How I Built A Meditation Habit

 Many may see meditation as sort of a waste of time or complain that they're too busy but the reality is that it's much more simpler than it sounds. When I started meditating I was very skeptical and gave up multiple times, however, I finally decided to make a change after joining a meditation group on the Vibely app. Youtuber Lavendaire was doing a meditation challenge and many people especially females were taking part in the challenge and monitoring their progress. I wanted to give it a try by doing her guided meditation. I never expected that this was the push I needed to build a much needed habit of meditation.

The app required you to log your progress publicly which added more incentive and with its interface I'm not surprised why this was extremely important to building the habit because we received likes on our post from others who were also trying to learn how to build a habit of meditating. It is one thing to try meditation and it is another to build a habit of doing it daily. When you build the habit, you start to notice significant progress as you work on adding to what you have already started building. Another benefit of habit building in this context is that you have the ability to slowly make adjustments to weak areas in your mediation practice or correct unnoticed mistakes such as posture, slouching, or lack of mindful presence.

After the challenge ended, I realized I wasn't making the habit of meditating properly after missing multiple days in the challenge. From then on, I resolved to use the resources from the challenge to work on meditating on my own. Here is where the habit was truly built by noticing my mistakes and having a plan for correcting them.

Fast forward to the current school year and I honestly can't live without meditating on a daily basis. It helps me reduce my anxiety, sleep better, and decreases nightmares. My posture has had a lot of benefit too as I have to maintain a firm posture for a rough 20 minutes. I slouch less when I work as a result. From one of the Tim Ferris podcasts, I learned that a slouched posture are signs of becoming too emotional or too focused. It is somewhat of a weak and vulnerable position that is bad for posture and focus. It is important to recognize when in this position to maximize the amount of time our head is clear and our emotions are under control. Meditation has allowed me to recognize these moments.

Recently, I delved into transcendental meditation which emphasizes use of mantras or sounds to clear the mind. I listened to an ominous version of this on Youtube with a sound mantra that struck fear into my heart. Initially, I felt trapped but I soon found solace and comfort in the sound once I accepted my current situation. I became at peace with the fact that there is nothing I can change and if it was all to end right then and there I would have no regrets. This enlightened my mind because I was able to let go of one of the most dangerous emotions: fear. After freeing myself of fear, I entered an intense moment of self-reflection as I analyzed my personal weaknesses and emotions. Accessing my mind's mainframe if you would like to give this a relatable analogy for the techies out there.

Finally, although I built this habit just like everyone I'm not perfect and still have days where life ends up getting in the way and I do little to prioritize meditation. It's a matter of adapting to my situation at those points but when I manage to find control in my day or after having multiple back to back exhausting days I know a meditation session is in order. Meditation has helped a person like me who endures very anxious days and nights, find a sense of solace and calm in life. There are few activities where time stops and we can come face to face with our own fears and emotions. I see myself for who I truly am when I meditate and as famous thinker Naval Ravikant put it, "just accept it."

If there are things in life we cannot control but we would like to change, then, we can do nothing but accept it and find peace in it. I hope you find something helpful here.