What is the point of meditation? What is everyone talking about?

The human brain is an incredibly powerful tool. It has allowed the vast majority of our regular habits to become automated so that we don’t even have to think about them. This is what our brain can do for us. We don’t have to remind ourselves how to brush our teeth or drive a car or tie our shoelaces. We may remember how awkward or uncomfortable these things felt at first but now they’re automatic.

We do them on autopilot. We identify a trigger and off we go, robot-like and it’s amazing. Because if we had to think about every little thing and re-learn every time, we’d never get very much done. How amazing is that?!

But here’s where it gets not so amazing.

The average human thinks about 60,000 thoughts a day and the vast majority of these are recycled habitual thoughts. And our thoughts create our feelings so the way we generally feel has become a habit.

For example we see someone who irritates us and we generate a whole story about how annoying they are and we remind ourselves about all the reasons why this is so. We see our work laptop and we start thinking about all the work we have to do and this triggers a series of thoughts. We see ourselves in the mirror and start our usual critical observations. In fact people and things around us trigger automatic thoughts often below conscious awareness and we end up feeling stressed or anxious or unhappy. We hear a song or smell something and it takes us somewhere in our mind. We eat something and it takes us somewhere in our mind. The list goes on.

Our environment and the people around us are triggers for our habitual thinking which has become automated. We think we are in control but it is thought that up to 95% of our thoughts are habitual!

The only way we can break this cycle is to take some time away from our environment. If we close our eyes and sit in silence this gives us a chance to break the habitual pattern and to observe what is going on.

Your mind will argue and tell you what a waste of time it is and it will be difficult at first. This is completely normal. You don’t expect your body to be fit after going to the gym a few times. It’s the same with meditation, it takes patience and practice.

In time you get back in control of your mind and your life and instead of feeling like a victim of circumstance you are back creating the life you want and back in the driving seat of your life.