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I hope this episode isn’t too boring. If it is…well…you should be meditating. It might do you some good.
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How to Get Started With Meditation
Maybe you think meditation sounds kinda cool and you kinda think you might wanna do it once in a while.
That’s not good enough.
Meditation isn’t “cool”. It’s not like picking out window curtains that match your underwear.
It’s a sophisticated mental technology designed to fix inherent deficiencies in the human mind. It unties knots in your nervous system that are holding you back.
It’s not easy, it’s not relaxing, it’s not “me time”, and it’s not something you do after waking up like drinking coffee to clear your head before you start your day.
It’s more like learning French because you’re planning on moving to France and you don’t want to look like an idiot not being able to ask where the post office is in French.
“Yeah, yeah, but I’m not planning on moving to France yet. I’ll just screw around with meditation until one day maybe I’ll decide it’s worth doing.”
Hey, guess what???
You’re outta time. You’ve already moved into your life, and you’re already screwing it up.
At this point, it’s just damage control.
Still with me?
Here are the 3 things you need to do to become a master meditator:
- Become aware
- Develop equanimity
- Lock it in through multiple contexts
This is what I teach in my course No Problem.
1. Awareness (How to Stop Making Your Anxiety and Stress Worse)
There are meditation techniques involving visualization, energy manipulation, crystals, incense, deep breathing, etc. But, those aren’t the ones I do.
In No Problem, the idea is that you’re practicing “awareness” (seeing what’s there: sensations, thoughts, feelings, images, etc).
I started meditating to get rid of anxiety.
(It didn’t work.)
And, I didn’t understand how sitting with my eyes closed, trying to clear my mind, was supposed to do any good for me.
One day, while practicing music, I accidentally noticed that I was doing something counterproductive and weird. I had a knot in my nervous system (I thought I was doing one thing but I was actually doing something else).
When I stared at the knot long enough, it untangled. As a result, I stopped making my anxiety and stress worse. What I had read about meditation suddenly made sense…
Case Study
Anita once got a mean email from someone at work and she started to get anxious and felt like she had to respond right away.
But then, she noticed she was anxious. She realized she didn’t have to respond to the anxiety.
With that newfound awareness, she was able to de-escalate the conflict and focus on other things that were more important to her. She started using this strategy all the time with this person and it made things much better (her words, not mine).
2. Equanimity (How to Untangle the Craziness in Your Mind)
I used to try to “clear my mind” with meditation. Never worked.
One day, I accidentally let my mind be totally crazy and full of thoughts. I didn’t try to change any of it. Suddenly, I noticed that because I was observing the mind and not embedded in the mind, I was no longer adding to the craziness. The craziness started to resolve itself.
Many meditation techniques are designed to help you clear your mind. I never found any of them to work.
In No Problem, you practice “equanimity” (not reacting to what’s there).
So, if the mind is crazy, you let it be crazy without trying to change it.
Case Study
Jon, a classical singer, was freaking out because his voice kept cracking while singing a high note. He kept stopping in the middle of the song because he hated what was happening.
But, because he was a meditator, after enough frustration, his meditation training kicked in.
He allowed his voice to crack, and stopped stopping in the middle of the song.
Eventually, once he stopped freaking out about the way his voice sounded, he was able to calm down and then it became intuitively obvious to him why his voice was cracking.
Of course, he could then fix it easily.
3. Multiple Contexts (How to Handle Stressful Situations)
I used to put off meditating because my life was too stressful. I said, “oh, I’ll do it when I have time.”
One day, I was stressed out and overwhelmed. I didn’t meditate, but I somehow paused during my day for long enough for some residual meditation to come online. I caught a glimpse of how I was reacting to my stress.
This made it so that I could change how I reacted, and as a result, the stress began to diminish as I stopped making stupid choices.
In No Problem, we don’t try to attack stress directly or try to handle stressful situations directly. The idea behind the meditation is that it gives you tools to handle it. It’s like going to the gym and getting stronger so that you can lift heavy furniture later on.
We practice this stuff in a controlled environment (meditation) so the skills are there for us when we need them.
Case Study
Rachel was telling me about how she meditates every single day no matter what kind of mood she’s in. Whether she’s relaxed or stressed out, doesn’t matter. She told me it was precisely because she meditates during every mood that she can handle whatever life throws at her.
What To Do Next
If you’re new to meditation, check out my guided meditation that will get you started.
—Michael
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If you think this is spam, we need to talk
Someone unsubscribed from this list with the reason “spam“. Coincidentally, someone else said my content was “egotistical“ the same day.
This bothered me, because I don’t send spam.
Every single email I send out to you guys is intended to be helpful and inspiring. Sure, I often put links to products I’m selling, but these are certainly not unsolicited commercial emails.
Still, it made me wonder…am I clearly offering helpful advice?
So, I decided to take a look at the last 10 emails I’ve sent out to see if there are indeed helpful tips in them.
Here’s what I found:
1. Here’s Some Great Advice I Got
(The tip: To prevent anxiety from messing up your life, stop fighting the anxiety.)
2. No, Meditation’s Not Supposed To Be Easy
(The tip: Why you need to persist through the difficulties in meditation.)
3. This Email Might Worry Your Mind
(The tip: To make tasks easier, explore your ability to disobey your mind.)
4. Why I Don’t Believe Life Is Supposed To Be Good And Why That Attitude Just Makes It Hard
(The tip: How to prevent situations from becoming worse than they need to be.)
5. Who Wins In A Fight: Meditators Or Non-Meditators?
(The tip: Be specific about what benefits you’re expecting awareness and equanimity to bring to your life.)
6. Why I Don’t “Focus” While Meditating
(The tip: Why trying too hard to focus in meditation is counterproductive and what to do instead.)
7. Five Mistakes That Even Serious Meditators Make
(The tip: A handful of things you can stop doing in meditation that are just making it more frustrating for you.)
8. Top 10 Meditation Resources
(The tip: Essential tools that I’ve found useful.)
9. These 3 Ingredients In The Kitchen Will Let You Move On To The Next Thing Quickly
(The tip: Why the folk wisdom about mental health only leads to more stress.)
10. Why Technique Vs. Interpretation Is The WRONG Debate
(The tip: Exactly how trying too hard to learn a skill sets you up for crippling perfectionism.)
So…yeah. These sound like helpful tips to me.
I’m not sure how anyone could read it otherwise.
And now for the “spammy, salesly” part of the email: I think you would benefit from my No Problem meditation course. It will teach you how to incorporate the above wisdom into your own life.
—Michael
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Here’s some great advice I got
“No, Michael, it’s not a problem.”
You might think that’s horrible advice, that it’s invalidating to someone with a real problem.
Let me tell you a story:
One day, I had anxiety and it sucked.
I sat down to meditate and a weird thing happened. I suddenly didn’t mind the anxiety…it felt neutral, not bad. However, I saw trying to get rid of the anxiety was STRESSING ME OUT.
This was a huge relief, as then I could stop making things worse.
If you want the relief of not making things worse, you should be meditating.
No Problem will get you started.
It’s easy:
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Sign up.
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Enjoy your new life where you’re no longer making it worse.
—Michael
P.S. I got the advice from a teacher on a meditation retreat. I was freaking out because I was seeing weird stuff when I closed my eyes and thought I would never be able to sleep ever again.
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No, meditation’s not supposed to be easy
“Meditation is hard. What am I doing wrong?
“What’s the right posture for meditation?”
“I can’t meditate because I can’t sit still.”
I hear these frequently asked questions all the time (the last one is more of an excuse than a question) from people who are thinking about signing up for No Problem.
I used to think meditation would be easy. I mean…it seemed easy. Looking at meditators, they seemed so relaxed, so at peace.
It never occurred to me that meditation was supposed to be difficult.
One day, I was super-frustrated with my meditation. My body just didn’t feel comfortable, and I couldn’t sit still.
I tried moving in every possible direction and adjusting my posture in every possible way.
But, I was stuck. The frustration wouldn’t budge (I even asked lots of people for advice, including Sharon Salzberg).
I had two choices:
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Do I quit meditation, or
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Do I push through it and hope for the best?
I knew I’d have to be persistent if I wanted to overcome that particular obstacle. But, I persevered, and eventually overcame it.
Nowadays, that particular frustration doesn’t bother me anymore.
I’m glad I saw the inherent difficulty in meditation and stuck with it.
Meditation is hard, but if you do it the right way, you’ll have the tools to forge your path.
No Problem gives you the tools you need.
Are you ready to get going?
If so, sign up here.
—Michael
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This Email Might Worry Your Mind
I used to obey my mind all the time.
One day, I was playing the piano and my mind was telling me: “Go slower! You’re going to mess it up!”
I was kinda tired that day, and overwhelmed, and for whatever reason, I just didn’t listen. I kept playing fast, because the music felt like it should go fast.
It wasn’t until I finished playing that I realized what had happened: I had accidentally done the opposite of what my mind told me to do.
This was a shocking realization, because I hadn’t even been thinking about it that way.
But, I couldn’t deny the fact that the music felt easier to play, and after listening to the recording, I heard that it sounded pretty good.
I had never noticed that I even had the option of going against what my mind said.
I asked myself: “is my mind really my friend?”
How about you? Is your mind your friend?
If you’re not sure, maybe you should take some time to watch how your mind works.
The No Problem meditation course will show you how to do this.
Signing up is simple:
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Follow the link above.
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Choose one of the two options for signing up.
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Complete the lessons in the course.
Let’s get to the bottom of this.
—Michael
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