Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics

Book Summary by Kavita Jhala

A 10% HAPPIER HOW-TO BOOK THAT COMBINES WITH THE 10% HAPPIER APP TOO

A hilariously simple instructional journey to meditation  

Key Points:

 

The goal is not to clear your mind but to focus your mind.

 

A dose of fun can never go wrong when we are so opposed to taking up a habit. Skeptical about meditation? This book is actually for you. Holistically it combines guided instructions and exercises with faqs, cheat sheets and mediations to get you started, stay there and continue the journey for a long period of time. Dan Harris and Jeff Warren have skillfully picked up the pain points that keep people away from meditation at the same time focusing on their own struggles while meditating. Touching upon the psychological, emotional, time management and personal history with meditation and equanimity is hard but not impossible according to them, and this is what they are trying to bring out as understanding points for the readers through this book. This book is written in a way that readers can combine it with 10% Happier App too. The app helps the readers to go through the meditation at a personal pace.

 

About the Authors:

Dan Harris wrote 10% Happier (a New York Times bestseller) and then launched the 10% Happier Podcast as well as the app in conjunction with this book called 10% Happier: Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. He is co-anchor of ABC’s Nightline and Good Morning America’s weekend editions. He lives in New York City.

 

Jeff Warren is the founder of Consciousness Explorer’s Club (CEC) which is a meditation adventure group based in Toronto. He is a meditation instructor and writer.

 

Carlye Adler is a co-author of several books; 3 of which are New York Times Best Sellers. He is a journalist too.

 

About the Book:

 

Meditation is not meant for you? Dan Harris will convince you that you are nothing without meditation!

 

Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics is the outcomes of Harris and Warren’s cross-country bus tour to bring meditation into the lives of everyone. They dealt with myths, misconceptions and game-changing solutions to embark into the meditation journey for different people in different professions.

Dan Harris, an ABC News anchor, was skeptical about meditation thinking it was something to do with crystal ball gazing or psychic tendencies until a public panic attack sent him to try meditation for calming himself. The result was that it turned him into one of the most vocal proponents of meditation.

Combining science with personal benefits of meditation in terms of focus and emotional well-being, Harris realised that he needed to get people to talk out what was holding them back from not meditating. The cross-country road trip followed by this book is the outcome of his experiences.

 

This is a guided and instructive non-fiction book for people who want to take up meditation but are hesitant to do so. The book slowly introduces the reader to the science of meditation, the research and studies surrounding it and then moves on to explaining each aspect of our fear to take up meditation.

 

Who is it for?

 

This book dives into the psychological, neural, physical and social well being and benefits of meditation on individuals. This book can be useful for :

-People who are skeptical about taking up meditation
-Readers interested in reading books on self-help, mental health and meditation
-People who work in high-risk or high-stress professions like police personnel, medical professionals like doctors, nurses, firefighters, news reporters and journalists, actors and theatre professionals, business persons and people in leadership capacity
-Academicians and Scholars who need to combine different aspects of mental health, medication and neuroscience for reference
-Psychologists who need to delve into the effects of meditation on brain and human behavior for reference

 

Summary:

 

To understand meditation it is essential to understand it from within. The book has guided and un-guided meditations and cheat sheets in every chapter which the readers can rely on as they go ahead with the meditative journey.

 

This summary shall start off with the explanation of how this book came into existence, the key points one needs to focus on with the myth-busting explanations of fears and questions. Key aspects of working on those myths or fears are provided in this summary. In the book you will get furthermore meditative steps and the cheat sheet for countering each of these myths or fears.

 

The Trigger, Science and Truth:

 

Dan had a panic attack on ABC’s Good Morning America Live News (a nationally televised event) in 2004. He was totally freaked out. The reason was personal. Spending years in covering war zones for ABC News; Dan was moving around with undiagnosed depression. He started self-medicating with recreational drugs like cocaine and ecstasy which resulted in an artificially induced adrenaline rush resulting in a meltdown in public.

 

Identifying this panic attack, Dan was suggested to try meditation. He dismissed it as a ridiculous notion that came at part with aura readings. With a Type A personality, he thought he was too busy to communicate with the cosmos. But gradually science came to the fore.

 

Science says that ample research have conclusively noted that meditation leads to:

-Reduced Blood Pressure
-Boost in recovery rates after release of cortisol - a stress hormone
-Improvement in immune system functioning and response
-Slows age related brain atrophy
-Mitigates the depression and anxiety symptoms

 

Studies further revealed that it reduces violence in prison, boosts productivity in the workplace and improves behavior as well as grades of school children.

Studies in neuroscience further notes that meditations help rewire the key areas of the brain related to self awareness, resilience and compassion.

Harvard Gazette mentions that 8 weeks of meditation shows a measurable decrease in grey matter density in the areas of the brain associated with stress.

These studies and research have propelled Meditation as a “fascinating public health revolution”. And while it has fascinated many people, it definitely has put a lot of questions too. Even Dan thought meditation to be weird stuff but then he realised that the fears were not so profound as he thought them to be.

 

Simple Meditation Steps:

 

Whether doing a 1 hour meditation or a 1 minute meditation, these simple steps by Dan and Jeff should get anyone started:

-Sit comfortably with your spine erect. You can sit cross-legged on the floor or sofa or sit with legs straight. You can even lie down if you want to. Basically you should be comfortable but alert too. It shouldn’t put you to sleep.
-Bring attention to your breathing in and out. Pick up a sport or a sensation that is most prominent or can hold your attention. Your chest, belly, nose, pillow, cat but think about the sensation of breathing or feeling. Physical sensation is important.
-This step is the key to meditation. Random thoughts will start coming in your head as you try to focus on your breathing. You might get distracted constantly. As soon as you are aware that you are distracted bring your focus back to the sensation of breathing in and out. Distracted? Begin again. Do this again and again.

 

It is a radical way to bring your focus on the sensation of breathing while breaking from the thoughts. The point is not to get disheartened. Distraction is part of the process and it takes time to train the mind to focus on the breathing. Homo Sapiens are a product of a lifetime of rumination habits and this will never cease. So the important part is to focus our mind to one thing and constantly work towards it.

While meditation is a fundamental aspect of life, we all have a voice in our heads. This voice is not what the schizophrenia patients suffer from but this voice is more like an ‘internal narrator’ or ‘ego’. Lord Buddha called it “monkey mind” . You can identify and understand this voice so as to work towards lessening its impact on your meditation:

-It is mostly fixated on your past and future and rarely concerns with the present
-It is insatiable because it constantly loves to speak out all the time
-It is involved with the self and everything revolves around the self or the history of self

 

Dan calls it a “ceaseless internal talk fest” and meditation helps bring a break to this talk flow in 3 beneficial ways:

1.  Calm - Meditation can have a very calming effect but that doesn’t mean that one will be in this state forever. Practicing meditators feel other emotions too but they have the benefit of staying calm in the different situations they encounter.

 

2.  Focus - Meditation does not guarantee “omni-connectivity” instantly. Most of us are frayed and frazzled and meditation immediately does not have a spiritual benefit though it can reduce the frazzled nerves to a great extent of calmness. While practicing meditating it is difficult to stay focussed on breathing and easy to get lost and then trying to focus back again. It helps to keep in mind to constantly stay on the task of being focused. In fact, studies have found that meditation helps activate those areas of the brain that are associated with attention and they suppress or de-activate the mind-wandering thoughts.

 

3.  Mindfulness - Dan’s personal definition of mindfulness is, “Mindfulness is the ability to see what’s happening in your head at any given moment, so that you don’t get carried away by it.”  In this context, Dan gives the analogy of waterfall. The water is the stream of consciousness that is signified by “me..me..me” thoughts. Mindfulness is the area behind the waterfall which allows you to step out of the cascade and view your urges or impulses or desires without minding it. Mindfulness allows you to respond wisely to the things around you instead of you reacting impulsively to them. ‘Respond not react’ is a game changing thought process here.

 

Understanding Meditation:

 

When Dan wrote this book, he was already practicing meditation since 8 years. He is slowly beginning to switch out of the auto-pilot egoistic state but he had his moments too. Meditators are not highly enlightened saints or yogis. They are human beings who still are working to be better.

Meditation according to Dan is an amazing inner technology and it is well to remember from time to time that meditation is not a one way ticket to flawlessness. This fact is mentioned in Dan’s first book called “10% Happier” that one gradually works from the inside out. One emerges being merely flawed from being deeply flawed in the past.

Jeff Watson says,”You can just shift into a kind of feeling of your own being of your own headlessness. That just immediately diminishes the figure of content you were suffering about. You know?”

“Meditation”, says Jeff, “is about bringing into awareness some habit that was previously unconscious. As far as it’s unconscious, you have no perspective around it. It totally governs you; it owns you. You’re being hurled along automatically by it. As soon as you can start to notice that happening and see it, then it becomes less and less of a problem. So, I’m at the point in my life, having practised enough, that I can now see where most of my neurotic struggles are. And because I can see them, I can admit to them, and they end up being less of a problem.”

This book is like a Chicken Soup for the Skeptics. Dan Harris himself was one and he wants the readers of this book to also take a plunge and see the benefits of meditation as he sees them now. It has a transformative effect on personal and professional life which Dan tries to show to us. This book busts a lot of myths surrounding meditation and how different people view meditation differently thereby making them all skeptics. How to become a believer and a doer, then? Coming further a few myths and questions that Dan and Jeff try to tackle while on their cross country bus tour spanning 10 days with a crew of 12 people who were meditators for a long time, just started out or in mid-way. Dan and Jeff met various kinds of people, trying to find out the reasons why people were hesitant to meditate and what was so different or difficult for each of them to start off. The bus tour was a great interactive meditation tour which not only gave them access to the thoughts of the people but also gave them as a team a lot of ways to connect to each other and learn their attitudes towards meditation. From congressman to con-man, from a janitor to supervisor, from a priest to policemen - they were able to have an interactive discussion, question and answers and a lot of myth busting across a wide spectrum of people in varying professions.

‘I cannot do this’ Myth:

 

-Finding time: This is the biggest roadblock. Most people believe that they do not have time to relax and meditation is a state of being alert and focussed. How do they do it? The point here is that meditation doesn’t have to be a full hour affair. It can be for 1 minute too. Out of the busy life routines, finding a 1 minute meditation time is all it needs to get started. Gradually, you can pack in more in a day and then the time too can be lengthened.
-How to sit? Are we supposed to sit in a certain way only? What if our legs start paining? What if we can’t sit like that for longer? Sitting is mostly advocated because it induces a state of alertness. One can even lie down and meditate. However, it can lead you to fall asleep. If your legs start paining or you feel fidgety focus your attention on the sensation on your leg. It can help reduce the pain and bring your attention to keeping yourself calm in the process
-Don’t we have to buy and wear special clothes? Would it be possible to wear jeans? Many people once they get the hang of meditation feel comfortable meditating in jeans too. However, ideally for beginners it is advocated that they wear loose fitting clothes so they can relax and also be better tuned with their breathing.
-We always have to keep our eyes closed? What if I can’t keep my eyes closed? Won’t it go against the rules of meditation? It is not necessary to keep eyes closed while meditating. You can keep it open to focus on a spot or a point where you feel sensation. There are no hard and fast rules in meditation but then these points do help you meditate better.  It is however noted that keeping eyes closed helps thwart distraction and helps gain better focus points.
-There is no ambient music? Ambient music, while sometimes can act as a soothing background effect, can actually be a distraction too. If you really want to play music let it be so very soft to stay in the background and not give you distraction.

 

Mindfulness can be gained by focusing on your breath. Breathe in and out. Focus on the sensation of breathing and how it affects your body sensation. Practicing this everyday helps gain a better control on your breathing and also gives you more understanding of your distraction in the form of thoughts running in your mind while trying to meditate. Here is the step towards mindfulness in meditation:

                     Concentration   -------------      Thoughts     --------------     Feelings

Step 1: Focus and calm the mind by concentrating on the breathing. Breathe in and Breathe out. Focus on this basic process. Note how the air goes in your body.

Step 2: Once the mind is stabilized, widen your attention to thoughts, urges and emotions. What thoughts come to your mind. Are they positive or negative?

Step 3: Explore a few specialized meditations that are provided in the book. Meditations on movements, meditations on sound, meditation on compassion,etc.

These three steps can help stay focussed on the meditation process and also provide a variation that would not allow boredom to set in.

There are certain basic instructions following these steps. They are like cheat sheets but they help you get better with your frustrated feelings about meditation.

 

-You don’t have to meditate now if you don’t want to. You have a choice to meditate whenever you feel comfortable. If someone tells you to meditate and you don’t feel up to it, you can always say no. The idea is to try meditation when you are in good state of mind and not agitated or resistant to it
-Breathing technique in meditation can seem hard. It is not so. One of the ways to counter the breathing process is to ‘note it’. Breathe In. Breathe Out. Telling yourself the instructions while breathing can create a note of your breathing process and also the thought process that may come in randomly while meditating. Again, breathing is one of the simplest ways to get tuned into meditation. If you are not interested in breathing, turn your attention to some other sensation.

 

I always thought it was about clearing your brain of everything!

 

Meditation still abounds with various myths. This is one of the most thought of myths. As said earlier, human beings are in the habit of rumination, so clearing the brain of everything especially thoughts is impossible. At the same time it cannot erase memories that are painful. It can definitely help ease the mind to be calm when in pain so that it gives a feeling of less pain. It cannot erase memories but give you a better way of dealing with them. In nutshell, while building a new skill of meditation you cannot stop thinking; you can ‘change the relationship with thinking’.

One notable feature about thinking as Buddhism mentions is the condition of Prapanca. Prapanca is a thinking condition in which when something happening in the present moment gets immediately extrapolated to some catastrophic future in the thought process. It could be a stay comment or bad news or probably even a stubbed toe. The non-significant thought assumes a gigantic and catastrophic effect in future and again it is related to the person who is thinking and trying to meditate. Dan experienced Prapanca a lot of times especially given his job in a news agency. Over the period of time, however, Dan had learnt to recognize the prapanca traits in his thinking and learnt to not get affected by it. This was possible due to meditation.

How did he overcome it? While noting the changes his thoughts took shape while meditating and noting the prapanca effects coming up. He would immediately recognize it and then learn to dissociate from it so as to not to affect his mental state.

 

I don’t have time for this!

 

We all have busy stressful lives and believe that time is always short. The reason for “I don’t have time for this' ' is the most common reason why people don't take up meditation. Dan and Jeff were able to convince different people to take it up with various solutions. Since these people were already aware of the scientific benefits of meditation, Dan and Jeff looked closely into other aspects of getting them hooked.

Reward or Punishment System - Many people get motivated by rewards to be able to do certain tasks continuously. Rewarding yourself something that you like after meditating for a week can be a great way to stay hooked. In contrast, it was found that some people found the punishment a better way of staying motivated. Stripping oneself of TV viewing rights was one way of doing so.
Think Strategically of your Schedule - When people have a close look at their schedule they realise that they do have time to fit in a 1 minute meditation time. This then gradually increases to 5 minutes and then 10 minutes. Another way to keep hooked was to repeat a long loop to oneself to meditate and make it a habit.
Give yourself permission to fail - Couldn’t meditate for a few days? Don’t think you can never do it again. Giving yourself some leeway about failure is a good way to start again. We all fail. It is not a great deal. The deal is to begin again. Time management can make it possible
One Minute counts - Give yourself a quickie meditation time. Once it becomes a habit, it will increase gradually for you to learn to enjoy it.
Free-Range Meditations - Meditations between meetings, while brushing teeth or doing dishes? It is possible to co-opt for doing meditation with everyday activities so that you can gradually start meditating without doing these activities. Not only does it give you a good way to hook-up on meditation but it will also give you the excuse to touch base with a sensation while meditating ie. sound of the dishes, sight of the teeth, taste of the toothpaste, touch of the soap suds; and the feelings while being focused on meditation while doing these activities. It gives you training like muscle groups of mind.
Adopt an attitude of “daily-ish” - This gives you the psychological  flexibility of being enthusiastic for having an abiding habit.
The Accordion Principle - This principle is the combination of 1 minute counts and the attitude of ‘daily-ish’. The goal is to get 5 to 10 minutes of meditation time and on really busy days to make it at least 1 minute in a day or 1 minute several times in a day. This way not only do you feel least worried about failure but also keep being hooked to meditation. Apart from this you also don’t feel the strain of keeping a long time on meditative practice.
Make yourself accountable to other people - Behavior scientists acknowledge the fact that some people cannot initiate healthy habits on their own. This necessitates the need for having other people held accountable for their actions. Community or groups are one of the ways of taking this. Create or join a support group or a community of people who would like to meditate. All you need to do is gather a few friends and start. Getting others to keep a check on your progress is a motivating factor for some people.
Novel Idea - Try enjoying meditation. How many of you enjoy meditation? - this is a novel idea you hear. In our culture that talks a lot about external awards it makes sense to connect meditation with rewards that work for you. Are these rewards satisfying? Do you enjoy the practice of meditating? If you think it is not possible to enjoy, it is believed that enjoyment is something you can train.

 

The real learning with meditation is how it affects your reaction to the world. As Shinzen Young says: “Meditation extends your life. Not necessarily by making you live longer, but by boosting your level of focus so that you are squeezing more juice out of every moment.”

Meditation has what we can call accelerating the aging process gracefully gradient which is vital for a fulfilling life.

People might think I am Weird:

Many people think that meditation has religious contents or one needs to join a certain cult or group, or opt for a certain way of dressing. Meditation is a performance enhancer and does not interfere with any religion. This myth was brought by the fact that meditation is a natural part of eastern philosophy and extolled by Buddhism. However, it has nothing to do with any particular religious beliefs. This has led to people thinking that you are a wuss if you are meditating. If these thoughts are the hindrances that come in between your meditation practice try these tactics to train your monkey mind -

 

-Note and investigate patterns in your thinking when trying to meditate. Noting your breathing helps a lot in gaining control over your thinking.
-Be a warrior and feel the full experience of being scared of something or feeling bummed out by something.
-Give yourself a break. Give yourself a  1 minute meditation time instead of 5 minutes and see the build up eventually. You will begin to enjoy it so much that you will be getting calmer and then eventually you won’t care about what others think of you
-Be a Ninja of equanimity. Calmness by meditation gives you more tactics to calm your impulses and gain an empathetic understanding of others.
-Find stillness. That person made a wrong turn and cut you in the traffic? Be still. Let the calmness settle on you instead of getting angry and giving way to your impulse of screaming. This sense of stillness is gained by the experience of meditation over a period of time. While meditating, you can try and create an environment of stillness or better still, try to instill the trait of stillness within yourself.

 

Meditation is self-indulgent:

Self-care is self-indulgent and sitting with your eyes closed and doing nothing is one of them. Sounds like meditating, right? The biggest guilt-barrier especially for women who are mothers and working is this thought of doing meditation for 5 minutes instead of doing some other work like spending time with kids or with husband. Here is the greatest tip of all - If you want to take care of others, first, you must take care of yourself. Think of meditation as a support in the form of self-compassion and let guilt not control you. To generate compassion for self and others - meditation is the key. One need never bring out the outburst of emotions on the family and thereby maintain a sense of calmness thereby improving upon the relationship.

Pandora’s Box:

A lot of people, though after accepting the fact that meditation is useful, tend to avoid it due to deep-rooted fear of being alone with the thoughts and feelings. They feel it is a Pandora’s Box that they are afraid to open. They are in fact not wrong in thinking so.

Meditation can bring out deep-rooted fears but in absence of meditation also these anxieties can surface sooner or later. Persons with a history of trauma or mental illness however are advised to consult their mental health professional before embarking into meditation.

Here’s what you can do to tackle the deep-seated anxieties when they surface during meditation: Check the RAIN

 

Recognize the feelings
Accept the feelings that emerge
Investigate the feelings. Find out why it emerged.
Non-identification of feelings by first acknowledging their emergence but allowing it to do its own thing instead of being affected by it personally.

 

RAIN is the gift for Pandora’s Box. With time and meditation you begin to heal. The more you accept it, the more energy is bound to get freed up. If you feel frustrated, a fun way to greet these deep-seated anxieties is to tell them to “ Welcome to the party!”. This is a great way to introduce equanimity and keep a check on growing disturbances in thoughts.

 

If I get too happy, I’ll lose my edge:

 

During their bus tour, Dan and Jeff realised that the police force has reservations about meditation despite knowing the benefits that it shall slow them down. Studies of people with dangerous jobs, like soldiers, firefighters, police officers; who indulged in meditation showed improved working memory, reduced release of cortisol stress hormone and quicker recovery time from high pressure situations. In short, meditation didn’t slow them down but had a calming and rational effect. It was seen that meditation is useful for them all the more due to its capacity to “reset” and not allow one experience to snowball into another situation. How is this done?

The answer lies in SURF.

-Stop the thoughts that are swirling in the head
-Understand these thoughts and feelings that you experienced
-Relax your mind
-Freedom from these thoughts and experiences by acknowledging them but not allowing them to work on your emotions.

 

This does not mean that policemen won’t experience emotions, but they will be able to respond better from one situation to the next.

Psychologists use a similar kind of therapy for technology addicts. When the urge comes up, what to do? Practice SURF! It helps police offices to keep level headed.

Certain qualities emerge out of SURF and regular meditations:

-Concentration on the task
-Clarity of the situation
-Equanimity under difficult situations
-Enjoyment of the good moments
-Friendliness towards others

 

 

_________ is my Meditation:

Many people claim that gardening is their meditation or walking with a dog is meditation for them. Maybe it is true for them but how true?

Are you conscious of your footsteps while walking? Feel the wind on your skin? Are you totally into the moment? If your answer is yes then - it is mindful meditation that co-opts with an activity. However if not then you need to go back to the steps of meditation that were mentioned in the beginning to get really started on meditation. Stillness and calm concentration is an important way to get meditation to a better level.

I can’t keep it going:

 

What about people who have embraced meditation but have left it or are feeling frustrated about if after a period of time? This too can happen over a period of time and to circumvent that here are certain pro tips that Dan and Jeff point out which can work:

-Give yourself a break. You can have an off day from meditation and just relax with some other activity. Cut some slack.
-Just begin again! It is as simple as that. You need not think about what made you stop. You just begin anew.
-Set realistic and achievable goals. While some people start with 10 minutes of meditation (which is commendable) it may not work out for long. Instead, one can start small. Start with 1 minute meditation and then move on gradually to a bigger time frame and goal.
-Continuously revv up your motivation. Engage in different ways to keep yourself motivated and on track with our meditation
Don’t overcomplicate things. Keep your meditation on track and get yourself a simple routine that works seamlessly for you.
-Using meditation only in acute situations though beneficial can lead to off and on behavior which can not work in a long run. Instead, if you started meditation in an acute stressful situation, keep it going even after the situation is calm.
-Take it easy with Practice Assessment Tapes on the app. Meditation is not about having certain expectations but it is about feeling good about having accomplished a goal.
-Tune into the benefits of good feelings. After all, that’s what you would want in the long run. To feel better about yourself.

 

Key Notes to Keep in Mind when thinking of taking up Meditation -

 

-The practice of meditation is a life skill. It takes years of practice and it takes time to get better at it
-Yoga and Tai Chi involve meditation into their practice. It is like co-opting activity of breathing and body movements. Mindful Meditation here is about stillness and focusing on one thing.
-Prayer and meditation can be combined together. However, in prayer there is a great possibility of being distracted. For some people chanting helps keep focused on one thing.
-Meditation never conflicts with your faith or religion. It is a habit and again - a life skill.

 

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