Top 5 Myths About Meditation 🧘‍♀️

Hey guys, Natalie Moore here, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and I'm excited to make a video today about the 5 most common myths about meditation. So the reason why this is a topic I'm really interested in is because I actually incorporate a lot of meditative practices and meditative traditions into the work that I do with counseling my clients, and I find that when I first bring up mindfulness or meditation, I get a lot of pushback initially from clients, and I've noticed that there are some really common misconceptions that a lot of people have about what meditation is. So let's get started. Number 1, the first myth that I hear a lot is people will say, "Oh, I can't meditate," or "I'm not good at meditating," or "I've tried it and it just doesn't work for me." So what I say to this is that there's really no such thing as being good or bad at meditation. I actually heard a quote recently that was, "We meditate to get good at life, not to get good at meditating." And so really there's no way of being bad at it. Another way I describe it often with clients is that it's like building a muscle. We don't go to the gym and expect to just be really strong and lift the heaviest weights, right? We go to the gym to become strong. Stronger. We go and we meet ourselves where we're at, and we start with the weights that we can handle, and over time we get stronger and stronger. It's the same thing. Meditation is like a workout for the brain. Number 2, I often hear people say that they can't meditate because they can't get rid of their thoughts. So the second myth here is that meditation is about removing all thoughts from the mind, and that's actually not true. The type of meditation that I teach my clients, which is called mindfulness, is all about bringing non-judgmental awareness to the present moment. That involves actually observing your thoughts, noticing your thoughts, being curious about your thoughts. It doesn't mean that we're trying to get rid of them. We actually just want to be an observer of them. So there's also this concept of we're either thinking or we're in a state of awareness. And so part of mindfulness is kind of moving from a thinking state to a state of awareness, but even then it doesn't mean that you're trying to get rid of your thoughts. That's not the goal of mindfulness. Okay, the third misconception I often hear is people think that meditation is either a type of religion or is, you know, against certain religions, and that's absolutely not the case. So most spiritual traditions have some sort short of prayer or meditation where you're bringing yourself into the moment, you're grounding yourself. But the type of meditation that I teach my clients, which is mindfulness, has been completely secularized at this point. Yes, it does stem from Buddhist tradition, but the way it's taught in the U.S. these days by meditation instructors, therapists, yoga teachers, all kinds of different people, is in a way that really strips away any of the religious aspects of it and is simply about bringing awareness to the present moment. And that really doesn't go against any religion that I can think of. Number 4, this is a really common misconception. A lot of people say that they wish they could meditate but that they don't have the time. So when I hear this one, I will often ask people, "Well, do you ever have 5 minutes? Yes or no?" If it's no, hopefully it's not no, but if it is, "Do you ever have 1 minute to yourself?" And of course everybody has to say yes, they have 1 minute to themselves. Meditation can be 1 minute. You can choose to set an alarm on your phone, a timer on your phone for 1 minute, and to put the phone down and for that 60 seconds just focus on your breath, or just focus on the sounds around you, or just notice the tactile sensations on your body. That's meditation, and we all have time for that. Even if you don't have the minute to do a sitting practice, you can bring a meditative awareness to your daily activities. When you're brushing your teeth, you're just brushing your teeth. When you're walking the dog, you're just walking the dog, meaning that you're not ruminating about your to-do list or the things that you need to get done. You're just focusing on the sensations in that moment. Number 5, this one I haven't heard as much, but I did hear it once, and so I think it would be important to note. I actually heard from someone that they read an article about somebody who meditated and went crazy, and this person was averse to to meditating because they were afraid that they were going to go crazy. And I had to remind them that meditation is simply bringing awareness to the present moment. I don't think that anyone would be afraid that if they focus too much on their work or focus too much on spending time with their child or focus too much on a writing project that they would be afraid that they would go crazy. But that's simply what meditation is. It's simply focusing your mind on an anchor, which is something that brings you back into the present moment. So either your breath or a sound or a sight, something that's happening in the moment. So I hope that these misconceptions and myths were really helpful for you to hear and for me to demystify the whole experience for you. If you feel like I might be a good fit for you, if you have, you know, if you live in LA and you're looking for a therapist or somebody to help you, you know, mindfulness coaching or even breathwork, I'd love for you to reach out. I'll leave my phone number in the comments below. Take good care, and I hope to see you guys soon in another video. Bye!