The Five Biggest Myths About Meditation

1. It’s relaxing.

This is a dangerous myth because people expect meditation to be like slipping into a hot tub. When they experience discomfort they think it’s not working or they’re not doing it right and they give up. In fact, it’s often not relaxing, at least not initially. In the beginning meditation is like exercise; if it doesn’t hurt you’re not doing it right. This puts off a lot of people right from the start. They’ve taken the odd Yoga class where you lie on the floor, close your eyes and let your poor body rest. Everybody loves this. You’ve been moving for an hour, your limbs are stretched every which way and you relish the opportunity to let gravity take your muscles and let them drop. Conventional sitting meditation may become like this over time but it probably won’t be right off the bat. When you sit down and face a wall or close your eyes and there’s nothing between you and the timer but your incessantly jabbering monkey mind it’s anything but relaxing. Horrifying and sobering are two more appropriate words that come to mind. Relaxing, it ain’t.

2. You need time to meditate.

You don’t need time to set aside time to meditate. You can meditate for 5 minutes, 2 minutes, in your car, walking or chopping onions. It isn’t a specialized activity which you have to do in a room with specialized equipment. Cut out 15 minutes of TV time and there’s your meditation block.

3. Bad stuff comes up.

Actually this isn’t a myth. Bad feelings or experiences may surface when you sit quietly and meditate. But, as my mother always used to say, better an empty house than a bad tenant. The bad stuff doesn’t materialize because your mind is quiet. It’s there when your mind is busy, too. You just can’t hear it. So – hear it. Listen to it. Acknowledge it and let it go.

4. It’ll slow me down. I need my edge.

Meditation actually hones your edge. If your boss is hyper, your workday is manic and your default mode is just south of Chaos you need to give your autonomic nervous system a rest every once in a while. Meditation will help with this. When you return to work mode you’ll still ramp up to speed pretty quickly but chances are you’ll be a little more focused and centered.

5. Meditation is Boring

What’s boring is back to back re-runs of “Cops” every night. Why? Because they have nothing whatsoever to do with your life. They’re pure escapism. Anything that comes up in, or because of, meditation is about you. Which means it’ll be helpful, interesting and instructive. How better to spend your time than to learn something about yourself and immediately put it to use in your life?

One Myth that is true about meditation is that it’s habit-forming. Once you let it into your life you’ll have a hard time doing without it.So, don't just do something - sit there!