How to Meditate: Even If You Think You Can’t

Q: How many thoughts is normal?

Something in the region of forty or fifty a minute, which comes out somewhere near fifty six thousand a day. You are not unusually noisy.

Q: Are you good at this now?

No. I still find it hard after about ten years, and I say so most weeks. Difficulty is not evidence that it is not working.

Q: Which of the three should I start with?

Focus, because it is the most obvious when your mind wanders and therefore the easiest to practise. Most of my guided meditations use all three in that order anyway.

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meditation-how-to · mindfulness · overthinking · breath

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Welcome to this week's podcast, how to Meditate.

Even if you think you cannot now, then this podcast is on both

of my podcasts, Stillness in the Storms podcast, and also Inner

Peace Meditations.

So if you're listening to this on Inner Peace Meditations and you're

expecting as normal a guided meditation, this is going to be a

guided meditation at the end, but only after I explain the first

part about understanding meditation and the second part, the

three forms of meditation, and then I'm going to give you a guided

experience.

And I want to do this because so many people believe, just like

I did for probably 20 years, that I couldn't meditate.

The meditation is too hard for me because my mind's too active,

I'm too fidgety.

I just cannot shut off my mind.

I cannot focus on one object, things like that, all of those different

things that used to come up into my mind.

I just want to get rid of some of those common myths.

And I want to prove by the end of this podcast that anybody can

meditate.

So if you think you cannot meditate, stay till the end.

And if you still think that, message me, head over to stephenweb.uk

and message me.

I want to hear from you.

I want to hear from you.

Anyway, I love hearing from my listeners.

I love hearing from you.

Anyway, just before we start, thank you to all my supporters, people

that treat me to a coffee and donate towards the podcast.

That's the way in which they really keep going.

They're not cheap to host, they're not cheap to produce and

edit and get done.

But I do really appreciate.

I don't have a sponsor.

I choose not to because it's for you and you guys help to pay

for it.

So thank you from the depth of my heart, I really appreciate that.

Let's get on with today's show.

So demystifying meditation and making it accessible, really, I just

want to tell you, firstly, meditation is not about silence in

the mind.

It's not about some peaceful utopia.

It's not about finding this inner bliss or communicating with

aliens.

It's not about, I don't know, just becoming some magical lotus

flower or anything like that.

The real meditation is about a deeper insight.

It's about understanding how you work, how your body works, how

your mind works, and getting a deeper insight to what you are and

what you're not, you know, going beyond the narrative of the

ego.

But if you want to just do meditation to be relaxed and feel

lovely and fluffy, you know, run a bath, light some candles on

some Good music, that's much more beneficial.

And if you want to use meditation as a self help growth

thing, buy some self help books.

But if you want to really use meditation to have a little bit more

inner peace in life and to have a deeper insight, to understand

how the mind works, to have more control over how you respond

and how you stop reacting to things and how you stop making things

worse in life, and you want to know how your, how your emotions

and your mind and body and all connect, then meditation is for you.

Really now then, I'm not going to judge the other forms of meditation

that try to communicate with aliens or do all those other things.

It's just none of them.

I find that helpful when it comes to finding real, genuine freedom

from suffering.

And that's what I set out to on my meditation journey.

Every single book that I read told me I had to meditate.

That really annoyed me because I couldn't meditate.

I turn over another page, right, we think you should meditate,

practice mindfulness.

I was like, no way, I can't do that.

My mind does not shut off.

And if you spend five minutes with me or just 10 minutes with me,

you'll notice that I go from one subject to another.

I'm looking at a branch in one moment and talking about the tree

and then I'm talking about council that I'm talking about.

My mind is literally boom, boom, boom, constantly, one thing

after another.

I don't mind that.

It's fun, it's entertaining sometimes, but it used to drive me

insane.

I just wanted some inner peace.

I just wanted some quiet.

And especially when my thoughts were really intrusive and

really leading to really painful thoughts.

And I just wanted to shut them off.

The truth is, we don't want to stop all the thoughts.

We want to stop the thoughts that we don't want.

And that's the truth.

And the mind has evolved to think.

That's what it evolved to do.

It's what it's going to do.

Your heart is there to pump blood around your body.

Your liver is there to filter the blood.

Your muscles there to tense and let go when it's needed.

Your mind, your brain, the physical brain side is evolved to

think.

It's evolved to protect you.

It's done a really good job so far.

It doesn't know right or wrong.

It just wants to protect you and keep up the same habit and let

you get through life in the best way possible based on what you've

already done.

That's the narrative, that's the story.

Then if you want your mind to really shut off, the only time that

really happens, and it doesn't actually happen, you just don't have

no awareness of your mind thinking, that's in deep sleep.

All the other times your mind's going to be thinking stuff

up just the same as you think stuff up and then you have the feelings

arise.

So meditation, that's all perfectly normal.

So meditation, what that gives us is a sense of control over that

and what we do with it.

So the more we sit down to meditate, the more we realize how

chattery our mind is, how much our mind is like monkey mind is sometimes

explained.

You know, if I sit down to meditate, immediately my mind just

bombards me with thoughts.

And they're not even that important that they're just annoying.

Like what you're going to have for tea, you're feeling hungry.

What are you going to do next week?

You haven't posted that card, you haven't replied to that email.

Just check Facebook.

You need to do all these things, oh, why don't you write a

story?

Why don't you do this?

And it comes up all these brilliant ideas and all these things

you don't do.

And also the things that lead to feelings that we really do not

enjoy.

And the thing is, it's just one after the other.

The average person has something like 40 or 50 thoughts

every minute.

That's about 50.

I'm not doing maths.

In my head it's 56, 000 per day, apparently, something like that.

Anyway, I did not do that in my head.

I already knew that figure actually, unless there's a mathematician

listening.

And you know, I've got that totally wrong.

But it's so many thoughts per minute.

So meditation is not about getting rid of them.

It's about becoming aware of the thoughts and what to do with

them and whether to get on them or not.

So the three types of meditation, number one, focused meditation.

Now, when I say there's three types, there's lots of other types,

but these are the main three types.

I'm not going to cover mantra, transcendental or anything like that.

I'm going to cover the main three types that I use on the inner

peace meditations and the ones that have made the huge difference

in my life and being paralyzed, being, you know, overthinking.

I have adhd, I have dyslexia, and trust me, my mind is like, you

know, just on fire all the time, even trying to go sleep and

things like that.

So these are the three I use so focus meditation.

It's concentrating on a single point, like a breath or a mantra.

You could just go, right, literally, I'm breathing in, I'm

breathing out.

And you can count it, or you can look at a candle, or you can

just do anything that you're really focused on that one single

point.

And the everyday application for this is practicing during routine

activities like walking or, you know, waiting in line, or you

want to bring back some focus and calmness to a present situation.

Just, I'm going to breathe.

I want to calm this moment down.

And the other one is awareness meditation, the being aware of your

thoughts and surroundings without judgment.

So just taking a breath, you go, okay, focus on my breath.

Now I'm just aware of my breath.

Ah, there's a feeling.

I'm aware of that.

Ah, there's a sound.

I'm aware of that.

Ah, there's an itch.

I'm aware of that and just becoming aware of it, but without

doing anything with it.

That's just awareness meditation.

It's almost.

It's very similar to mindfulness.

You can be out walking and you're just seeing everything around

you and all that.

You're just aware of it.

But you know, you don't have to do anything with it.

And you can practice this during anything, like doing dishes

or mopping the floor or going for a walk.

Anything really.

Even just walking the dog.

You can be really mindful like the dog is.

We often think the dog's mindfulness got nothing in its head.

Trust me, the dog's probably thinking about his food and everything

as well.

You know, I want to get home.

It's gold, my food.

So the third one is intention meditation, and that's setting intentions

for how you want to feel or what you want to achieve.

And I use this meditation to a be productive.

Sometimes I pretend in the morning that I've got a table and

I bring the most productive people in the world and the ones

I admire and the ones I really think are doing a really good job.

There's normally somebody like Gandhi or a couple of really good

politicians that I admire.

Things like that.

Nelson Mandela and people like that, and my doctor people.

And I go around the table and I say, what should I work on today?

And I allow each one of them to answer me.

My doctor tells me to eat healthier, do some exercise.

Gandhi says, you know, be a little more caring, open your heart

a little bit more.

It's nearly always the same answers.

It's known yours.

But it's really important to set that intention for the day.

You can also have loving kindness, intention, where you're

just opening your heart to the suffering in the world, or opening

your heart and including someone else in your love.

You can imagine sat next to someone on a bench and that person's

in the same bubble as you and just imagine loving them.

So that's like setting, setting an intention.

And they're the three main meditations that I use.

And in just a moment, we're going to do it.

I'll do a guided meditation with all three of those, because

nearly all of my meditations, especially on inner peace meditations,

normally have all three involved.

I always start off with a focus, focus on something and then

open our awareness, because the more open we become, the more

curious we become, the more playful and the more we're able to

absorb ideas and learn more and then just leave it with some

intention, like, may I be happy, may I be loved, may I be at

peace.

And it just gives that intention for the next few hours

or the day.

So I hope that makes sense.

Right, so we're a good few minutes into this podcast, and I

just want to settle down and.

And the reason why I've done this podcast is because I get quite

a few emails about I find meditation really hard and things

like that.

I do as well.

I find meditation really hard even now.

And I've been an avid meditator for what, 10 years now.

I started when I was first 27.

I did it for about three minutes, and I gave up completely

because my mind would not shut off.

I started it again when I was 40, and that's when I hit rock bottom.

And every single book told me to meditate, and I was like, can't

do it.

In the end, yes, I gave it a go.

The thing is, if one person comes and tells you, you should try

this, you can go, okay, maybe there's something in it.

If two people tell you, you can go, okay, there probably is something

in it.

But if every book, if everybody's telling you that there's

something in it, there must be something in it.

So I had to give it a try.

So let's do a little guided meditation, and we're going to start

off with focus.

Then we'll do awareness, and then we'll do intention.

So just allow your body to relax, maybe wiggle your bum, get

comfortable, wiggle your shoulders and get comfortable.

And just become aware of your breath and focus on the air going

in through your nose, the way your chest rises and the way it changes

direction and just falls and the Air comes back out and then it

repeats.

Then bring your focus to your body.

Allow your body to relax.

Allow your shoulders, neck and your face to relax.

Now I want you to really home in on sound.

We're going to focus completely on sound.

You can hear the sound of my voice, you can hear my words, the

gaps between them.

You may be able to hear some humming somewhere in the background

in your house, perhaps you're out in nature and you can hear something.

Don't miss a single sound.

Really narrow down each single sound.

The beginning, the middle, the end.

But don't do anything with the sound.

Just allow it to happen.

And what this focused meditation does, it just trains the

mind to do one thing.

Just listen.

Just listen.

And the mind will want to wander and go off into the story

and do other things and just bring it back.

And the more you do it, the more it will learn to focus.

The wandering is normal.

That's perfectly normal.

It happens all the time.

If your mind didn't try to wander and do something else, I would

be a bit concerned.

And now open your awareness.

Instead of really focusing on the sound, just allow the sound to

come in.

Allow your awareness of your breath.

At the same time, open the awareness to the temperature of the

room you're in.

And you just allowing more and more to come in.

And you allow in this moment to be exactly what it is.

You're not changing or doing anything with it.

You're neither enjoying it, but you're not loathing it either.

It's one of those things that you're just accepting.

And you notice you can be aware of your breath, you can be

aware of your thoughts and be aware of the taste in your mouth,

but you're not any of those.

You're not the taste in your mouth, you're not your thoughts,

you're not your breath any more than you are your feelings.

Because if you were any of them, you couldn't be aware of them.

And now we'll move on to intention.

So in a meditation with intention, we have something we'd

like to manifest or bring to our feelings or to the day ahead.

So in the morning, we might have the intention of being grateful,

finding a couple of things to be grateful for.

And we can do that now.

Think of something to be grateful for, something in your life

that if you woke up tomorrow and it wasn't there, you would miss

it.

Then imagine bringing that back into your life now, what it's

like to have it, and the feeling of joy in your body and the

warmth, and think of Something else that if you lost it today and

it's not there, what does it feel like not to have?

Could be something big like your house or your car, or it could

be just your pillow.

And again, imagine what it's like to have your pillow back or

your house or your car.

And another way we can use intention is to hold an intention

for the day.

So maybe you've got a hard day ahead of you where you might have

to go to work, or you've got the kids all day because they're

off school.

Whatever the reason for your hard day, you might say an affirmation

to I've got a tough day ahead, but I've got this.

I'm strong and I can get through today.

And just having a mantra like that or an affirmation like that

sets the intention of belief.

And then we can do the loving kindness, may I be loved.

And imagine what that feels like to be loved completely.

May I be happy, may I be well.

Then we go the other way around.

May I be well, may I be happy.

And finally, we'll end the intention with may I be loved.

And just bring your awareness back to your breath.

And that's a real fast tour of the three different types.

Focusing singly on something or just opening your awareness to

be curious to this moment or setting an intention.

And it doesn't matter what you choose to do, when you choose to

do it.

You could pull up to the traffic lights and you could go,

just what can I hear?

You could be in a queue and just say, may I be loved, may I be

happy, may I get to the front of the queue.

We can always set that intention as well.

So if you just shake your arms and open your eyes and if you had

them closed and just become aware of the room you're in.

And I just want to thank you for listening to this podcast because

I know it's a bit different on inner peace meditations, they're

literally just meditations to help you with something in particular.

And Stillness in the Storms is a podcast that it's just me talking

about different things and how to get a little more inner peace

when we need it most.

And by uploading this podcast to both podcasts or this podcast

episode to both podcasts, hopefully some people from.

Or if you've listened to one and not the other, you might cross

over and listen to the other.

But I just wanted to let you know that you can meditate.

Even with the most busiest, craziest minds, you can meditate.

And not one time did I try to get you to quieten your mind.

Not one time did I try to get you to stop your thoughts.

It's just not going to happen.

It's not going to happen.

So thank you.

I'm Stephen Web, and thank you for listening.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

And I don't know if I'll do another podcast that jumps over both

of them, but maybe I will.

You can contact me on stephenweb.uk just go to that website

there, you can support the podcast, you can see other links,

you can read my blogs, and again, you can contact me.

Thank you.

And I love you, Sam.

How to Meditate: Even If You Think You Can’t

In this episode

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The transcript

One calm email.
Every Sunday.

How to Meditate: Even If You Think You Can’t

In this episode

The question this answers

The heart of it

One small thing to try

Questions people ask

The transcript

More honest conversations

One calm email. Every Sunday.

One calm email.
Every Sunday.