No Meditation Session Is Ever The Same

"Straight out of heaven, psychedelic, and life-changing" - these are how some of my meditation sessions felt when I just started practicing. Being filled with bliss to the brim. Others were just "meh".

Being a type A, control-oriented person, I felt like I failed because I couldn't easily "repeat my success". I almost felt performance anxiety, which clearly demonstrated how dependent my sense of self-worth was on results and achievements—a sad and constricted place to be. Even the most sacred time, meant for me to hang out with my Soul and step away from the burdens of being a human, was turned, once again, into an opportunity to judge myself and judge harshly.

Thanks heaven I had fantastic meditation teachers who were dedicated to my growth. My teacher once mentioned that feeling your 7th charka, a bright spot above your head can be effortless. That tipped my competitive side, and I was like, "Ok, today, I am going to make an effort to feel it." You can see how I fully missed the "effortless" part of the instruction 😂 .

Two minutes into "tapping" into my 7th chakra, the feelings of headache, dizziness, and nausea showed up. Bewildered, I called my teacher. He laughed, "Mayya, you are trying too hard. You can't force these things to happen. Your willpower has no place there. What's far more useful is to get curious and consider a slight hint of intention, "One day, an experience of this chakra will open to me", and then leave it alone until the time comes. So, unless you enjoy getting nausea, allow for your meditation to be effortless."

That's how I learned another essential skill of fantastic meditations: not to demand a certain experience.

It is like coming to the ocean and demanding waves, I guess. They come when they come.

It makes sense. I didn't create my own body, my nervous system, my physiology. I can only speculate on why I get filled with bliss on one day and sadness on another (to be fair, I can name the hormones that drive these changes, but does knowing the fancy scientific names constitute that useful knowledge?)

In other words, I have no clue how it all works, why it works, or even why I am here, on Earth. It is all a mystery. So, it is a shame to try to control that mystery when there is an option to play with it, explore it, and spend some time in its embrace.