meditate daily

I was doing this for a couple months pretty much every day, but then I moved, traveled for a few months, moved again, and changed jobs. Through all the changes I kept this goal as undone so that I could get reminders, but lack of a consistent place has made this hard to install as a daily habit. I’ve tried setting a time everyday to meditate, but I’m too frequently in the middle of something at the time I tried setting so gave up on that. Having a place and a general time really helps get me motivated enough to sit.

Now that I’m settled in one place again, I’m going to do 30 days and check them off on the calendar as I go. This is how I’ve gotten daily habits installed in the past. Once I get to the end of the 30 days continuing is usually very easy. Here goes!

For a few months I was doing really well with this goal. Almost every evening for more than two months month I was sitting down for 20 minutes to an hour to sit quietly and practice some form of meditation. It was a pleasant experience, but I didn’t feel like it was changing my life.

I’m not sure what happened, but suddenly I just stopped for the last couple months – and that’s when I noticed some things start to slip. I realized I wasn’t able to focus on things as deeply as I had been. I felt less in control of my moods. I was less organized and more scatterbrained. I felt stressed by things that I knew weren’t that big a deal.

I think the benefits of a daily meditation practice take longer to develop than they do to fade away once you stop, so they’re more noticeable when you quit. So now I’m looking forward to recommitting myself to this goal and enjoying all those benefits again.

I really do want to do this every day, and I’ve been doing a good job recently. I’ve been motivated by listening to The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young. I got it off Audible and it’s pretty good. It has some nice guided meditations as well as quite a bit of explanation.

Anyway, I seem to be close to integrating this as a habit, but it’s not there yet.

I’ve been marking an M on a calendar for every day I meditate and so far I’m lucky to average three times a week. I’ve been getting better though the last few weeks, both at quieting my thoughts quickly and actually doing it. I think next month I might mark every day with an M and check off the days I meditate. It’s a small change, but I think I’ll have better motivation to cross things off than to mark M’s.

I used to meditate regularly for a few months and I just seem to remember how good it felt. I forgot what a struggle it was to get to a point where I could sit down for 20 minutes at a time and turn my thoughts off. Now that I’ve started back up again I have trouble just sitting still for 10 minutes, let alone staying focused for 20.

I’m sure it’ll come back to me, but until it does maybe I need some assistance from a meditation soundtrack I used to use called Holosync. They make all sorts of crazy claims about its benefits, and it’s quite a pleasant soundtrack, but even after using it for a few months I’m dubious. I wish I had an EEG to measure my brain waves and see how much a different Holosync made. I’ve even considered building my own with designs from the Open EEG Project. Has anyone else tried holosync?