Mindfulness Meditation Notebook by Richard Clarke - HTML preview

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15: PATIENCE AND FUN

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Have Patience and Have Fun

Everyone is different, and few activities make this more apparent than meditation. Some people experience immediate and intense benefits from mindfulness meditation practice.

Others experience minor benefits that increase over time. And others have a hard time with the practice, feeling like it’s helping but having such a hard time while they’re sitting that they really don’t know if it’s helping or not.

It takes time to see the most significant benefits of mindfulness meditation.

You have to be willing to dive deep into your experience of your mind and rest there for long periods of time over months or even years to touch those parts of yourself that you may have hidden away due to the intensity of the pain or trauma associated with it.

So enjoy the practice as an effective tool for managing stress and difficult emotions now, but be patient and see it as a long‐term practice to get the most from it.

And don’t forget to have fun with it

Sound simple? It is. Sound obvious? That too.

So, why am I mentioning it? Because as obvious as it sounds, most people forget to enjoy their practice when they start meditating.

They get so hung up on doing the practice right, taking it seriously, worrying about the feelings and thoughts coming up during their sessions that they forget to enjoy the practice for what it’s worth.

Some days it will be easier to sit than others, it’s true. Some days you feel perfectly peaceful and refreshed after sitting, other times you might feel worse.

Generally, that’s just a reflection of what’s going on inside, as your session touched on those feelings that are hovering around in your subconscious and brought them closer to the surface.

However, most of the time the practice can be really enjoyable. So, do your best not to forget to have fun with meditation.

VIDEO: BODY SCAN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyy3dHW4cSw&t=71s