The Top One Reason Why People Can’t Meditate

As a meditation coach, I meet plenty of smart, educated people who earnestly believe they can’t meditate. My best joy in life is to prove them wrong and have them tell me, after a couple of sessions: “I didn’t know I am so great at meditation!”

(Duh, of course, you are!)

In my opinion, the top reason why people can’t meditate is…

Because they never LEARNED how to do it.

It is like people being upset that they can’t play tennis, but when you talk to them, you realize they never took a tennis lesson.

The reason they can’t play is not because they are inherently bad at it. It is because:

• No one explained the rules of the game to them

• No one showed them how to hold the racquet and hit the ball

• No one was by their side to help them practice for their first couple of games.

It will not appear fair to you to be upset with yourself that you can’t play tennis after reading a book on tennis or watching a video, right? How is meditation different?

Or it would be like someone stating that they cooked pasta once, but it didn’t come out well, so they believe they are inherently bad at cooking. 

When you ask them what happened, you discover that no one told them to boil the water first. Or not to overcook the pasta.

The disappointing final dish came from a lack of appropriate instruction and practice, not because the person was incapable of cooking. 

From my experience, most people become great at meditating after someone helps them with the following:

• Among hundreds of meditation techniques, how to find 2-3 that works for them.

• Best practices for entering and exiting meditative states

• The physiology of meditation and how the human nervous system works

• Building a meditation habit that sticks

• Addressing any obstacles (what to do with thoughts, images, sensations, etc)

• How to modify your technique based on your needs (ie, morning vs afternoon, tired vs stressed out)

P.S. I am gearing up to offer lunch-and-learn “Meditation for High-Performing Minds” sessions for different organizations. Preferably for organizations where a lot of people have analytical minds - brilliant, logical, always-on, etc. Let me know if you want a fun, informative, and deeply relaxing 1-hour workshop at your company, and we will make it happen!