How to Be Sure Your Teacher Knows Meditation

Recently, I had a blast from the past when I did a guided meditation with Lil Jon. I had heard that Lil Jon, who I had known only as a rapper and producer, had released an album of guided meditations (paid link). When I saw Peloton offer a guided meditation with him, I decided to give it a shot.

I have to be honest that Chelsea Jackson Roberts, a renowned teacher of yoga and other mind-body practices, did most of the heavy lifting on this particular meditation. Lil Jon offered a few words, but he didn’t truly guide the practice. And this is when I started pondering.

How Do You Know If Someone Knows Meditation?

This post is not about yucking anyone’s yum when it comes to meditation. There are a lot of ways that people can come to offer guided meditations and spiritual teachings. If people like Lil Jon bring people to meditation with their enthusiasm, then that is a good thing.

With that said, many people offer practices and mindfulness tips on the internet without training or even a regular meditation practice. Some of these individuals, like Lil Jon admits on the first track of his album, are upfront about these things but some are not.

In case you are wondering how you can tell if a teacher is a good source for meditation advice, here are some questions to ask.

1. What is your personal meditation practice like?

Training and education are important for anyone who wants to teach, but regular practice is still essential. Even after more than 1000 hours of training in mind-body practice, I can easily say that most of what I know about meditation came from meditating. Meditation is something that can make an impact even if you only do it for a little while. Yet, it’s also a skill that is best kept sharp.

Where possible, learning about a teacher’s practice, including style, number of years, typical session length, and retreat experience, can help you decide if they can support you. If you want to make a practice a long-term habit, it really helps to be guided by someone who has created one for themself.

2. What is the lineage of your teaching?

Meditation can mean a lot of things. Even within Buddhism, there are numerous lineages of teachings and meditation practices. Outside of this, there are still more.

I have an eclectic background myself, so I don’t profess to tell you which lineage is best here. However, if you are working with a meditation teacher or using a lot of their meditations, it helps to know the source of their teachings. In general, quality teachers will be upfront about this. If they aren’t, ask a question or do some Googling.

Image with question that asks how you know whether a person offering guided meditations knows what they are doing

3. What teacher training have you done?

If there’s one thing I hate about the legal profession, it’s the elitism some people display about law schools. I’m not here to apply that same elitism to meditation teacher programs, in part because I have done a variety of trainings and benefitted from them all.

With that said, you ought to consider whether the teacher you are working with has any training in meditation itself. Many yoga teachers offer meditation, but many basic (200-hour) yoga teacher trainings don’t offer instruction in meditation.

Likewise, it helps to know how many hours of training overall your teacher has done. If you are able to investigate the course requirements, it may also help you determine if the teacher’s training is enough for you.

4. Do you have other training that informs your teaching or use of meditation practices?

One thing that irritates me about discussions of meditation on the internet is that they are often oversimplified. Well-meaning people suggest that meditation is easy or make claims about it’s benefits that aren’t always justified. Even more common is that people fail to account for the risks, counter-indications, and adverse effects that go along with meditation.

For this reason, it is good to know if your teacher can help you modify practice or ensure your safety if you have past trauma, neurodivergence, or other health concerns. It may also help to know if your teacher has any special training in things relating to meditation, including mental health, fitness, yoga, compassion, or other modalities.

An image listing the questions from the blog post intended to help you determine if your teacher knows meditation

5. Do you teach meditation in any way besides offering guided meditations?

There is a difference between teaching meditation and guiding meditation. With a good script, a person with a nice voice and calm demeanor could easily guide a pretty relaxing meditation. The problem is that such a person may not have the training to know which practice to offer when or how to watch a student or audience for signs of distress.

If you are confident in your own ability to select meditations that work for you and modulate yourself in practice, this may not pose much of a risk. However, there may be a limit on what such a person could offer if you have questions about practice or need more support as your practice evolves. If this concerns you, ask whether the person teaches, with explicit instruction or talks, in addition to guiding meditation.

6. What ethical or accreditation standards guide your teaching?

Lawyers have ethical rules that guide our conduct with clients. When it comes to spiritual teachers and guides, ethical standards are much less universal. Some yoga teachers may be subject to ethical rules if they are members of accrediting organizations like Yoga Alliance. Likewise, teachers who are also mental health providers or affiliated with a Buddhist organization are likely subject to ethical requirements.

Many other teachers, even certified teachers, may not be subject to any written ethical codes. Of course, this does not mean that such teachers are unethical or unqualified. It may mean, however, that you must ask to determine if the teacher’s ethical values align with your needs.

Conclusion

This post is not intended as an outline to cross-examine anyone who offers guided meditations. My goal is to make meditation more accessible and not to serve as a gatekeeper for meditation practice.

With that said, there are many people who offer meditation or talk about mindfulness concepts and not all of them have training or experience. I offer this post to help you get curious about the people who may be supporting your practice with teachings or guided meditations. Use the questions to satisfy your curiosity, meet your personal needs, and protect your safety.

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.

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How to Meditate When You Can’t See Mental Images

If you aren’t a writer, artist, or meditation teacher, you may not have investigated how clear mental images are for you. I have long known that I am not a “visual person” but I didn’t realize how “not visual” I am until I tried to meditate. Mental imagery for me is, at best, hazy and short-lived and requires intentional effort.

Most people may not think this is a big deal, but I do because I am a meditation teacher and a writer. Anyone who meditates has likely come across some visualization techniques in meditation practice. Because I meditate, I am acutely aware of my own past struggles with these practices. I couldn’t avoid them entirely, however, because many heart practices, including my favorite loving-kindness, use some form of visualization.

This is why I looked closer at the issue and got training in neurodiversity-informed mindfulness to understand it better. Based on this, I have learned to modify my meditation practice to work around my inability to visualize. This post will identify the tips that worked for me.

1. Meditate on Your Mental Visual Ability

Did you know that there is a condition called “aphantasia” which refers to the inability to see mental images? If you haven’t heard of this, you aren’t alone. I had only discovered it recently myself. Aphantasia is not a mental disorder or something that necessarily indicates a health condition. Instead, it’s just a way to describe one’s relative ability to see mental images.

Image with a self-test for aphantasia that can help you identify how strong your ability to visualize mental images

Test Option A

The good news for all of us is there is a handy test for exploring your ability to visualize yourself. As the image here shows, bring an apple to mind. Consider how detailed it is. Can you see color, shape and details? How long does the image stay in your mind? How easy is it for you to hold it there?

Test Option B

Another way to consider this is to talk about it with others. I started to understand the impact of my mental visual ability better when I was training to teach mindfulness and compassion. After one guided practice, a classmate described an elaborate image of a butterfly with beautiful colors graceful fluttering wings.

Based on both categories of tests, I don’t have aphantasia but I know that I am pretty close to it. I can see images but they are glimpses at best and I have to work really hard to hold them in my mind. My mind would never generate an elaborate image of a butterfly even if I tried really hard.

2. Don’t Judge Yourself

You may have already guessed what I am going to say next. Yeah, that’s right, this is where self-compassion has to join the party. To be honest, I felt a little jealous when I heard my classmate talk about her beautiful butterfly. It sounded cool. I wished I could see it myself.

But, I avoided judging myself and not just because the course in which this discussion happened was about teaching compassion cultivation. When my classmate shared her story, it helped me share my own. I am not blessed with mental visualization but I have other strengths (as I’ll discuss below).

If I focused too much on my reactions of what I couldn’t do, I risked missing the chance to explore what I could do. Beyond this, it’s not like self-judgment or criticism would help. Thus, my advice when considering your own ability to visualize is to avoid judging yourself.

Image with a quiz that allows self-reflection of mental imagery, including how detailed, how clear and vivid, how easy it is to hold, and how long the imagery lasts

3. Meditate on Other Areas of Strength

If there was a test like the one above for the ability to detect physical sensations in the body, I would get high ratings. After I got comfortable with my body and learned to attend to it, I realized that my awareness of felt sensations is strong. I can note subtle differences in sensation, hold my attention on them for a long time, and this comes without effort.

Similarly, when it comes to verbal and auditory processing, I am pretty sensitive. My mind doesn’t think in pictures but words are ever present. Music affects me deeply and the auditory quality of words is a skill I rely on frequently in writing, public speaking, and crafting guided meditations.

This goes to show that a relative lack of ability in one area is not the same as a lack of ability overall. Even if you aren’t a visual person, you may have other strengths. Taking the time to identify other strengths may help you explore how to address a relative lack of visual ability.

4. Lean on Your Strengths as You Meditate

One approach for those of us who are not visual is simply to avoid meditations with visualization. For elaborately imaginative practices, I admit that this is generally what I do. This is not, however, my approach with for all styles of practice.

Because my ability to feel physical sensations is robust and comes easily to me, I have a come up with my own meditation hack. What this boils down to is that I don’t take the word “visualize” literally. When I am told to “visualize” something, I don’t force a mental image. Instead, I connect with the felt sense of something.

How to Visualize When You Can’t Visualize

For example, if I am told to visualize being outside on a nature walk, I don’t try to force images of grasses, trees, and the sky in my mind. Instead, I connect with the sensory and kinesthetic memory of walking in nature. I imagine the internal experience of walking in nature in terms of physical sensations.

If this sounds complicated, remember that physical sensation is easy for me. It may be complicated to describe in words but it is easy for me to do in practice. Even better,I can still participate in the meditation and get the same benefits all while doing it my way.

“Visualizing” Someone’s Presence for Loving-Kindness

I do something similar when it comes to loving-kindness. With that style of practice, the common instruction is to bring someone to mind and to allow that mental imagery evoke feelings in your heart area. For me, though, I cut out the middle man because imagery doesn’t help.

Instead, I bring someone to mind by name and connect with the felt sense of their presence. In particular, I may invoke a memory of how it feels to be in that person’s presence or I may notice the felt sense that emerges upon bringing their mind to name. Since loving-kindness practice includes consideration of felt sensations in the body, this style is fairly simple to modify for those of us who aren’t visual.

An image for modifications to meditation practice for those who don't see mental imagery or have limits in their ability to do so

5. Explore Other Options When You Meditate

My last point here is a simple reminder to keep exploring and being curious. I recently started exploring meditation with my eyes open and I was shocked to discover that it made mental images during meditation more vivid. I would have thoughts having content in my visual place would make inner visualizations impossible for me.

Upon investigation, though, I found that the opposite was true. Not only could I tell the difference between actual visual content and mental visual content, but also the mental visual content seemed more robust. What does this mean?

The big lesson here is that the procedures of your practice can influence your meditation experience. If you close or open eyes, listen to meditations or music, or sit or lie down, it very well may affect your inner experience. If you struggle with some aspect of practice or just get curious, it can be fun and eye-opening (pun intended) to see what a new mode of practice offers.

Conclusion

If mental imagery is not strong for you, it does not mean you can’t meditate. It doesn’t even mean that you can’t do meditations which include visualization. All of us are wired differently with various strengths and challenges. With self-compassion and curious exploration, you can learn ways to modify meditation practice even if visualization is not your strength.

If you would like to assess how visual you are, try this Guided Reflection. It will help you explore your capacity for visual imagery to your capacity for awareness of physical sensations. You can listen on YouTube here or on Insight Timer.

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The Right Intention Can Sustain a Meditation Practice

When I was new to meditation, I used to hate it when a guided practice would encourage me to “set an intention” for practice. I didn’t know what that meant. I was not used to thinking about my intentions or living my life as if I got to pick one. In general, I was sitting because I was tired or thinking too much or because I was trying to keep my meditation habit alive.

For a long time, this intention was enough to sustain my practice. Early on, the physical benefits of learning to manage my stress were so obvious that feeling better was my sole intention. In those days, I would sit and find some new energy or cure a headache. With benefits like those, the intention was apparent: I just wanted to feel better.

Rethinking Intention

This week, though, I have been thinking about the power of intention in a deeper way. I am preparing to give a dharma talk to my local meditation community about how I went from novice meditator to teacher. My path was far from perfect and includes a span of nearly a year in which my practice faded away entirely.

In the course of preparing the talk, I realized that a shift in intention made all the difference for me. Meditation has always been a self-care strategy for me. It helps me slow down, get in touch with myself, and care for myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. It helps me face challenges and remember self-compassion.

From Self-Care to Guiding Principle

At some point along the way, though, meditation became more than self-care for me. Eventually, after years of sitting, I started to realize that my meditation practice didn’t just help me care for myself better. Instead, meditation helped me take care of everybody I came in contact with better.

This is in part what led me to start teaching. I knew from personal experience that stress, anxiety, and overwhelm as a lawyer led to bad conduct and worse results. I began teaching other lawyers and professionals about mindfulness practices because they had made such a difference for me.

Image for blog post with options for common intentions for meditation practice

Intention Inspires Action

Over and above this, though, was the truth that I behaved better, acted more kindly, and was more available to help others when I kept my meditation practice robust. In fact, I have found that my practice is stronger when I am busy because I know that is when I need it most. Indeed, I even have increasingly made time to go on retreat because I know it makes me a calmer lawyer, more present parent, and a happier person all around.

Realizing these benefits helps me stick with my practice even when motivation is hard to muster. Even as a meditation teacher, my practice is far from perfect. I struggle with laziness, resistance, and excuses like anyone. Sometimes I am tired, I don’t feel good, or I just don’t feel like meditating.

These are the times when my intention helps me the most. I remember that I’m not just meditating for me. I’m meditating for everyone I love, for everyone I work with, everyone who depends on me, and everyone I meet. In short, I remember that I can give my best to others when I take care of myself first.

What Intentions for Meditation Are There?

There are different schools of thought about the intention which should guide meditation practice. If your intention is purely self-care, there is no shame in that. That was my sole motivation for years and it made a huge difference in my life.

If your intention is self-improvement, that can be wonderful too. In reality, I have experienced how a balanced effort to improve oneself can lead to more ethical living and benefit others.

Image asking the question what is your motivation for meditation practice

What Motivates Your Meditation Practice?

The point of this post is not for me or any other teacher to tell you what your intention should be. Rather, the point is to encourage you to discover the intention for your own mindfulness practice. You may not know what your intention is right away and that’s okay.

If you keep asking, though, you may eventually realize what is motivating you to keep meditating. Once you understand this you will discover a powerful motivational tool to help keep your practice robust. If you are lucky, you may also unearth a guiding principle that can positively influence the direction of your life.

If you have struggled with motivation for your meditation practice, we have some resources that might help. Check out our Meditation Habit Worksheet to see if any subtle tweaks can make a difference. You can also check out our Pause and Begin Again e-book, which offers strategies for starting and restarting a meditation practice. Lastly, consider ways to make your practice more enjoyable here.

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Three Simple Steps Lawyers Can Use to Build Self-Compassion

Cover image for the blog post Three Simple Steps Lawyers Can Use to Cultivate Self-Compassion

Self-compassion features prominently on this blog. In part that is because cultivating self-compassion is a huge part of my personal journey. I consider it one of the greatest gifts of my meditation practice and perhaps the biggest shift in my life. It is what helped me grow after decades of overthinking, anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

My story, though, is not unique. Self-compassion has been proven to help people achieve goals, build happiness, take risks, and foster closer relationships. Beyond this, even for those of us to whom it does not come naturally, self-compassion can be cultivated with practice and time.

But how do you “practice self-compassion.” The good news is that this this, too, has been researched. Thanks to the work of researcher and author, Kristin Neff, among others, we know that self-compassion has three primary aspects which any of us can use to learn to bring into your own life and work to help yourself.

1. Mindfulness

Many of us who struggle with self-compassion worry that it may cause us to become too soft on ourselves. We may be concerned that we will rest on our laurels, get a big head, or even overlook our own unethical or hurtful conduct. If this is you, you may be relieved to learn that mindfulness is an essential element of self-compassion.

At its heart, self-compassion means that we are sensitive to our own needs and suffering. In this way, mindfulness has to be there because we can’t be compassionate towards something of which we are unaware. This aspect can matter a lot for lawyers who are often focused on the suffering of others. Just acknowledging our own struggles is where mindfulness fits in in to self-compassion.

Beyond this, though, mindfulness is also a steadying and stabilizing force. This is what helps us notice things without getting lost in them. In the context of self-compassion, mindfulness is what helps us realize we are having a problem without piling on by taking the situation personally or judging ourselves for our reactions.

An image sharing the benefits of cultivating self-compassion for lawyers and others

2. Common Humanity

The next aspect of self-compassion is common humanity. This aspect helps us embed our individual struggle in the context of the human story. When bad things happen, it is very easy to think “why me” or “woe is me” or “I’m the worst person in the world.”

Invoking common humanity, though, helps you zoom out from this common storyline. Instead of responding “why me” when a hard situation happens, you may consider that bad things are an unfortunate but normal part of life. Instead of the self-pity of “woe is me” or self-judgment, you may remember that your story is like the stories of so many others.

This aspect of self-compassion is important for lawyers especially. In hard times, even the best of us may tend to self-isolate or get lost in shame. Common humanity is what helps us avoid that tangle because it reminds us of our connection to other people. At a minimum, this can help loosen the grip of self-judgment. Eventually, though, it may also help us seek out and accept kindness and support from our community when we need it most.

3. Self-Kindness

The last aspect of self-compassion flows from the first two. Once you have become aware of your own suffering and recognized it as a part of the human story, it becomes easier to take care of yourself.

To put it very simply, self-kindness means giving yourself what you need. This sounds simple and it truly can be when we let it. At the beginning, though, it may feel pretty awkward.

Think about it for a minute: how much were you taught to take care of yourself? Most of us weren’t. Instead, many lawyers have historically been taught to take care of others first. We are validated and praised when we set our feelings aside and focus on someone else’s needs.

Image showing the elements of self-compassion: mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness

Most of these lessons aren’t intended to be taken in the extreme, but when they aren’t balanced by other teachings and practices they can become so. That’s why self-compassion cultivation is important and has been shown to be so powerful: it empowers us to strike a balance in caring for ourselves and others.

In some situations and after some practice, we may get pretty good at identifying our needs and honoring them. If you need some help, though, I recommend considering the basic human needs first. The acronym HALT for “hungry, angry, lonely, tired” is a basic and easy to memorize tool that can help you scan through the usual suspects of basic needs. For a more in-depth version of this, I like this list of needs from Marshall Rosenberg, the author of Nonviolent Communication.

Conclusion

These are the three aspects of self-compassion, but knowing these aspects is just the first step. The next step is putting them into practice. Though it may feel awkward at first and you won’t always have the presence of mind to bring these steps to mind, I hope you can find ways to use them in your life and work. I have done so and it has helped me take care of myself and my community much better.

If you want to try some self-compassion practices, check out some of these guided meditations on our YouTube channel here:

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Why Do We Focus on the Breath?

Cover image for blog post explaining why we focus on the breath in meditation

Nearly every guided meditation and meditation teacher out there tells you to focus on the breath. It’s something so basic that you may have never asked why. The breath calms us down, right? Doesn’t that make it the obvious focal point for mindfulness practice?.

Though a common assumption, that’s not entirely true. The reason we focus on the breath in meditation may surprise you.

The Breath Is a Link to Your Nervous System

The breath is a way to regulate our nervous systems. In fact, it is the only non-chemical way to do so. Our breath is directly linked to our autonomic nervous systems. And when I say linked, I mean it literally.

As you are reading. put your hand on your diaphragm in your mid to lower abdomen and pay attention to its position. Your diaphragm is below the lungs and heart and they all rest against your spinal column. The diaphragm is controlled by the phrenic nerve and, in turn, it can activate the vagus nerve.

This connection means that your breath sends signals to the your body and mind constantly. Any change in breath can create a domino affect that can affect your behavior, mood, emotions, and thoughts.

Image with quote explaining that the breath links the mind to the nervous system

The Breath Does More Than Calm Us Down

When I said above that it’s not “entirely true” that the breath calms you down, I wasn’t lying. In most daily experiences, we focus on the breath to calm down. That usually means we try to “catch our breath” by slowing down our rate of breathing and breathing more deeply.

Whether we notice this or not, in situations like this we may be focusing on the exhale in our breath. Focusing on the exhale and slowing down our rate of breath will calm us down. The exhale is linked to our parasympathetic nervous system. When our exhale becomes slower and longer than our inhale, it sends a signal to our body and brain that we are safe and can enter “rest and digest” mode.

The inhale, though, can do the opposite. If we try deeper and faster inhales, we may notice our heart rate start to increase and other bodily systems activating. While many lawyers try meditation and breathwork to calm down, there are some styles of practice intended to rev the body and mind back up.

An image explaining how the breath connects mind and body in mindfulness and meditation practice

Why Understanding the Breath Matters

So why is this important to know? It is useful for several reasons. First, remembering the breath’s role as a bodily function may help you see it more functionally in your meditation practice. If your breath is not smooth or slow or even, it can be very easy in meditation practice to get upset about that or feel like you are doing something wrong. Remembering the role of the breath from a functional anatomical perspective may help reduce judgment.

Another reason that understanding the purpose of breath focus helps is that it can help us give ourselves what we need. If you experience difficult feelings or thoughts during meditation, you can learn to use the breath like the break pedal in your car. Not only will focusing on the breath disrupt the thoughts and emotions; it can help you slow down and ease back in your body.

In the same way, you could use breathwork to re-energize yourself when you are in a slump. Instead of a coffee, you could try some breathwork with more intense inhales and see how it affects you. If pranayama is not your thing, try some physical movement or exercise to achieve the same thing. Even a walk around the block is likely to automatically trigger bigger and deeper inhales which will energize the body and mind.

Image with options for focusing on the breath for mindfulness and meditation practice

You Have Options for Breath Focus

As I have written before, the particular location of your focus is not essential to notice these things. You can focus on your breath at your nose, sinuses and throat, chest or shoulders, or belly. To bring attention to the energetic impacts of your breath though, pay particular attention to your inhale v. exhale, the lengths of each, and any pauses in between.

With this background, hopefully it is clearer now why meditations and teachers so frequently direct you to focus on your breath. Of course, it is always with you and that makes it a great focal point for formal and informal practice.

Practicing breath focus or breathwork, though, gives you a tool for self-regulation that can serve you well in formal practice and in life. If you can learn to notice your breath, you can also learn to manage it. That can give you greater agency for handling the stresses and energy slumps of life. And if you can do that, it opens doors for facing many other challenges with a little more skill and ease.

To try some breath focus practices, check out our meditations on Insight Timer or here:

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Four Reasons You May Love Meditating with a Group

Technology is a wonderful thing. It has enabled people from all over the world to learn about the practice of meditation. Think about it. You can now have access to some of the world’s best meditation teachers in any number of means which are immediately available. You have a selection of apps that can teach practices and provide guided meditations. You can buy books from thinkers and teachers across the centuries. And if you look online, you’ll find any number of courses from any tradition you may wish to try.

I have used all of these things. I still do. I have benefitted from them immensely. I’m not here to tell you that they are not good. But I am here to say that they are not as good as learning meditation with friends.

I started meditation entirely on my own ten years ago. At the time, I was too embarrassed to tell anyone I was trying meditation. I didn’t even tell my husband until my dabbling with meditation at 1 or 2 minutes at a time evolve into a habit. It took me even longer to tell others about my practice, but by then the results were so clear I couldn’t help myself.

Eventually, I decided I was ready for more and I signed up for a 1-day intensive in my area. Over time, I attended longer retreats and then some courses. During the pandemic, I tried more options online, from courses to virtual retreats. More recently, I have resumed my in-person meditation events and I remembered how helpful it is.

I know it can be hard to find a meditation group in some areas and even harder to show up as a stranger to a new place. I’m writing this post to let you know what you might find if you work up the courage to find and join a meditation group in your area. Here are the 4 reasons why meditating with a group can be helpful.

1. Peer Pressure Can Be Good.

If you meditate in person, the odds are that there will be some nerves and jitters at first as you adjust to sitting and breathing with other people. Eventually, though, you may find as I did that your mind settles down far more easily in a group than by yourself. Why?

Of course, humans are mammals. As social creatures, we are made to be together. Have you ever been to a concert or sports event and found yourself overcome with the emotion of the crowd? The same is true in reverse. Meditation in a group can help you relax and settle because everyone else is relaxed and settled.

And even on the times you aren’t relaxed and settled, you may find the group helpful too. When you are struggling with a session, being in a group may help you stick with the practice simply to avoid disrupting others. Clearly, if you need a break or have to move, that’s not out of bounds. But sometimes with habits, we just need one more reason to keep saying yes and being in a group offers that in the hard sessions.

2. It Can Add Variety to Your Practice.

If you sit and do nothing for long enough, you are bound to notice one thing: meditation can be boring. This is not a reason to quit but your mind will tell you it is. In reality, though, boredom is an amazing reaction to watch. We often think of boredom as the end of the story, but in reality it’s an opening question.

Boredom is really more about our judgments and reactions than the thing we think is boring. So, if meditation is boring, one question might be: how many things can you do entirely on your own and not get bored? If you are being honest, there probably aren’t too many.

Pure and simple, meditation in a group is a way to add variety to your practice. It may mean you are meditating in a new space, there may be new people, there might be some new rituals (i.e. chanting, bowing, etc.), and you may try new practices or modalities. This variety offers the chance of building skills and seeing your practice in a new way.

3. You Learn You Aren’t So Weird.

This one may be my favorite. No shade to Tara Brach or Sharon Salzberg or any of the other world-renowned teachers I adore. But I may have learned more from the other meditators on retreat who asked questions about practice.

These people overtly stated that they did not know the answers. They announced their struggles to the group. These people were asking for guidance. Why was this so amazing?

Well, first of all, it was amazing for me to hear people admit that they weren’t perfect and didn’t have it all figured out. It helped to see the teachers respond with humanity, compassion, and often humor to try to help. Because these people were brave enough to ask questions, it made me feel brave enough to ask my own.

The other thing that really helped though was that most of the questions related to things I had struggled with too. Was I allowed to swallow? Was I allowed to scratch an itch? What if I had a train of thought that would not stop? What if I kept falling asleep or spacing out? All these questions and more told me that my problems weren’t weird at all but a normal part of the practice.

4. You Meet Awesome People.

I was wrong. This one is my real favorite. One thing I have learned about venturing forth with my own hobbies and interests is that you meet cool people in the process. Even for an introvert like me, meeting and bonding with new people is easy when I am doing something I enjoy.

If you find a meditation group to learn with or sit with, you are bound to get to know some great people. This might be at your yoga studio, church, local Dharma center, or your office. If you sit with the same group for long enough, you will get to know people. Chit chat happens or sometimes you make friends through Q&A sessions at the end of a practice.

In general, the people I have met in meditation groups or courses have been thoughtful, kind, warm, and open. They are people looking to heal, grow, and lead intentional lives in community with others. With all the division, difficulty and strife in life and work, I have found it heartening to see and sit with people who are trying to create peace for themselves and others.

These are the four reasons I keep looking for opportunities to learn and practice meditation in a community. If you are looking for the same thing, you may try looking for courses or open sits in your area at your local yoga studio, church or worship space, or a Dharma or Zen Center.

There are also many online and virtual options for courses, retreats, and sits. These may not offer the same support as an in-person event, but they offer convenience and a chance to preview group meditation with minimal effort. Lawyers interested in trying this out should check out the Mindfulness in Law Society Virtual Sits every Monday and Wednesday afternoon.

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Why Overthinking Lawyers Will Love Noting Practice

Founder’s Note: This is the blog’s 150th post and somehow I managed to publish it on World Mindfulness Day and have a new meditation to share too. Sometimes little ideas you have grow and sometimes things work out. Thanks to all of the blog’s readers, followers, contributors, and friends.

If you try meditation practice long enough, you are bound to encounter the practice of “noting.” With this practice, you pick a focal point (most commonly the breath though any focal point would do). Then when a distraction arises, you simply note it and and return to the focal point.

In many cases, the instruction to note generally means to briefly identify the distraction and let it go. For example, you might be instructed to categorize the experience as either a thought, emotion, sensation, sound, or mental scene. Though many of us may be familiar with this practice, we may not always know why it’s a good one to do. That’s what this blog post will address.

What Is Noting Practice?

Noting is a mindfulness practice. Like breath practice, noting will help you cultivate awareness and focus. It can also help you cultivate self-compassion as you manage the inevitable frustration that may arise with meditation. Noting, however, offers something more too.

With noting, the act of categorizing mental experiences may help you recognize mental experiences for what they are. For example, anyone who has meditated even once knows that it is not always easy to differentiate awareness of your breathing from thinking about your breathing.

Similarly, it can be hard to realize that you are experiencing a memory or fantasy about the future when you are in it. Once you can get outside of the mental images or thoughts, it can be easy to acknowledge their unreality or challenge their logic. But, when you are absorbed by the thought or scene or sensation or emotion, your ability to manage the situation is much harder.

Noting Practice Can Help You Manage Thoughts.

Noting practices the skill of recognizing when you are having an inner experience and zooming out from it. By looking for and categorizing inner experiences, you can note them without getting sucked into the details. In other words, noting helps you practice seeing a trap for your attention and stepping around it.

In this way, noting is different from self-analysis. It is not seeing a thought and applying more thought to ask why the thought pattern occurs. Instead, the practice is simply note it as a “thought” and then let it go. You avoid the juicy details of the story underlying the thought and you focus instead on the reality that the story is one totally of your mind’s own making.

This is not to say that all of your thoughts are bad or wrong. Thinking and thoughts aren’t inherently bad. The problem that many of us encounter, however, is that we aren’t usually aware when we are thinking. As such, we often assume that our thoughts are correct and helpful. When we look at thoughts critically, though, we are bound to see that some are based on incomplete information, affected by our emotions, or infused with biases.

Any lawyer reading this probably knows why this is an essential skill. We think so much in our jobs that it can be a challenge to stop thinking. If, like me, you have ever struggled with overthinking, learning to just see that you are thinking can be a benefit in and of itself.

Noting Practice Can Help Manage Overwhelm.

The other thing that is helpful about noting practice is that it can separate aspects of our inner experience. Life does not send us experiences in neatly labeled and clearly delineated boxes. To the contrary, we can be inundated with thoughts, emotions, and sensory information all at once.

The cool thing about attention, though, is that it can really only focus on one thing at a time. So, even if you are inundated with a slew of inner experiences at once, your mind can focus on just one. In daily life, this may be hard to see because things may happen so rapidly. With meditation, though, we can slow things down and take experiences one by one.

Over time, this can help us build inner resources for dealing with difficult situations. We may notice a challenging sensation caused by emotion and then see that our thoughts are starting to spiral. We can internally “note” the situation and choose to use an inner resource to maintain steadiness.

Conclusion

Am I saying that noting practice should become a mainstay of your practice? Probably not, but it is one to try because noting is a good skill to keep sharp. I recommend trying the practice out a few times to learn and implement the strategy. Once the skill of noting is developed, you can do it occasionally to keep the skill sharp.

Even if you don’t practice noting regularly, you can use the strategy of noting in your life to catch yourself in rumination or bring nonjudgmental awareness to physical sensations. This is where the benefits of noting practice can really pay off.

If you want to give noting practice a try, check out our new Noting Practice Guided Meditation here:

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What Is the Difference Between Pranayama and Meditation?

Having taught meditation now for nearly 5 years, I commonly get comments in my sessions with comments about practices that aren’t, strictly speaking, meditation. They will rave about the benefits of box breathing or mention that their therapist/coach/yoga teacher taught them 4-7-8 breathing and it changed their life. I always welcome these comments and express agreement with their efficacy, since getting into technical differences of the practices is not always beneficial.

Even so, questions like these have made me curious about the differences between pranayama and meditation. Because my experience with meditation has primarily been based on practices derived from Buddhism and yoga has never been my first love, I used pranayama very little in my own practice. This summer, I decided to change that and obtained a certification to teach pranayama to expand my knowledge on the subject.

In truth, there are distinct differences between meditation and pranayama and these differences matter. That is not to say, however, that the practices cannot be effectively combined. This blog post will explore the differences to give you context so that you can decide how best to use them both to support your own practice.

Differences

The first notable difference between pranayama and meditation is origin. This issue can be a little tricky, of course, since there are many types of pranayama and many types of meditation. The secular study of both yogic and Buddhist practices and concepts has also led to a the development of further practices that may intertwine some of these ideas further.

The first fundamental difference between meditation and pranayama is breath. Though meditation very commonly involves the breath, focus on the breath is not required for meditation. Practices like loving-kindness or body scan, for instance, don’t use the breath as a focal point and numerous other focal points (such as a mantra, candle flame, sounds, or mental images) can be used in place of the breath. Pranayama, on the other hand, is the practice of working with the breath.

A less obvious difference is that pranayama derives from yogic practices and most of the most popular forms of meditation (Vipassana, Zen, loving-kindness, tonglen, etc.) derive from Buddhist philosophy. This distinction may not matter so much for practitioners who just want relief or a good support, but the different origins shed light on the different focuses of the practices.

Clearly, different teachers and schools of thought can modify this idea, but yogic philosophy is much more concerned with clearing the mind while Buddhist meditation is more intended to make peace with the mind. Thus, Vipassana or Zen meditators are usually encouraged to observe the breath and allow the mind to calm on its own. With pranayama, however, the breath is used as a tool and often manipulated for the purpose of clearing the mind, balancing energy, and creating physical benefits.

Similarities

Though there are differences between pranayama and meditation, they are not entirely distinct and need not always be kept separate. The first thing that pranayama and meditation share are the potential benefits. Because they both address the fundamentals of human life, both meditation and pranayama can result in mental and physical benefits. Done correctly, both practices can help the mind and body sync up and calm down.

For this very reason, both meditation and pranayama can be important and beneficial supports for individuals. They both deserve a place in a regular self-care regimen and they both can be used in the moment to maintain balance during difficult times. As one example, I really enjoy using alternate nostril breath during the day as a quick break to refresh myself and take a pause.

Another similarity is that pranayama and meditation go very nicely together. Yogic philosophy deems meditation as one of its eight limbs and so it is not uncommon for yoga classes to feature breath work and meditation. In the same way, many meditation teachers brought up in the Buddhist tradition (myself included) often incorporate pranayama into their guided meditation.

For instance, one way that I began experimenting with pranayama recently is to use it at the beginning of my meditation sessions as a way to quickly ground and relax myself. I have found ujayi breath to be a great tool for reconnecting with the breath due to its physical and auditory enhancements of the breath.

In short, pranayama and meditation are not the same. They have different origins and in many cases the purposes of the practices are distinct. Even so, they both have benefits for mental and physical health and they can complement each other nicely. Now that you understand how the practices are different but similar, the next step is to explore them both and determine what combination of practices work best for you.

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What Does It Mean to “Check in With Yourself”?

If you do guided meditations or yoga, you are bound to be instructed to “check in with yourself” at some point. Most commonly, teachers use this as a starting point for a mind-body practice because it makes sense to start the practice where you are. The only problem is, of course, that not all teachers offer additional guidance to tell us how to check in with ourselves. This post is offered to clear up that mystery.

For those who know about interoceptive awareness, checking in with yourself may be the norm. But if you have never heard the word “interoceptive” before, then some additional explanation may be needed. The term interoceptive means awareness of your inner experience. While this might be second nature to many of us, it may feel weird and new to those of us accustomed to living busy and worldly lives. When someone instructs you to “check in with yourself”, they are telling you to activate and note your interoceptive awareness.

This gives you a general idea about how to begin checking in with yourself, but you may still need to know specifically where to focus. Ideally, when you check in with yourself, you can scan your mental, emotional, and physical states. First, this would require a pause and then a simple acknowledgement of the physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts that may arise for you.

Now, if you are new to this process, it may be challenging at first to interpret what you note in your interoceptive awareness. You may not immediately be able to put words to sensations or clearly identify all emotions. That’s okay. The point isn’t to self-diagnose on a deep level, but instead just to touch in with your inner experience and see what’s there. If you stay open-minded and make the practice of checking in a habit, you’ll soon notice patterns that will help you understand more about what your mind, body, and emotions are telling you.

Why is checking in important? If you are using it at the start of your meditation or yoga practice, it may help you understand what kind of practice you need. Do you need a rigorous practice or a gentle one? Do you need to stretch yourself or give yourself a break? Do you need a specific focal point or can you just rest in open experience? When you can more regularly note where you are, you are more likely to give yourself what you need and have a better experience with practice.

In much the same way, making a habit of checking in with yourself throughout your day is a great way to manage your energy levels and needs so you can be proactive about self-care. This may help you head off emotional reactivity caused by fatigue or hunger or notice the signs of loneliness, anxiety or growing anger. You can do this by briefly pausing for a few breaths, scanning through your body, asking yourself “how do I feel,” and listening to what arises.

My favorite way to check in with myself is first to look for rushing or pushing forward. If I notice it, I try to pause or intentionally slow down. Then I do a quick body sweep by scanning for sensations in the most emotionally reactive parts of my body: eyes, brow, jaw, neck, shoulders, hips, and hands. If there’s tension, I scan my mind and emotions for clues about what’s going on with me. This usually takes about twenty to thirty seconds at most but it’s enough time to change the way I’m relating to my day and myself.

The important thing about checking in with yourself, however, is not the procedure you follow but the habit of checking in regularly. One of the reasons that mindfulness practices can be so transformational is that they create mental space to check in with your inner experience regularly. Now you know what the teachers mean when they tell you to “check in with yourself” at the beginning of your guided meditation or yoga practice. You can now use these steps to check in with yourself to improve your meditation experience and bring more awareness to your life.

If you want to try this in a meditation practice, check out our Check in with Yourself Guided Meditation on YouTube or Insight Timer:

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Do You Really Need a Meditation Cushion?

The American way to start any new healthy habit is to scour the internet for the best gear. When it comes to meditation, this isn’t really necessary. As I have explained before, you can meditate in any position that makes you feel safe, supported, and comfortable.

This means you can meditate sitting, standing, lying down, or even walking. You can use a comfy chair, your bed, the floor, some nice cushions you have around the house, including some you use for restorative yoga, a porch swing or rocking chair, a parked car, or my personal favorite, the bath tub.

Though I have meditated in a variety of settings, it has been supportive to my practice to designate a particular spot as the one I use for regular practice. My spot is a little corner in my bedroom tucked away behind a large wardrobe. In it, I have my meditation cushion, a light blanket, and access to an outlet so that I can use my phone for guiding or sounds when I need it.

If you look on Pinterest, however, you can quickly overwhelm yourself with images of decked out meditation spots chock full of Mandalas, smiling Buddhas, incense, and LED lights. To the extent that this makes your practice more pleasant and you enjoy decorating, go for it. But a meditation space that would make an influencer blush is not really necessary, especially if nobody will see it but you.

Assuming you are into utility like me, what you really want from a meditation spot is something that offers support, creates comfort, and engenders focus. In general, then, you’ll want a large, flat layer to provide warmth and cushion for your ankles and knees in the sitting position. Then you will want something on top to lift the hips and support the natural curve of your back. This is to ensure that you have a clear airway to make breathing as easy and restful as possible.

This is the point of the meditation cushion, which commonly includes the zafu and zabuton. The zabuton is the large flat cushion, typically filled with a cotton-like substance and the zafu is a smaller pillow (often round or crescent-shaped) that is usually filled with seeds, beans, or buckwheat hulls. If you feel more comfortable in a kneeling position, you can get a similar result from using a meditation bench with a mat or blanket under your legs and knees.

These days, it is easy to find meditation cushions and benches online in a variety of colors, materials, and shapes. If, like me, you hate scouring the internet for products, I bought my zafu and zabuton from Still Sitting about 10 years ago and I can report that their name is accurate: I’m still using it. I went for the crescent-shaped zafu with a buckwheat fill because it fits my body better. Due to an old knee injury, I also added an extra mini zafu for some support under my right knee.

Can you achieve the same level of comfort with items you have around the house? Very likely. A few layers of old blankets, a folded yoga mat, or flat pillows could double for a zabuton. A sturdier and smaller cushion, a bolster, or yoga blocks could work for a zafu.

In short, you don’t truly need a meditation cushion or bench to start a meditation practice. Ideally, meditation is something you bring into your life and don’t only use in one spot in your home. Even so, a designated spot is a great way to turn meditation into a habit and a quality meditation cushion can support the body to help your mind focus and relax.

Thus, if you are really new to meditation, I would not recommend spending a lot of money on new gear. Once your practice becomes regular and you can sit for more than a few minutes each session, a cushion may be a great way to support your meditation practice and invest in it long-term.

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