True or false – three widespread meditation myths – The Meditation Weblog

Throughout lunch at work, we focus on our vacation plans. After I’ve advised my colleagues that I’m going on a meditation retreat in the summertime, the dialog turns to meditation. I don’t disclose to them what number of hours I’ll meditate, however inform my colleague, who like me has ‘Supervisor’ in her job title, and two smaller youngsters, that I meditate every single day throughout the remainder of the 12 months as effectively. As soon as a day for 3 quarters of an hour or twice for half an hour. My colleague says that she additionally tried meditation as soon as a few years in the past, however didn’t succeed.

This brings us to 3 meditation myths that I’ll now focus on:

Fable 1: The duty of meditation is to attempt to loosen up

FALSE.

Once I ask my colleague what she particularly tried to do, she says that it was a sort of guided joint meditation that befell on a weekday afternoon. She says she was not capable of loosen up – she merely couldn’t do what the trainer advised her to. She subsequently concluded she was not capable of meditate, she merely couldn’t do it.

Right here we encounter one of the crucial widespread misconceptions about meditation: that the duty of meditating is actively to loosen up. Luckily, this isn’t the case with Acem Meditation. For what could possibly be extra traumatic than having to loosen up for the subsequent half hour? In Acem Meditation, our solely process is to repeat the meditation sound as simply and effortlessly as we will – at any time when we will. Leisure comes as a pure response from doing this, whether or not we know it or not.

Fable 2: The objective of meditating is to turn into senseless

FALSE.

When my colleague says she was unable to meditate, it’s most likely as a result of she had a substantial amount of ideas occurring in her thoughts that afternoon. Ideas she was absorbed in, whereas she was attempting to comply with the directions of the one who was guiding the meditation. In a roundabout way there was a mismatch between her precise expertise of her inside self and the inside self that the individual guiding the meditation was attempting to assist her obtain.

In Acem Meditation, all ideas are permitted. You might be allowed to assume/really feel/daydream something. ANYTHING. Sleep. Goals – something. All the things within the meditation that’s not your personal repetition of the meditation sound known as spontaneous exercise, usually abbreviated SPA. The abbreviation is definitely fairly correct, as a result of you may consider SPA because the thoughts’s approach of stress-free. SPA cleans up the thoughts by processing its unfinished enterprise. SPA is what occurs spontaneously in meditation.

The interplay between what you do (repeating the meditation sound as simply and effortlessly as you may – when you may) and what occurs is what offers meditation its processing impact, and which finally brings rest.

Fable 3: I want a meditation information or a meditation app each time I meditate

FALSE.

In Acem Meditation you aren’t depending on a meditation information (a human being), or an App in your cellphone for that matter. The battery in your cellphone might occur to be empty.

If you find yourself meditating, it is best to protect your self from robust sounds and lightweight, and sit in a superb comfy chair. Additionally it is doable to meditate in a shiny and noisy surroundings (e.g.an airplane) in case you have earplugs and a sleep masks, and even in case you don’t. You’ll be able to set the alarm on an old school alarm clock if you’d like, or simply merely have a look at a very analogue wristwatch. The underside line this: After getting discovered the approach, you solely want your self.

After taking the essential course, you may in precept meditate by yourself for the remainder of your life, if you wish to. The overwhelming majority of meditators nonetheless discover it beneficial to fulfill different meditators to debate their very own meditation, hear about different folks’s experiences, and be taught extra about meditation psychology, with a view to meditate higher themselves.

Abstract

Anybody can do Acem Meditation. With this technique, rest comes as a pure results of repeating the meditation sound with out effort, and never as a result of we wish to obtain it. Acem Meditation is a non-directive meditation approach, the place what’s within the thoughts is allowed to play itself out by itself phrases, it doesn’t matter what it’s. It’s not a objective in Acem Meditation to turn into empty of ideas. Quite the opposite, processing takes place exactly by permitting your ideas to movement freely and assembly them with a free psychological angle at any time when we aren’t fully absorbed by them. After getting discovered Acem Meditation, you may in precept meditate by yourself for the remainder of your life, and solely want your self and a time piece. Nonetheless, most meditators discover they get extra out of meditation by exchanging and discussing their experiences with different meditators.

To conclude: Primarily based on their very own experiences with different strategies, or on what they assume they find out about meditation, there are fairly a couple of who consider that meditation isn’t for them. For them, Acem Meditation might very effectively (additionally, and maybe particularly?) be the meditation approach that fits them the very best. Together with my work colleague.

By Elisabeth Heimdal Wærsted – an initiator in Acem

Translated by Eirik Jensen

Photograph: From the environment of Acem’s retreat middle Lundsholm, Sweden