What to Do When You Fall Out of Practice
Recently I fell out of my meditation practice. It's not the first time nor will it be the last. The beginning of 2023 and pretty much all of December was a shitshow. However, by now I have rebooted my practice so many times that I just run the same old drill to get back on track. This time around it occurred to me that some people might benefit from hearing more about the process.
There are many reasons for why our practice may destabilize. Sickness or health challenges, work or school demands, unexpected schedule changes, and traumatic events are just a few such causes.
So what do you do when your practice crumbles?
The most reliable way to ensure you never meditate again is to scold yourself, judge yourself, and be hard on yourself. The moment your meditation sittings are framed as a burden, you will lose the spirit of practice.
Life happens. It's fine. Making any kind of deal about your meditation practice just gets in the way. I treat my practice the same as brushing my teeth. I will elaborate on that in a moment. When we fall out practice, what matters is how we choose to move forward.
Therefore here are the important points to keep in mind when rebooting your practice:
Rebooting is just like starting your practice in the first place. It is easier in that you already know you can do it. It may be harder in that you might feel less enthusiastic about it.
If you aren't feeling enthusiasm about restarting your meditation practice, that's okay. Instead you can regard it like brushing your teeth. This is what I do. It keeps expectations to a minimum so you can leave space for the session to be what it is. When it's time to brush our teeth, we don't have a great deal of expectations on the matter. Also, we do not ask ourselves if we feel like or want to brush our teeth. We just do it.
Evaluate your daily routine and find a reliable time period in which you can sit for practice. Coupling meditation with a daily activity helps consistency. I meditate after I work out; either before or after I shower.
The single most important advice for starting, continuing, or rebooting a meditation practice is doing it daily. Overall it is much more effective and supportive to do a short daily meditation than a longer meditation just a few days per week.
Once you get back to meditating daily, give yourself two or three weeks of consistent practice before adding another five minutes. If that stabilizes, great. If you notice yourself skipping sessions then go back to five minutes less.
The rest is fine-tuning and balancing, which you will be able to discern for yourself. The more you come to regard meditation as a choiceless daily activity like brushing your teeth, the easier it will be to initiate, sustain, and reboot.
I used to meditate an hour a day and I can easily sit for 30 or 60 minutes right now, today. But would I keep that up daily? Unlikely right now. So I am doing something I know I can and will do every day: 15 minutes.
No matter how busy my job and lifestyle has gotten at various times, it is rare that I don't even have 15 minutes to spare. It is a reliable duration.
There is no need to make things more complicated or more difficult than they already are. Work with what you have and move forward from where you are now. Be determined and strategic.
Meditation is something you can do your entire life. It will enhance neuroplasticity and unlock your potential, it will free you from the limiting aspects of your ego, illuminate you with the same light that illuminates every experience of happiness you have ever had, and it will reveal a peace that exceeds your understanding. Oh, and realization and embodiment of enlightenment. 😁
LY
