Meditation has been on the rise lately. It’s the next big thing and you can download at least 4000 apps to hear somebody silently whisper in your ear for a certain amount of time while you’re supposed to just sit there. I meditated for about 3 years and I stopped from one day on the other. I just had an insight that some people seem to miss out on. In Thailand, I was getting ready to meditate, so I sat down and suddenly told myself “this is stupid, I’m done with this”. Did meditation help me along the way? I think so to be honest. It helped me realize that I was breathing in the wrong way (chest breathing instead of belly breathing). Aside from that, there are a lot of so-called benefits, but I’ve never experienced one of them. Weird right? Not one of them in 3 years. I think other people have no clue what the benefits are either. They’re just riding the hype train.
Why meditation sucks and what to do about it.
What if I told you that you couldn’t think about a pink elephant? You’re thinking about one right now aren’t you?! You can probably even see it vividly. The same goes for meditation, which is the art of doing nothing. You sit down and try to force yourself not to think which leads to you thinking about the fact that you shouldn’t think.
It’s even worse when some guy gently whispers in your ear. That to me is weird. Why would you pay hundreds of dollars for that? It’s a giant scam because there are better ways to ‘meditate’. I’ve experienced some of them and they’re all better than sitting on your butt for a certain amount of time. You can always rock that fancy yoga pose but in the end, it just doesn’t help.
The whole art of not trying to think makes you think which takes away the whole point. It doesn’t make your life stress free hence it’s even safe so say that it adds more stress to your life. I mean you’re doing the whole meditation thing wrong according to gurus. It only works if you do it right… which kind of makes me wonder if this isn’t a scam just to make you follow an overprized course. It’s like people don’t seem to realize that forcing things mostly has the opposite effect. It’s like an unwritten law.
Why meditation sucks and why you’re still anxious.
People see meditation as a golden ticket to a stress-free life. But in reality, sitting for a certain amount of time trying not to think won’t change a lot! I mean will it change your whole rushed lifestyle? Will it change the fact that you’re checking your phone every 5 seconds to get that dopamine rush? What does it change? It doesn’t change the fact that you care about other people’s opinions. Neither does it change the fact that you’re living in the past or the future but never in the present. It also doesn’t change the fact that your boss is an asshole and that all your co-workers are soy boys or gossip girls!
You see Thailand and the Sabai Sabai lifestyle made me realize rather quickly that there was no need to meditate. It was just a tool to kind of help me escape my reality. The stressful lifestyle in Europe just didn’t suit me so I was looking for a way to get rid of that feeling. The funny thing is that my whole body got in an overstressed state as soon as I was in Belgium again. It went away during the days leading up to my second Thailand trip. You can’t solve a problem by not facing it. People seem to forget that.
Look at all the people who sit down and do nothing.
Have you ever seen people who sit down and do nothing? Like the people who’re suddenly forced to go outside because there’s no internet? The ones who have no clue that the world is a beautiful place? They tend to just sit there and get restless. They have no clue what to do and that’s how meditation feels. It’s not natural if you ask me.
My meditation routine lasts 16 hours a day.
After giving you my thoughts I have to give an alternative of course. The alternative is extremely simple, just be present at the moment in whatever you do. That’s the secret to do it 16 hours a day. It doesn’t require weird rituals, good vibes with the universe or magic wands but it does require you to take ownership of your life and cut out all the bullshit and I mean all the bullshit. It also requires you to recognize bullshit and get rid of it or solve it before it takes over your life. Writing this blog could be considered as meditating (reading it might upset you and have the opposite effect), talking to other people, training, shadowboxing, walking, enjoying nature, just sitting on a beach watching a sunset… All those things have way more effect on me than sitting on my ass.
Those things calm me down because I don’t think about other things. It makes me able to flow with the go. It makes life so much easier, to be honest. You can’t have stress if you cut out all the sources of stress. I also just love to sit down and drink coffee while I have an amazing view. I’m doing something whilst I’m doing nothing and there is some magic to moments like that. There’s magic to be fully present in whatever you do.
What can I say?! Flowing makes things easy going. That’s probably why I was so relaxed before my first Muay Thai fight in Thailand.
Meditation.
Maybe it works for you or maybe you delude yourself it works for you. I just don’t see the point in doing it anymore. I’ve seen people meditate on a beach with their eyes closed while there was a beautiful sunrise. I’m pretty sure they’ve would have been calmer if they just watched the sunrise.
In the end, you can keep trying to fight your monkey mind but I haven’t had a monkey mind in a long time. Maybe it’s time to change things up?!
It’s all up to you. Now let me wave my magic wand and create some good vibes in the universe to end this post.
Namaste.
Alex
Agreed