I failed at meditation for years

I failed at meditation for years…

Yep, for about 7 years I bumbled my way around meditation, knowing the benefits that some were achieving with this profound ancient practice but for me, it was getting to the point where I thought, well:

Meditation maybe just isn’t for me.

You see my introduction to Meditation came at a time where I knew I needed it, life had really seemed to have lost its shine.

Having left a high paying position where I really had discovered that chasing money for money’s sake left me feeling hollow, and wondering what next.

It was at a party where a friend mentioned they just done Vipassana. And as soon as he described it, I knew it was for me.

If you haven’t heard of Vipassana it is like the cage fighting equivalent in the meditation world. It’s hardcore…

To learn this technique you have to do the following:

• 10 days of silence
• Not looking anyone in the eye
• meditating for up to 8-10 hours a day
• A bell goes off every morning way before first light (you start to dread this dong….)
• Sit cross-legged on the floor (now for a guy who has injuries to hips and bad lower back the idea of this alone used to bring a tear to my eye)
• Sit for 1 hour at a time and DO NOT MOVE at all

Safe to say after 10 days, yes I felt amazing but my challenge was always going to be incorporating this practice into my daily routine as you are meant to meditate for 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon. Hard when you have businesses, young family, social activities and surf (if the surf was pumping it was excruciating).

And I’d give it a good go, but after a month or so I would break the habit and that was it, done. Which was followed by a gradual decline back down the hill of hopelessness (slight exaggeration).

Eventually I would get to a place whereby I again, knew I needed to be meditating, you’d read all the scientific benefits, hear others singing its praises and I just really felt deep down this was my path but because I thought Vipassana was meditation as that was all I was aware of, I was at a loss.

So I would end up tail between my legs, checking back into Vipassana again several times to reignite my meditation, only for it to follow the same path as the first.

This then led me to explore other forms of meditation such as mindfulness, guided meditations, apps, binaural beats and more.

But none really felt that effective for me, no game changer. Vipassana did, but it was just too arduous for my lifestyle.

That’s what led eventually to Vedic Meditation and I am ever, ever so thankful I kept looking as from the day I started to today I barely miss a meditation (small lie, on holidays a few years ago I probably missed a week or 2 but picked it straight back up).

So no matter where you are at with meditation and if you have tried some and feel it is not for you, keep your mind open as when you find it, you will be eternally grateful as it gives us access to so much that our “busy minds” never let us see otherwise.

If you are keen to find out more come along to our next Vedic Meditation information talk or give me a call on 0405 240 688