Trying to figure out why mindfulness meditation isn’t working for you?
Here’s five reasons why that might be…
I’ll also include a meditation that will work for you.
So, let’s get started!
One.
Mindfulness meditation won’t help stop your thinking
A lot of people say that the thing they struggle with the most during their meditation is too much thinking. They can’t seem to ‘get out of their head’.
Most mindfulness meditation techniques will try to help you ‘get out of your head’ by using techniques such as body scanning or focusing on your breath.
The only problem with this is, these techniques are purely thought-based. Body scanning is thinking about your body, and labelling any pain or discomfort… using thought.
Focusing on your breath is just thinking about breathing.
Which is the reason these techniques never really help people to stop thinking, they’re just more – sneaky – thinking. Which keeps the person trapped ‘in their head’.
What mindfulness meditation and these techniques are overlooking is that there is nothing wrong with your thoughts or with any thinking during meditation.
You can think of thoughts like an off-gassing of any feelings, traumas or disturbances that you’re dealing with in your meditation.
As long as you don’t entertain the thoughts and just allow them to be there, buzzing away in the background, they aren’t a problem.
Two.
Mindfulness meditation will only give you momentary relief
When using a technique as you do during mindfulness meditation, you are being taken away from how you are feeling and the disturbances and traumas trapped in your body.
This will obviously give you a momentary sense of relief because you are being distracted from the pain, this doesn’t make the pain go away however.
It’s like if you have a stomach ache and you try to distract yourself from the pain by watching a movie or listening to music. This doesn’t make the pain better it just disconnects you from it for a while. And as soon as you stop distracting yourself, you’ll feel the pain again.
It’s the same with all mindfulness meditation techniques, because you’re just distracting yourself, and you’re not healing or resolving the root of the feeling, the pain will come back.
Which means you have to keep doing the techniques to keep getting that moment of relief over and over and over again.
This means that mindfulness meditation won’t work for you if you’re looking to heal and resolve any feelings, disturbances or traumas. It will just make you feel good for a short period of time.
Three.
Mindfulness meditation only helps you suppress, not heal
Everywhere I look, mindfulness meditation is always talking about trying to change you.
Whether it’s trying to change how you feel, how you are, your mindset, perspective or even (according to some articles) the shape of your brain.
Mindfulness seems to have this obsession with always trying to be positive or trying to change the way you are or how you feel, but this is so unhealthy and unnatural.
This is basically just telling you that the way you are, the way you feel, is wrong.
That doesn’t seem very mindful to me.
In thinking you need to change you’re overlooking the importance of the condition you’re in and why you’re in that condition.
You are the way you are and you feel the way you feel for a very good reason. It’s is the result of what you have been through in life, or carry in your body, but are yet to resolve.
Whatever that is, trying to change it, or thinking it’s wrong to be a certain way, is the problem, and won’t help you resolve how you’re feeling.
What mindfulness meditation is overlooking is that you cannot change by TRYING to change, that’s just suppressing how you’re feeling and putting a nice shiny cover over the top and pretending that’s how you are. This cannot and will never help heal or change how you are. How you really feel is still there inside of you underneath stewing away.
In order to resolve (not change) how you are feeling or what condition you’re in right now you need to FEEL it, really feel how you feel and just accept that. Don’t judge it or try to change it, just accept that this is how you are.
Only once you accept and understand yourself exactly as you are, and stop trying to suppress and change yourself, will you start to heal and naturally change.
So mindfulness meditation will never help you resolve the way you are feeling, because the fundamental motivation of the approach is constantly trying to change you.
Four.
Mindfulness meditation prevents you going deep
Thinking and anything thought-based is shallow. Meaning mindfulness meditation – which is thought-based – is shallow and keeps you distracted and disconnected from your pain.
This gives you a fake feeling of happiness or relief because you are no longer in contact with the way you feel.
But this disconnection stops you being able to take your meditation deeper.
To go deep in your meditation, you need to learn how to physically sense and feel your sense of being alive as you are, however that feels for you. And you cannot do this if you are caught up in thought-based ideas or meditation techniques, because they disconnect you from the physical sense and feeling of you in your body.
The only way to get depth is to go beneath any thinking (e.g. techniques or outside ideas) into the sensations felt within your body.
Therefore mindfulness meditation will never allow you to go to any depth in your meditation because it isn’t focused on the body. It’s only focused on the thinking.
Five.
Mindfulness meditation disconnects you from your healing process
Because of this disconnection and distraction that mindfulness meditation is creating, you are unable to get in contact with the pain, disturbances and issues within you that need to be healed and resolved.
In order to heal and resolve any issues or pains, you need to feel them to their full extent and be with them as they are.
If you are regularly being disconnected, distracted and hypnotised by thoughts and outside ideas – which is what meditation techniques basically are – you are not in contact with those feelings, and so there is no way for you to feel and therefore heal them.
So, if you’re looking for a meditation to help you heal and resolve your feelings, disturbances, or mental and/or physical health issues, mindfulness meditation won’t work for you.
You cannot resolve an inside problem with an outside solution.
Instead, you need come back to the physical feelings and sensations inside of you and just be with that. Feel how you are feeling, without judgement or criticism, and let those feelings, disturbances and traumas just be there inside.
You’ll need to learn how to stop squashing them with positive thinking or thought-based techniques telling you how you should or should not feel.
So all of the reasons I’ve covered should help explain why you’re finding mindfulness meditation isn’t working for you, and why you may be feeling like you’re constantly facing the same issues, feeling stuck or like you can’t really get to the bottom of anything, even though you’re meditating regularly.
By its very nature, mindfulness meditation isn’t able to be deep or provide any lasting solution for real problems.
However, as I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I can provide a solution…
Have you heard of natural meditation?
It is a purely senses-based meditation that allows you to just simply meditate without any outside ideas or techniques getting in your way.
It’s a body-first approach to meditation, and is about sitting physically still and just allowing yourself to feel the feelings and sensations that are inside your body. This will allow you to take your meditation as deep as you want to, because it is not technique or thought-based.
By staying physically still with your feelings, you’re allowing yourself to sink beneath any thoughts or judgements about yourself and life, and just fully FEEL.
Through this, you will be able to heal, and resolve any pains, trauma and issues that arise during your meditation.
Natural meditation does not encourage you to change how you feel or are but allows you to just be with the way you are in that moment.
In fact it encourages you to accept yourself as you are right now, and understand that you are this way for a good reason.
Natural meditation is easy to learn and I can guarantee it will work for you, in ways that mindfulness can’t. You can learn more about it and an app that teaches you how to do it, here.
