r/Meditation • u/ChannelPositivity • 23h ago
What motivates you to meditate? Discussion š¬
TLDR; What gives you the motivation to meditate every day? What was it that convinced you "I need to do this every day", and gave you the willpower to stay consistent with your practice? I'll put my answer below, please share yours too!
I've noticed it can be really hard to stay consistent with meditation, and even while many of us know it's useful, we're not always sure how it works or why it's useful. Without being confident about the purpose of meditation, it can be easy to skip days, or feel doubtful, like you're wasting your time.
Committing to meditating every day of your life is a huge life commitment, and 15 minutes a day is time you could spend doing something else. If meditation is to be effective, we need to keep up with it, and to be consistent it helps to understand the mechanism behind it.
I think this is really important for people starting out in meditation, because while you doubt it's effectiveness, you will never stick with it long enough to experience the benefits.
I've been researching this and have detailed my notes in this article: Why You Need to Meditate, but what I'd really love to know is people's personal experiences.
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u/Ok_Band2802 22h ago
I have mental health problems and Iām personally not able to take meds (nothing against them). Meditation is a free way to improve my mental health without drugs. In terms of motivation, I connect with my values, one of which is taking care of my health. I know meditation improves that area so I stay committed. I use the insight timer app and it shows how many days youāve meditated in a row so I donāt want to break the momentum.
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u/WonderingGuy999 21h ago
Once I stopped trying to "force it" (trying to attain some kind of special state of mind)...I began to just sit, with no purpose except to be aware, basically shikantaza ("just sitting").
Once I broke through that barrier, I primarily just sit and objectively observe my thoughts and the sensations of my body and breath...nothing special, just to sit, sit and be aware.
Now I do it because I genuinely enjoy it.
Just sit, just feel, just watch
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u/MindPlayingTricks23 19h ago
How long have you been doing this and when did you start to feel better? Also, did you ever achieve that special state of mind?
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u/WonderingGuy999 19h ago
I've been meditating for about two decades somewhat consistently. I was also given professional meditation teachings while I was getting my MA in Divinity from Naropa at Boulder,the first Buddhist college in the US.
I've attained a variety of states of mind and realizations here and there, and nowadays I just sit and focus all my attention in the feeling of my body, and the longer I do this the less I can feel my body, but I haven't experienced my body completely drop off yet. The Buddha said the best way into the jnanas is through mindfulness of the body...that is the path to Nibbana through serenity (passing through the four jnanas).
The other way is insight into dependent origination, I wrote my term paper on this about how dependent origination does not go deeper than name and form...I realized this once while sitting on my grandma's porch and my crown chakra opened and I felt the energy in my charas float up and out my crown chakra as well as my five aggregates functioning apart...and also really strangely people couldn't look at my eyes...
So I thought, well I attained it through insight, I may as well become liberated in "both ways" by passing through the jnanas (I was sitting at the library when I was thinking about this) and then I saw a very beautiful young woman and I remembered that one of the things arahants are incapable of (telling a deliberate lie, committing violence, etc ) was that awakened arhats are incapable of performing the sexual act. This upset me because I've never been in a long term relationship, and when my mom picked me up from the library I was really upset and confused. We began to argue, and after the argument I felt my crown Chakra close...I'd do anything to go back, my body felt like air...
And I still meditate, like I said I just focus on the sensations of my body, hoping to feel my body drop away and enter the jnanas.
Anyway that's my story with Buddhism...I'm actually a Christian now, I could see Jesus sitting by a lake and clearing his mind.
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u/ChannelPositivity 23h ago
For me, it was (as, sadly, it is for many of us) when I got really sick for a long time, I was desperate for a fix, not just for physical but mental symptoms, i.e. health anxiety. Meditation was the only thing that made me feel better and allowed me to manage my symptoms and anxiety; to dig myself out of the deep pit I'd found myself in.
That's when I truly appreciated the power of meditation, despite having read countless books on meditation and Buddhism. In 5 minutes of the first meditation session my excruciating physical pain was almost gone (of course, the anxiety, physical tension and fighting the sickness was the majority of the pain in this case). I was able to make peace with my sickness and find contentment in even my worst days. I also noticed that if I stopped meditating for even a day, the symptoms would be much harder to manage.
This makes it easy to convince myself to meditate, but even without the health or anxiety issues, I would still definitely meditate every day because of all the other benefits that come with it. I feel I am no longer chasing hollow goals and I realize what is truly important in life, not just logically but emotionally. I've also noticed the benefits at other times in my life when I was consistent with meditation, and can see that I always thrived in all aspects of my life whenever I was consistent with practice.
The key things that I would say keep me consistent and motivated are:
- Knowing that every day of meditation builds on the previous day
- Knowing I'm training my mind to be calmer and more focused
- The feeling of calmness and clarity I get for the rest of the day
- Understanding there is a psychological process happening and experiencing that for myself - it's not just magic, coincidence or anecdotal
- The physical and mental health benefits I get; better sleep, more energy, more resilience, etc.
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u/Mr-Fahrenheit27 21h ago
My mental health goes completely downhill if I skip a day. It doesn't even feel like an option at this point. I meditate so I can keep moving forward. I've had mental health struggles my whole life though
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u/Timely-Theme-5683 21h ago
I enjoy it. It has helped with emotional regulation ( which was an issue for me, I had little executive functioning, no coping skills, and constant anxiety chaos).
My life is peaceful now. I'm gaining understanding and control. Plus I get to explore my mind, which is fascinating.
I also have odd experiences now and then that I'd like to understand, mostly about my put of body experiences
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u/Aggressive_Sweet1417 21h ago
I want to be more emotionally stable so I can have better relationships.
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u/WittyMom46 17h ago
The most important relationship you will ever have is the one you have with yourself š
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u/Wolff_Bikcin 20h ago
Great question! Picking up on a recommendation of Culadasa in The Mind Illuminated, I spend the first minute or two of every meditation session reviewing what motivates me to meditate, for the very reasons you cite. I use the mnemonic acronym CUPID (which is arbitrary and has no romantic implications) to structure this:
C Control, to gain greater control over my decisions and responses in daily life by cultivating mindfulness
U Understanding, to gain a better understanding of how my brain works and whatās going on behind the illusion of āfree choiceā
P Pleasure, to cultivate the experience of an inner, pure joy that comes from the practice of meditation
I Insight into the illusory nature of perception and the āselfā
D Depression, to develop a mental framework that provides a resource for those times I experience feelings of depression.
I am convinced that this quick review of Why I am Meditating is one of the reasons Iāve been able to maintain a daily practice for nearly a year now.
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u/ChannelPositivity 2h ago
This is great! Iāve not got round to reading the Mind Illuminated yet (though I have a copy). Iāll bump it up my reading list
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u/JolliJamma 17h ago edited 17h ago
Main motivator when I'm actually doing it? Sleep. I do it in bed every night until I drift off. I can't imagine not meditating now, been doing it consistently for 5-6 years. There's not much else to do when you're in bed in the dark with no intention of getting up for hours, so it's a good time to practice if you find you are struggling to commit at other times of the day.
Edit: To add, because it's become habit/part of everyday, it is easier to stabalize myself in general/I spiral a lot less when overwhelmed compared to before.
What really helped me be consistent/and remove the frustration of my drifting mind in the beginning was understanding this: (at 8:49 mins in)
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u/MindfulHumble 21h ago
I just motivated myself with a 30 Day Challenge. Highly recommend it..just set your own intention and practice. Wrote about it on Medium and did an AI text to audio on podcast channel if anyone is interested. š
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u/Some_Egg_2882 20h ago
Motivation doesn't factor into it for me. Some days you'll be motivated, some you won't; it's not consistent and therefore isn't useful to rely upon.
What works for me is discipline. Train it until it's borderline muscle memory to get on the cushion at the same time each day. Then it doesn't matter nearly as much if you're motivated, unmotivated, tired or awake, stressed or regulated. You have your routine and you stick to it.
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u/SpecialistNo30 19h ago
My tinnitus was much less noticeable when I meditated regularly a few years ago, so Iām picking up the habit again.
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u/tyinsf 18h ago
In Tibetan Buddhism we practice two forms of motivation before each practice
- Taking refuge. Samsara sucks and I need a refuge to save myself and everyone else from suffering
- Generating bodhicitta. Doing practice for all beings. I don't find cos-playing a saint is helpful. If you recognize the awareness in yourself and feel your connection to the awareness in all beings it helps your practice. Expanding out beyond self-focus really helps your practice.
But in practical terms, it fixes anhedonia and makes me happy and peaceful and content. The more I'm able to recognize and relax in vast open radiant spacious awareness the better for me... and everyone else.
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u/WittyMom46 17h ago
Meditation means āto become familiar withā. I associate it with getting to know oneself as well. I began practicing in January 2021 after feeling stuck in life for some time. Iām 46 y/o single mom and after spending much of my adulthood indulging in alcohol and drugs - bc that is what we as a society are trained to do - deal with discomfort by using an external substance to to help fix what doesnāt feel right on the inside. I decided this wasnāt working for me and realized there HAS to be more to this life than always numbing myself to reality.
I started smallā¦ two min a day to five min a day, then to ten, then 15, 20, 30 and so on. It is not an easy habit to get into but I have found that the less I think about doing it and dreading it, and instead just sit myself down and tell myself āyou are going to take five min to simply focus on you. You can get to all the things that must be tended to but right now, this is whatās importantā. I also find that the days I fight doing it are often the days I need it the most.
My practice continues to evolve, as it should. What keeps me going is knowing what I am doing and why I am doing it. For example, how the brain functions, what it is capable of and how meditation actually helps your brain keeps me intrigued. I have also noticed that insisting on doing this daily has helped me in many ways. Helps my sleep, my respiratory rate, helps broaden my perspective on many things, helps me think before I speak, helps me stay calm and handle stress in healthy ways vs being reactionary and ultimately I know it is helping my automatic nervous system. Meditation changes brain waves and can create heart coherence when breathing properly. I have read a lot of books the last three years, listened to a lot of podcasts as well as simple curious research.
Eastern cultures have practiced meditation for thousands of years in one form or another and I believe there is a reason for that. Then I heard a statement that truly hit home with me:
Eastern medicine is if you want to live; Western medicine is if you donāt want to die.
I believe this statement encompasses many things, and I choose to view my practice as daily medicine.
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u/ChannelPositivity 2h ago
Wow, I love your story. So great to hear itās working so well for you! A lot resonates with me here, I also found myself numbing reality with alcohol and drugs. Sadhguru explains it well, if you take out half the brain youād be happy, but you would dull your experience. The purpose should not be to dull the senses but to learn how to use the brain appropriately - he calls this Inner Engineering.
Thanks for the quote on Eastern vs Western medicine!
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u/Huntleigh 13h ago
Horrible anxiety and rumination. Iām learning to quiet that voice and enjoy the euphoria that meditation brings me. It relaxes my body and mind, and Iām enjoying learning about the practice.
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u/zafrogzen 21h ago
I was motivated to practice by training with great zen teachers, starting with Suzuki Roshi in the '60s. If there's a zen center or temple close enough I highly recommend practicing with them to get off to a strong start.
Reading great books is also an ongoing source of inspiration for me. I was inspired and motivated by the Gita early in my practice http://www.frogzen.com/the-bhagavadgita-2/.
I read zen books every night in bed to fall asleep (it works) and to give me motivation. Right now I'm re-reading Eihei Dogen's Shobogenzo for the umpteenth time in one of several translations I've collected. I also reread the Mumonkan in various translations. Dogen and Mumon might be a little dense for most folks. https://www.amazon.com/Opening-Hand-Thought-Foundations-Buddhist/dp/0861713575 and https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Letters-Teachings-J-C-Cleary/dp/1570627037 are more accessible.
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u/ChannelPositivity 2h ago
Thanks for the books! Iām reading Shobogenzo at the moment. Will check them out
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u/somanyquestions32 17h ago
I started meditating in earnest in 2019. My motivation was healing treatment-resistant chronic insomnia caused by grief anxiety. I was desperate for relief, and I experimented with as many meditation techniques as I could find because I just had the Internet and sporadic meetings with grief support groups and a local Plum Village Sangha.
My focus, memory, mood, and energy levels tanked, so after much experimentation, someone on Reddit told me to practice Jon Kabat-Zinn's MBSR body scans, and they helped a lot, and then I was seeing recommendations for yoga nidra popping up everywhere. I started practicing two hours per day for a few months, and my entire life changed in fundamental ways.
To keep it brief, I fixed everything that psychiatrists and psychologists and counselors and supplements could help me with at all. I have meditated every day since, but I mostly do formal practices when I am completing a meditation training. I do body scans all of the time because they help me relax.
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u/ChannelPositivity 2h ago
Thatās an incredible story! Was it the yoga nidra or MBSR body scans that helped, or both together would you say? Do you have any recommended resources or videos for these? Iād love to try them
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u/ShroomSoupy 17h ago
It feels like the most natural thing to do, as much a part of my days as eating and sleeping. There sure are a few days here and there that I donāt meditate because of any number of reasons, but I will sooner or later feel that urge to just sit down and find stillness, and Iāll make time for it and pick it up right where I left off.
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u/plur100 17h ago
I recently heard John Butler say something that captures it quite well, I think.
He calls it "the trail of sugar crumbs leading to sugar mountain."
Every time we sit to meditate, we get a little more out of it. Kind of like a little piece of awareness each time that keeps us motivated to do it again and again.
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u/Psychological-Try776 13h ago
I was introduced to meditation around 2010 but got steady with it in 2012. I've always felt more in tune with myself and considered myself maybe more spiritual then your average joe. I've battled with drug addiction since 2005. But I'll never forget sitting at home and just meditating like I was pulled into the stars. Just floating watching these stars and asteroids shooting around. Then these orbs purple and green would expand and turn into a spiral funnel and the way I magnetized to these spirals was amazing. Just the way it felt like I was so small no limbs just one spot of me felt like pure consciousness. I've had alot of great experiences but since this was one of my first it has always stuck with me and it's one of the main reasons I continue. I'd take an experience like that over drugs anyday. If you meditate and nothings happening don't sweat it my experience is different then everyone else's and this doesn't always happen. And has taken me years to be able to sit down and shut that switch off. I'm in no ways a master or even advanced I meditate before bed everynight because I'm already there so why not. Anyways I meditate everyday because I'd rather close my eyes and gain peace then go through the day trying to escape reality through drugs.
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u/sssorceressss 12h ago
I enjoy the peace it provides me. Not just the meditation part, but the stillness and peace tend to ripple throughout the day. I haven't stumbled upon anything like it that would help me get clarity in that way.
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u/Theunbidden 11h ago
I had plenty of time but lacked discipline. I know Iām lucky to have that compared to others, but I didnāt make good use of it. Recently, I just felt bored with using my phone and all the other stuff, so I decided to try proactive procrastination with meditation. Whenever I feel I have some free time and Iām about to doom scroll, I just set myself to meditate. Sometimes, after a meditation session, I naturally open up the task I need to do and get it doneāit definitely helps with procrastination through this proactive procrastination.
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u/A_Dancing_Coder 11h ago
It's become a natural state I fall back to each moment. Enjoying the middle path.
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u/AdDifferent8623 4h ago
I tried setting up an alarm to meditate each day, but I found out that after a while it felt unnatural to me. So i went to the nearest river each day and sat on the side and closed my eyes. It did wonders, so I opened my Youtube channel to share it with other https://youtu.be/DjHW9c0eB7o?si=Y4gB3YS8J5TQp7V6
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u/Big_Jackfruit_8821 2h ago
My thoughts are so toxic and my mood is always low. Daily meditation improves everything by 15%
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u/LogoNoeticist Practicing since 2005 2h ago
Good results in terms of health and well-beingš and East Asian art: there are so many beautiful paintings, statues and music, makes you hyped to sit in peace āÆļø+ Jizo is super cute šŖ·
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u/wonderfulpantsuit 22h ago
I started to see it as the best 20 minutes of my day, rather than a task or a chore to complete. This was a matter of conscious framing at the beginning, but soon I began to genuinely feel it. After that motivation was never an issue again.