Meditation – A Guide For Beginners And Skeptics

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I’ve now finished my latest ebook provisionally entitled ‘Don’t Hesitate – Meditate! – A Guide For Beginners And Skeptics’

As is usually the case once it’s been edited and designed it will be going out to my newsletter subscribers free of charge first.

As a taster I thought I’d share the introduction with you and if it resonates, sign up in the box on the left and get the full version later this month.

By the way, I wanted to call the book ‘Meditation for Muppets’ but wasn’t sure if that would be understood (as it’s more a UK expression) or people would think I was being insulting.

I’d love your take in the comments or any better alternatives you may have.

I’ll give a free copy of all of my books to anybody who suggests a title I use, presuming that is it wasn’t one that was mentioned on my Facebook page.

Introduction – April 2012

Let me make one thing very clear just in case you don’t know me very well, I’m not a woo-woo kind of guy.

I don’t wear sandals in the winter, I don’t dream of Unicorns or subscribe to the belief that because I’m a Life Coach I should be happy all the time. Life doesn’t work like that. Or at least mine doesn’t.

The reason I tell you this, is because I won’t you to know that as little as 5 or 6 years ago I would have definitely filed myself in the skeptical category when it came to meditation.

Like many people I was aware of its existence, but on the whole ambivalent toward it and thought it was just something for hippies, Buddhists and people with too much time on their hands.

Then in January 2007 I was a participant on a workshop put on by my How To Be Rich and Happy co-author, John Strelecky. As well as John delivering all his good stuff he had a handful of guest speakers join him on the platform to talk on different topics.

To be honest I couldn’t tell you what any of them were about other than a guy who talked about meditation.

My memory is hazy, but I’m fairly sure meditation wasn’t even his main topic, but he touched on it enough to pique my interest.

After the event I sought Patrick (for that was his name) out and asked him how he got into meditation and what benefits had he seen.

It Changed His Life For The Better

I can still clearly remember his face lighting up and his enthusiasm for meditation and desire to talk about how it changed his life.

I’m not going to go into his personal details now, but needless to say he had gone through some very tough times.

He was at rock bottom when somebody suggested he borrow their copy of Meditations for Manifestations by Wayne Dyer. (al)

According to Patrick that moment changed his life for the better and after one listen to the CD he felt happier, lighter and most importantly of all, hopeful that the future wasn’t as dark as he’d previously thought.

There was no doubt in my mind that the guy was being genuine. You could tell just looking at him that he was a man on a mission to spread the word about meditation and mindfulness.

Even though I enjoyed talking with him I was still less than 100% sold on the idea, but nevertheless I decided to buy the CD he had been listening to and give it a go for myself.

I guess I must have not given it any thought whatsoever as the clue is in the title of the CD, but this was more about using the Law of Attraction (although Dyer never refers to it as such on the recording) to gain the life you desire, than anything particularly spiritual or even religious for that matter.

And whilst we are on the subject of religion, let me make this abundantly clear.

Meditation is not necessarily about religion. It really doesn’t matter whether you are Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindi or worship goats, you can still employ meditation to help improve the quality of your life.

A lot of the practices and books I refer to are Buddhist in nature, but that’s purely because that’s what I’ve been exposed to.

I’m not a Buddhist and I’m not looking for you to convert to Buddhism or another other religion/philosophy for that matter. Do what feels right for you.

Having said that, of course meditation can be a spiritual practice if you wish it to be, it just doesn’t have to be. The choice is very much yours.

Anyway, back to the Wayne Dyer CD.

Even though I was skeptical about manifestation, and still am for that matter, it was a great introduction to meditation and I was chanting my Om meditation away merrily every evening much to the amusement of my wife and embarrassment of the dogs.

After a few weeks of this even though I found it relaxing I started to get a tad repetitive doing the same thing over and over again. So I started trawling the Internet looking for alternative methods and types of meditation.

Needless to say I found a lot.

It’s What Works For You That Matters

For the next year or so I experimented with different methods (more later) until I found a few that worked for me. And that last part is crucial because not every method will resonate with you.

I don’t want you thinking because the first practice you tried was torture to you, that they all will be.

I continued to meditate most days for about the next 3 years or so, then something very weird, but also highly predictable happened. I stopped meditating.

Not overnight, but over a period of about 6 months it went from daily to weekly to almost never.

I say it was weird because it definitely helped me feel chilled and aided my concentration levels, so why on earth would anybody quit something that was so beneficial and so free?

And that’s the predictable part because I regularly see clients who do similar things. It may not be meditation per se, it may be working out or eating healthily, but it’s still quitting something that’s obviously beneficial.

I say quitting, but I’m not totally sure how accurate that is because that presupposes there has been a conscious decision made, but that’s rarely the case. For me it was more of a gradual tapering off.

Take getting fit as an example. I’ve worked with numerous clients who have implemented a workout regime and started to see the benefits when something unexpected has derailed them.

Often it can be something as simple as getting sick. All of a sudden the routine is interrupted, all momentum is lost and it’s never picked up again because it’s just too much trouble to start all over again.

With me it was something as benign as getting busier with work. I had moved my meditation practice to mid-afternoon to save my wife’s sanity and as such was finding it trickier and trickier to fit in.

There was always a client to see, a blog post to write, an ebook to compile and meditation gradually started to take a back seat.

Then in the summer of 2011 I started to get stressed. I didn’t know it at the time, in fact if my wife and a close friend hadn’t mentioned it I’m not even sure if I’d have ever noticed that I’d slipped back into old patterns of behavior.

Sure, I’d had some (expensive) health issues as had my wife, but business was good and I was doing a job I loved, why on earth should I be stressed or anxious?

Dropping My Guard

In retrospect that’s an easy question to answer. I was stressed because I had built up a pattern of stress over a 25 year period prior to becoming a coach.

Patterns of behavior like that are incredibly difficult to remove completely and the brain can’t wait to introduce them back into your life, if and when you drop your guard.

I had most definitely dropped my guard.

Around that time I got a newsletter from Bodhipaksa the Buddhist teacher who runs Wildmind I noticed he was offering a weekly online meditation course and I decided that it was time once again to pick up the meditation gauntlet properly and stop dicking about at it.

Prior to then my knowledge about meditation had come exclusively from audio programs and books. That’s all well and good, but it’s not the same as actually being guided by an expert and getting immediate feedback.

It’s similar to the difference between buying a self development book and hiring a Life Coach.

The former is cool and I read dozens of books every year, but the latter is far more likely to help you make lasting change. Although I guess I may be a tad biased with that last analogy.

As I write this, that was over 6 months ago and I am still part of the same group that sit for 90 minutes together via the aid of Skype every week even though the original course was only supposed to run for 6 weeks.

Even so, let me be completely honest and say I am no even close to being an expert on meditation. That confession may lead you to wonder why the hell I’m writing an ebook on it then? And that would be a legitimate question.

The answer is because I believe I know enough to help beginners or skeptics get up and running.

I also believe I can help you appreciate the benefits of developing a regular meditation practice.

This book is a long way from being an authoritative guide, that’s beyond my level of expertise. And anyway, the virtual bookshelves of Amazon and the like are filled with such books.

However, it will be an easy to read taster on the subject and free from lingo and dogma.

It will also hopefully make you smile from time to time, and most importantly of all, stir your curiosity enough to dig a little deeper.

I promise you as much as I ever can with such things, you will not regret it.