There is a misunderstanding that meditation involves sitting cross-legged, with lavender incense burning and a video of Tibetan bowls playing in the background.
It could not be farther from the truth. Unfold your legs, walk away from the incense, and shut the video off before it drains your phone’s battery.
You do not need meditation to be happy.
You need mindfulness.
What does it mean to mindful?
Becoming mindful is the opposite of what it may seem. Instead of filling your mind, you are going to empty it. The idea behind meditation is that you can calm your brain to a point where no thoughts appear. Consider it a juice cleanse for the mind. Your mind can relax, and when you stop meditating, you can see events, scenarios, thoughts, and emotions more clearly.
The problem comes in what you feed your mind after the meditation. If you live in a state of pure bliss for five minutes a day but spend the other 1,435 minutes stressed to the nines, it is not helping.
This is like drinking juice all day and then eating fast food for dinner.
It does not make sense.
What makes more sense is to find a happy medium. Since you cannot survive off juice, what if you ate healthier meals? Instead of having the short-term effects of the juice cleanse, you would get the long-term effects of eating more robust all the time.
Just like you cannot survive off juices, you also cannot sit cross-legged for the rest of your life with your hands to your heart center, lightly humming “Om.”
You still need to work, see your family, partake in your relationship, and be an active member of society.
Where is the happy medium between meditation and stress?
Mindfulness.
When you are mindful, you are just as aware of your passing thoughts as you are when you meditate. During times of chaos, you can have emotional moments where you fully understand and are okay with these overwhelming feelings. When you are insanely happy, you can fully enjoy the rush of pure love coursing through your body.
You live in a functioning state of meditation.
And this is where you find your soulmate, your dream job, and the courage to be unapologetically yourself.
You do not have to become a yoga master at creating permanent mindfulness in your life.
Mindfulness comes from noticing that you are the one in charge of your mind’s thoughts. If you remain in charge of them all the time, you are always in a state of meditation.
Put down the gong. You do not need it.
You need to become a master of your own mind.
And then, you will find pure, beautiful happiness.
