You may know that I advocate Meditation for everything. It may not be the remedy for all ailments and problems, but it can be part of the solution to every issue. So you may be surprised to hear me say that “meditation sucks.” What do I mean?

I told my seven-year-old daughter that I was going to Meditate, and that I’d be back in the living room in about 15 minutes. She knows that I meditate (nearly) every day. She said, “You really like meditation. I don’t like it.” (They have meditation starting in preschool at her Montessori school — love that!). And I thought, actually, no, I don’t love it. In fact, I don’t enjoy it most of the time. The process of meditating is painful. It is doing so many of the things that I don’t like: sitting still, being quiet, not working on anything, feeling unproductive. So why do I meditate? Because it’s not about what happens during the meditation, but the benefits that follow after the meditation.

“It’s not about what happens on the mat, but what happens off the mat.” That quote is attributed to lots of people, so I’m not sure who said it first. But that is the point of meditation. The first 3-10 minutes are PAINFUL for me. But I stick with it until I get to that place of calm. Of course, some days, I am a complete “failure” at meditation because I never get to that place of calm. But I do it anyway, and that means that I succeed because I reap the benefits, even when I don’t do it “right.” Try it.

Other posts about meditation:

The Importance of Quieting Your Mind

Be Great: Learn to Relax

Too Busy Not To…