they'll have something representing earth it could be flowers they'll have something representing air it could be a feather but it really could be anything you want anything that feels good anything that brings you into that warm place my friend and one of my meditation mentors jeff warren once told me that he has a photo of his wife on his alter a photo of her like as a child so it could be a photo of somebody you love and care about people put photos of people that are really geared to them if they have like a teacher who's really imparted a lot who they feel loved for they'll put a photo of the teacher it's really just about what makes you feel good and what brings you into that space that you want to be in when you're meditating and it's like that pavlov's bell thing that the more you sit there and practice meditation the more that these things will bring you into that state so that's the first one making a nice space to meditate uh also always be sure to make that space clean if you have any clutter in your house keep it away from where you meditate because that's gonna not dry you in as much the next tip is to schedule your practice so if you have a phone call scheduled with your boss you're gonna probably be there on time the thing is that when we schedule things for other people we're very much accountable to somebody else and that motivates us to really meet that time because if we don't someone else will be disappointed in us and so with meditation we want to start to look at why we're practicing and think about okay i have to make this commitment to myself and i'm going to schedule and i'm going to make this a priority to myself often the day just kind of gets busy and we get distracted and we think we don't have time but if we schedule it in we can look at our day beforehand and think okay this is the time that i'm going to prioritize my own practice and it could change and that's okay if things come up that are really important that's fine don't beat yourself up about it but at least try to make a schedule try to make a time where you do have time to meditate i know some people have really hectic schedules people who work freelance but even just looking at the day before and thinking okay well when do i have time tomorrow to meditate or in the morning you can look at your day when does it make sense today to meditate so that's a tip schedule it in think about it beforehand instead of just kind of doing it on a whim so the next one relates to this which is uh making a commitment to practice even if it's only for like a breath or two and i really mean this that sometimes we're like oh i don't have time or i'm really not feeling like it whatever it is but if we just sit down and let's say three breaths okay i'm just gonna sit down for three good breaths often after those three breaths we realize oh i can actually sit here a bit longer and we'll end up sitting for a longer period of time but if we go in thinking okay every time i sit i need to meditate for 20 minutes it's going to be a lot harder we're going to have a lot more internal resistance and kind of just kind of dread or this feeling of busyness or not being in the right mood but just going down and saying okay just three breaths i'm just gonna sit for three breaths every day minimum and then you'll see you'll probably start sitting for longer than that it's that simple just make a commitment to meditate every day even if it's just for a few seconds that that is better than nothing and will often lead to longer practices than expected so another tip to help motivate us to practice is writing down the positive effects right so whatever you notice the positive changes that are happening through meditation or the changes that you aspire to write that down make it really clear make it really succinct and then just post it up somewhere in your space where you'll see it maybe leave it on your desk or on the fridge or on a wall somewhere the idea here is that we often forget we fall into our normal habitual patterns of mindlessness of not being present and just having a reminder like that that's motivating not one that's shaming us saying you should practice or else you're a bad meditation practitioner but instead saying look these are the benefits that we are working on that we're trying to accumulate through our practice i think the positive motivation is a lot better than the kind of negative uh blame judgment oriented type of motivation so get clear on what the benefits are write them down keep them top of mind and maybe put them somewhere where you'll see them to remind you that oh yes there are actually all these good benefits okay so the fifth tip which for me was absolutely the most impactful out of all of these this comes from one of my old teachers who was in this zen tradition renzei zen he was actually a student of philip caplo who's kind of a really well-known zen teacher and he once said on a retreat i was on with him he said if you really want to progress in your meditation practice meditate when you don't feel like it we often have this idea that we have to feel like it oh i'll do it when i feel like it and if we don't feel like it then we're not going to do it and this is that kind of ego running the show that part of us that always seeks comfort and avoids discomfort and the thing about meditation practice is we're trying to feel more okay with discomfort it's about bringing this acceptance towards discomfort and being in the moment regardless of whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable that's what meditation is all about it's letting go of the way that we avoid or resist discomfort opening to it and the opening to discomfort allows it to really shift and change in our experience and become less uncomfortable buddhism teaches that the way to overcome suffering is not trying to escape it but actually the acceptance of it the full acceptance and opening to the suffering so it would make a lot of sense that the best time to meditate or the time that is going to be most fruitful is the times when we don't feel like it the times we don't feel good and just sitting with that discomfort sitting with that feeling that we have is gonna really start to shift it's gonna change our experience because we often let our feelings run our lives run our decision making that oh this doesn't feel good i'm going to avoid this this feels good i'm going to chase after that and buddhism teaches this is what suffering comes from is the clingy mind that is aversion to suffering and and clings or chases after pleasure and we're trying to just be in the moment fully we're trying to meet discomfort and pain with the same openness that we meet pleasure and comfort if this sounds weird to you i would highly suggest checking out my video on equanimity where i talk about how this is so powerful and life-changing it really gets to the heart of what meditation practice is all about and how it's so transformative so the fifth and final tip here is changing your mindset around thinking that we only should meditate when we feel like it it's really about bringing into awareness how we avoid discomfort and how that leads to even more discomfort it leads to more pain and that by actually opening to the discomfort opening to the pain can actually shift it and make things a lot less uncomfortable often i'll uh not be meditating because i have like a headache or feel a bit sick but when i actually make myself do it when i go to meditate when i don't feel good at first it may be uncomfortable but i end up feeling a lot better afterwards i find it so helpful and i feel like usually noticeably better and i've noticed that the worse i feel the more i get out of meditation so try it out for yourself see if you have the same experience thank you so much for tuning in if you enjoyed this video and do all those things i really appreciate it and lots more videos to come thanks for tuning in