Meditating Every Day For 30 Days

Table of contents

• Why I started
• My Routine
• What I have learned

Why I Started

Real change in your life comes about when you truly get sick and tired of your negative habits. One habit of mine that I could not seem to break away from was my consistent need to dive into incredibly negative and unnecessarily upsetting daydreams. They would consist of family and friends dying, getting rejected by people and jobs, not living up to my potential, and being ridiculed by everyone. I would sit about and dwell on those thoughts so much, that I would believe that these were truly a reflection of who I was as a person. Now you don’t have to be a genius to see just how messed up that is.

I am not saying any of this to ask for pity or compassion, because I know this is something almost everyone goes through. We are more often tortured by our imagination rather than reality. Our brains have evolved to search for threats, and then playing them out in our heads. This is done to ensure our survival, and living through these nightmarish scenarios in our heads seems like a productive use of our time. However, as a professional overthinker, I can assure you that isn’t the case. Diving into the pool of negative thoughts and doing laps is just a waste of mental energy. Our time would be better spent taking action in the present rather than living through made-up scenarios in our heads

This is where meditation helps. Rather than looking at every negative situation and dissecting the resulting thoughts with a tiny microscope. You get to zoom out, see the bigger picture, and notice the mistakes in your thinking. It frees your mind from negative daydreams, and over time you begin to refocus on the positives.

My Routine

I have been meditating every night, however, you can do this any time of the day. Rather than relying on a guided meditation app, I recommend simply sitting and breathing, and allowing your thoughts to go through your mind. This conditions you to, once you have the skills down, throw in a mini-meditation session any time you have negative thoughts.

Start by just setting a timer for 5 minutes, do that for a week and add another 5 minutes. Every time a thought comes into your mind, bring your focus back to your breathing. When breathing, really exhale out through the nose, I want you to hear it, this will be a good way to ensure you are keeping your focus on the breath and away from the thoughts.

You might feel yourself drifting and even falling into a day dream, no worries, just pull your focus back to your breathing as soon as you notice it. Over time, you will get better at clearing your mind.

What I have learned

You control your emotions, they don’t control you unless you let them

Often when a negative thought sets in, you feel powerless against it and let it take you in a whirlwind. The truth is, you really do have the power to zoom out and move past that thought. Over time, with meditation, you get better at recognizing a negative thought, acknowledging its existence, and then moving past it. You dwell on it much less.

Nothing is good or bad, your reaction makes it so - Shakespeare

Seriously though. A breakup, rejected from another job offer, failing on the diet. All may seem bad, however, it is only a bad thing if you let it be. Start seeing negative events as opportunities. Instead of a breakup, you are beginning to work on yourself. The rejection may have sucked, but you are just one step closer to landing the job that you always wanted. Failed on the diet today, learn why, and then improve tomorrow. Don’t let your initial reaction to a situation break you.

Meditation helps you recognize your pattern of thinking

Maybe you tend to get triggered when someone talks about your body. Perhaps you feel bad about your finances or the fact that you aren't in a relationship. All these things tend to revolve in your mind, and you fall into doom's daydreams. Through meditation, you learn to identify your own triggers and patterns of thinking. They might have been connected to how you were treated as a child or some event in school. Then once you become aware, you start noticing these triggers and thought patterns throughout your day, and you can begin to take action against them.

Just breathe, it’s not as bad as it seems

More often than not most scary things are just in our heads. We are more afraid of the imaginative reality we have built up in our heads, rather than what is really out there. Just breathe, it’s not as bad as it seems.

Consistency is key

Don’t do it every day, and you only delay your future self some peace.