Overcoming Resistance to Meditation
When my clients complain about their resistance to
meditation I suggest that they pay attention to the feelings and thoughts that
come up when they try to meditate. Feelings and thoughts reveal unconscious and
conscious beliefs. The beliefs that emerge when you are resistant are the
obstacles that need to be revealed, examined, and undone. This is not only so that
you can meditate but also so that you can ultimately find lasting peace.
It is also helpful to know why you meditate. Reminding yourself of this can help motivate you:
I am mind and
meditation gets me in touch with mind. It helps me get in touch with what I am.
Through meditation I
learn what is in my mind. My beliefs are the source of my attitudes, behaviors,
and choices. Knowing my beliefs helps me to understand what motivates my
attitudes, behaviors and choices.
In meditation I can process
out thoughts and feelings so my mind will quiet. This will help me not just
throughout the day but also to unwind and to sleep.
The Truth is in my mind
and the awareness of Truth is the only way to lasting peace.
As I grow aware of
Truth, the Quiet Center of my mind, through formal meditation, I will take this
Quiet with me as I go about my day.
As my mind quiets and
slows through meditation I gain time to respond to my thoughts before I react from
them.
The quieter, slower mind I gain through meditation
helps me intuit the flow of the universe. I find and live in the flow rather
than force my way through life. This is a much more harmonious way to be in the
world.
You have to be willing to face incredible discomfort when
you first learn to meditate. In time resistance ebbs – but then it will flow
back again. You just have to ride out each wave of resistance and recognize
that it helps you to get in touch with the false beliefs in your mind. But the
quiet, slower mind and the peace that come from the awareness of Truth are well
worth the effort to meditate. And after a long while meditation will require
less effort as you desire its results.
There is no one right way to meditate. Some need quiet; some
like to be guided. Others like music or chanting. It may work better to have
your eyes open rather than closed. You need to be flexible as what works for you
for a while may need to be dropped for a new approach. Don’t seek immediate
results. Results may or may not show up when you meditate, but they will show
up as you go about your life. At first these results may be a dramatic contrast
to what you are used to. But as you integrate meditation into your life the
results will be more subtle. They will become your new normal. Then you may
only recognize what meditation brings to you when you do not meditate. But your peace of mind is worth both persistence
and consistency.
>>>>>
If you have obstacles to peace or to
the practice that would help you maintain peace, why not speak with someone who
has experience working through them? You can email me to set up an appointment
at Liz@acimmentor.com. Learn more at
www.acimmentor.com.
If you have a question the answer to
which you think will help others email it to me at Liz@acimmentor.com
and indicate that you want it answered in the newsletter/blog.
Comments
'Don’t seek immediate results.' im finding patience very hard to cultivate, recognising how many blocks to peace i still have , how short a way i have come in ten years! meditation over this last few weeks has shown me how many things i still believe in i thought id moved past.. two mornings ago i saw how deeply i still believe in sin rather than error. disappointing, but also relieving, right there in that instant. as in.. well, yes, this feeling of anger simply couldnt be present if you didnt still believe strongly in sin. there was relief in the honesty about that.
liz, i did imagine that when i worked through the initial resistance and started meditating regularly, i would find it easier to let people and situations be, that i wouldnt have to work as hard at being gentle or kind. what i am experiencing is that im feeling and being less patient. um.. oh, maybe thats not accurate, connecting these lash-out experiences with the choice and experience of meditating. it is very difficult for me not to feel VERY guilty when i snap in impatience at others, or at myself for that matter, but at my loved ones feels worse as far as obvious guilt. what i have been focusing on is recalling that this is a universal ego dynamic which doesnt effect the truth in me, or in anyone, and not letting the feeling of guilt amplify and domino into making more drama. but i feel, when i am impatient, unkind and exacting, (as in, it should be THIS way, dammit), that i am damaging something innocent and beautiful. i feel like a beast. oh!! i feel like my dad. oh golly, well, now i see it it is incredibly obvious! i truly do not want to use him as a scapegoat anymore liz.
oh, all this complicated past-connective-to-this-current-expereince-of-self stuff just seems so unnecessary, truth is so simple. right now i feel resentment at 'needing' to work through layers like this! almost like.. im just.... MAKING problems, and layers, clinging to them. but.. i DO need to go through this stuff because part of me believes it right? i hear ken saying you cant skip steps, while you believe in the self you 'need' the ladder of undoing. liz, you know how i said i feel like i damage innocence? i even feel like writing this out here is somehow.. tainting something beautiful. my heart is doing weird stuff writing it, i feel like im exposing the ugly truth about me, that im the rotten apple that will spoil the whole barrel. ok, now that simply cannot be the truth.
Trust grows as the Power of Presence.
Happy is the one that trust's the unfolding and uses the power of attention for it's greatest potential towards the true.
Infinite love, Deb
liz, thinking about these facts 'The Other thought system will lead you to Truth rather than try to change the faulty thought system.' and 'You cannot fix the ego thought system, but you can learn how it runs you as long as long as you run with it. And then you can "choose once again"' triggered another realisation/accepting/feeling of how truth and not-truth cannot be blended. thank you again very much for that x
Evidently Helen experienced difficulties with meditation and Bill with guidance. To Helen's question about her reactions to meditation and also Bill's question, Jesus' explanation . . ."The reason for the fear reaction is quite apparent. You have not yet been able to suspend judgment, and merely succeeded in weakening your control over it. Since you have a tendency to be self punishing, you believe that control of judgment is a self preserving function, and therefore require it as a necessary defense of your self. Weakening this defense deliberately is thus perceived as dangerous vulnerability, which frightens you."
This cameo proved to be helpful Guidance to this mind.
reading this 'And I could be with Truth now even if I didn't experience It fully and wouldn't stay in an awareness of It.' this morning was one of those moments. i still had an idea in my mind that the holy instant was only the 'full' experience, the higher miracle experience, as opposed to that dear, sweet moment of openness as well. or am i mistaken in understanding what you meant? either way, i feel like that choice to 'be still an instant' has greater value? more peace? to me than it did yesterday. i call them 'Mu' breaths, Mu being a zen koan meaning 'without'. big thanks x
The first paragraph of this exercise starts with "I am mind..." The second paragraph includes the phrase "... in my mind".
This discrepancy, if that is the right word is common. What's your take? Are you a mind? Or do you have a mind? (In time, of course.)