Resistance to Meditation
Nothing great was borne of staying comfortable.
Resistance to meditation is normal, and it doesn't make you a 'bad meditator.' But understanding why it occurs and how to overcome it may be the difference between a consistent practice and the realisation of the results of that in daily life, and that pesky resistance getting the better of you.
Resistance occurs as a result of the mind's tendency to favour the 'known'. It actually prefers you to stay in the stressed, less evolved state, because it's so habituated to it that it's become your comfort zone. But nothing great was born of staying comfortable.
Growth always comes from stepping into the unknown. You stepped into the unknown when you learned to meditate, with very little idea of what the course, or technique would bring, and often felt shifts & change occur immediately. Our practice rapidly dissolves stress and involves consistently stepping beyond the known, 'transcending' the mind and experiencing layers of awareness which are beyond the active thinking layer, and sometimes beyond thought altogether (even if only for a moment).
The effect of this is not to be underestimated. Each time our mind steps beyond the active thinking layer, and we experience the subtler strata of consciousness & pure Being we expand our awareness. Our consciousness and awareness grows. Pure Being, pure consciousness starts to imprint itself on our thoughts, actions and sense of identity, incrementally. We align ourselves with, and become one with our Universal Self. This is happening even when we don’t feel ‘deep’.
What we lose in this process, is the ever-repeating known of our previous state of consciousness, and crucially, our stresses. All the imprints, the samskāras (impressions) which have been deeply scored into the nervous system through a lifetime of experiences, all the now irrelevant stress triggers begin to be dissolved. These stresses are a bit like overstayers that have found a home deep in the house of your mind & body. Before meditation, you were living in the front room of the house only, with all the other rooms full of a collection of irrelevant stresses gathering dust kept firmly shut behind you, but acting like viruses in the background - sucking energy, creating irrelevant responses & limiting you from accessing the full bandwidth of your mental capacity. When you begin meditating you turn the light on in all of these rooms, the expansion does not allow us to continue to ignore parts of ourselves and our awareness. These squatters are evicted one by one, meditation by meditation.
Now sometimes these squatters don't want to lose the comfortable home they've had & the freeloading they've come to enjoy for a very long time. They kick up a bit of a fuss as they're thrown out the front door and we experience some sensation of this. We feel some faint anxiety, some irritability, some frustration or a sense that we want to just get up and out of meditation which may be accompanied by thoughts reflective of this stress leaving the body: 'I'm not enjoying this, my older meditations were better, I just want to get on with my to do list, I don't even feel deep this is a waste of time.'
We want to recognise what is happening here, that the squatters are being evicted, the very stresses that we want to be free of are leaving the building, and it's ok if we don't love every meditation. What's important is that we just do our meditation. We sit for 20 minutes twice a day, we let nature, our body and consciousness take over and re-organise the system for a higher functioning, more blissful, lighter experience of life. Is is better that we hold on to our stresses? That we stay stressed? That we allow those freeloaders to remain? You wouldn't allow it in a rental property, so surely your mind and body deserves to free of them as well. If this means some less than comfortable meditations, it's beyond worth it. If meditation feels light and busy that's good - lots of stress is leaving.
The resistance is borne of the changes which are occurring. The stresses which are leaving. The higher consciousness state which is being established. The transcending of the known into the unknown, the state of pure Being. The mind, and the existing stresses resist the change, so we experience resistance. If we can understand the deeper nature of this process, and accept that it's a normal function of the mind but simply override it then we will gain great benefit from consistency of our practice. We override the temptation to skip meditation, or to cut it short. We put attention on the long term gains outside of meditation. We take ourselves to the chair, regardless of the stories the mind is making about all the other more important things we have to do (none of which will change our life or expand our consciousness), and simply start meditating.
We have the most effortless technique of meditation that exists. It’s called nishkam karma yoga - which means union of individual self with Universal Self (‘yoga’), through action (‘karma’), hardly done (‘nishkam’). Even thinking about meditating is harder than actually meditating. Take yourself to the chair twice today and see how you feel. Make yourself and your state of consciousness a priority. You deserve it. Your family deserves it. The world demands it.
If you've been struggling to stay consistent then come along to Group Meditation and be re-inspired. I'm happy to support you in restarting your practice, and look out for free refresher sessions in the New Year (register your interest).
Wishing you all the best with your meditation and the Christmas season ahead.
Much love and Jai Guru Deva*
Georgia x
*victory of light over darkness/ignorance
