Why Can't I Meditate?

Breathe in, breathe out

I am going to meditate. I’m going to inhale for 5, hold for 5, exhale for 5, and repeat 10 times. That’s it, I tell myself. That’s the meditation.

My mind will fail me, though. That bastard always does. There I am, to think of nothing, trying to make like a pre-born entity floating through the void, free of cosmic chains and trying to empty the ol’ cabeza (sometimes I try to think of a peaceful image, like El Santuario de Chimayo) and breathe and count while my dome piece takes me to places I don’t want to go.

For instance, strange places. Places that make me wonder why I’ve never seen my uncle Pablo’s arms in my entire life to the point that now I’m wondering if the dude is subtly ripped and has a secret Nobody-type life he can’t tell anyone about. Or, I wonder if there’s some point at which my wife will have divorced me when she steps on yet another one of my errant nail (toe) clippings– is it something like 435, or more like # 42,301? Then, I inevitably think of 9/11– whatever happened there…

Because the content of my mind is a jump-cut collage of a mescaline George Costanza doing a crossover into a Ren and Stimpy episode and having a lust child with a random millennial’s TikTok feed. So, I spiral. Sometimes I don’t make it back from that MC Escher-like crevice my amygdala’s fallen into. Luckily, my prefrontal cortex is typically able to pull off a high-stakes recon mission into the depths of my subconscious to retrieve whatever it is I think I am.

So, I inevitably stop meditating and then endure the self-loathing of anyone who willingly watched Cocaine Bear in theaters (I’m not linking to that out of respect for Ray Liotta’s memory). I’m trying to figure out why I don’t mesh with meditation, or other ways to meditate, or whether I should maybe just try it each morning and be consistent while being clear about my goals.

Time to meditate on meditation.

What Meditation Is

Meditation’s sort of an “I’ll know it when I see it” thing. But, the Cleveland Clinic defines it as “a practice that involves focusing or clearing your mind using a combination of mental and physical techniques.” That’s pretty intuitive. The clinic goes on to delve into the various genres of meditation, from Buddhist (Theravada, Zen) to Transcendental to Guided and Yoga.

From there, it’s a bunch of various specific types of meditation, from mantra to mindfulness to visual. The form I attempt is a quasi-mindfulness one I learned about that combines box breathing techniques with the Buddhist practice of emptying your mind.

The benefits of meditation are better mood and reduced stress, along with long-term benefits such as a reduction in an aging brain and things of that sort, according to the Clinic. Combine this with various breathing techniques you can potentially use to ground yourself when feeling stressed and overwhelmed, there’s plenty you can do to center yourself. Now, what to do when the very thought of meditation is overwhelming?

The Ultimate Goal

The way I look at it, meditation’s a means to an end. That end is mindfulness and stress reduction. The implication, then, is that there are other activities you can do besides meditation to reach those goals. Doing activities to improve stress levels and increase mindfulness are often referred to as behavioral activation.

One thing I do to better know my mind and reduce stress is write. Another thing I do is cook. Except, while I consider myself a good writer, I’m still an extremely novice cook who is in the final stretch of an MSW program and a grueling schedule of work-school-internship. Which means that I haven’t had the time to write and hone my cooking skills. Which means I get the cooking in where I can fit it in. These days, I can barely fit it in. But that’s OK.

I think what people like me must realize is that all of this is a process. We’re likely not going to reach the mountaintop of enlightenment, after which we can coast down to the smooth plains of easy living. No, it will always be work. The positive part of this is that we don’t have to master mindfulness in one fell swoop. It’s a lifelong journey.

What do you think?