My first month of meditation

I’ve been meditating for a month now. It was one of my projects for this whole self development idea and so far I’m glad I started doing it.

At first I thought meditation was silly. It was only reserved for monks and the like. I wouldn’t really benefit from it in the slightest but I could never find much negativity about the practice. It would help with all sorts of things from being more focused to feeling more relaxed throughout the day. I knew I wanted to try it but struggled to put down the crude misconceptions I had about it.

The first 2 weeks were tough. I set my timer for five minutes but I couldn’t even clear my mind for few seconds. I would be thinking about a variety of things. The thoughts ranged from why I wanted to meditate to what I wanted to eat for breakfast. This happened while I continuously told myself to shut up.

Then it got a bit easier. I changed the timer to 10 minutes and focusing on my breathing wasn’t as difficult but the moments of quiet and focus were still rare. However, I did notice that I felt calmer afterwards. Not that I was always stressed in the mornings but I appreciated the silence much more than I had before.

I continuously told myself that it was too difficult because I couldn’t stop thinking about all sorts of things while I kept on saying ‘shut up and be quiet’. It became easier eventually. I had brief moments of peace and quiet when I stopped thinking about useless things and cleared my mind. It was similar to the feeling of finally getting into a good rhythm while running.

Do I recommend you start meditating? Yes. You probably have the time for at least 5 minutes. It might be a bit difficult (in fact, it still is for me) but the benefits are worthwhile and I expect the experience to only improve.