What meditating over 100 hours this month has taught me

After attending a meditation seminar in August 2023, which consisted of meditating 12 hours a day for 10 days and one hour of meditation per day since its completion, I noticed transforming benefits in my daily life.

✨ These are the 3 Big Lessons learned from meditating over 100 hours this month.

🙏 Meditation helps me to allow feelings, emotions, and sensations and face them with more equanimity.

It does not matter if you feel pain, pleasure, or upset. Feeling is feeling.

It arises and sooner or later will pass. When I meditate and scan my body from head to foot for any sensation that arises at the moment, I focus on the particular area and observe the sensation without trying to judge it. It doesn't matter if the sensation is subtle or harsh; stretching over a big or small area, I move on with the body scan and focus on the next part of the body.

This exercise takes away so much power from feelings and thoughts of fear, pain, or other dominant negatively seen sensations. Taking the sensation as it is, not trying to change it, you stop trying to solve something there is no solution to.

🏋️‍♂️ The amount of self-discipline that is needed for meditation helps me to stop procrastinating and take action in other areas of my life.

Daily, I meditate for one hour first thing in the morning, no matter how I feel.

I have a contract with myself not to stand up until the timer on my phone goes off, even when I am just sitting there without being able to focus any more for the last 10 minutes. I don't rate my meditation sessions. I try to do the process. Meditation has no goal or outcome. Meditating is the goal.

By again transferring this to the area of work, for example, I set a timeframe for how long I will work on a task.

Let's say, writing this article. When perfectionist thoughts arise, and I think about quitting, I try to use the same process as meditation. I sit until the time runs up and don't leave my workspace. The negative thoughts will pass, and I continue with my work.

⌛ Through meditation, I have learned to be more patient and to work forward step by step without looking at the goal all the time.

This often creates cravings and depression if the goal is still far away. I only need to define my goal initially to know where I want to go. Once the direction is set, I have to optimize for the process.

The post summarized into 3 key points:

• Meditation is a helpful practice that allows me to confront my feelings, emotions, and sensations with greater equanimity.
• The self-discipline required for meditation also helps me overcome procrastination and take action in other aspects of my life.
• Additionally, meditation has taught me to be more patient and focus on taking small steps forward rather than always fixating on the end goal.