The Pressure to meditate is real!🥺

The Pressure to Meditate Is Real — Episode Description

What if meditation isn’t something you have to force yourself to do?

In this episode, I explore the pressure we can put on ourselves to sit still, quiet our minds and “do meditation right” — and what happens when we realise that presence can be found in so many other places: journaling, nature, creativity, tears, movement, connection and simply being here, now.

I share my own experience of sitting down to meditate and discovering that what wanted to come through instead was a podcast!

We’ll explore inspiration, the intelligence of the heart, listening to the whispers of the soul, and why those little moments of inspiration may be pieces of the bigger picture of our lives.

And if you do want to meditate, I offer a simple heart-breathing practice to help you gently come back to yourself.

Perhaps meditation isn't about getting somewhere.

Perhaps it's about coming home.

This is Soil to Soul.

Kristin Day (aka Kiki) is a naturopathic herbalist, nutritionist, counsellor, kinesiologist, Compassion Key practitioner & holistic healer treating root cause with 38 years of experience. Soil to Soul explores healing from the ground up — inside out, organically, holistically, soulfully.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi there, my name is Kristen Day and I'm a naturopathic herbalist, nutritionist and counsellor and a holistic and root cause healing guide. And this is Soil to Soul, Healing from the Ground, The Inside Out, Organically, Holistically, and Soulfully. And this episode is called The Pressure to Meditate is Real. And I kind of laugh when I even say that title because it flies in the face of what meditation is all about. So what if meditation isn't something you have to do? Yeah, another thing we have to do. What if it isn't a cushion on the floor, your spine perfectly straight, your eyes closed, and your thoughts finally quiet? Hmm. What if meditation is already happening while you're watching the sunrise, while you're crying, while you're walking, while you're watching a bee disappear into a flower? I particularly love to do that, and I always look for the blue banded bees. They're rare. I call them blue bummed bees. Or you're listening to a child laugh, or particularly the wind move across your skin. What if the invitation isn't to become still, but just to arrive? Because maybe the pressure to meditate has made us forget something very simple. Life can be a meditation. The pressure is real, I hear it everywhere. If you could just sit and quiet your mind, if you could just go within, if you could just meditate more, you're going to evolve faster, ascend faster, feel better, hear your guides. And if stillness only counts if you look a certain way, cushion and all, well, that's difficult and that's pressure. And what if you can't sit like that? And what if without the cushion, without the right posture, without the perfectly quiet mind, you are already meditating? What if it's in the journaling? What if you wake up and your mind is racing and you go, I've got to meditate, but you can't? Then dump it. Dump it on paper. What if it's in the walking? Looking at someone's garden and noticing what's blooming and what's not? Watching insects move through it, hearing the birds, watching the clouds shift, and watching the sunrise arrive, making art, making something with your hands. And what if you just need a bloody good cry? Or to hit the pillow and let the feelings finally move through you? What if that's meditation too? Because you're meeting yourself exactly where you are, you're doing what the moment is actually asking of you, and sometimes that is worth so much more than forcing yourself into a stillness that you are simply not able to do and not ready for. Is your mind looping? Here is why I think it matters not to pressure yourself. When something is in your mind and it's looping, that loop is usually a story, something old, an experience that a part of your body is still holding and still bracing around. And that's where tension comes from. So sometimes when we sit down to meditate and our mind won't shut up, we think we're doing it wrong. We think I can't meditate, I'm too busy, my mind is too active, I'm not spiritual enough. But maybe your mind isn't the problem. Maybe there's something inside you asking to be heard. And when you journal, when you walk, when you look at a garden, when you notice insects and birds and clouds and the colour of a sunset, you're not necessarily escaping anything. You're arriving. You're coming back to now. You're coming back to you, and that's important to this moment, to the gift that is this moment and what it actually is. And some days that is the most important thing you can do. More important than any technique. There are many doorways into now. So, yes, if you can sit, ground, connect to your heart and breeze, relax, go within, absolutely, but also watch the children play, feel the breeze on your skin, feel the sun on your face, and listen to rain on a roof. Put your hands into soil, make something, cry, laugh, dance, swim, walk, watch a movie that cracks your heart open. All of it can bring you here, all of it can bring you into now, this now moment. And all of it can be a form of receiving. A breath coming into you. And in the way I use it, the word soul means source of unconditional love. So perhaps inspiration is more than an idea, perhaps it's the breath of that source moving through us. Even a love story can do this. I watched Song Sung Blue recently and found myself moved from laughter to tears and back again. And isn't that what the world word tells us? It's a movie. It moves you. For a moment you're not analyzing, you're not trying to evolve, you're not trying to become anything, you're simply being moved. You're in the now and you're connected to your heart. And if you've ever truly been in love, heart wide open, completely present, completely alive, you know that feeling. We call it the honeymoon period, but what if that aliveness isn't just a phase of romantic love? What if it's a glimpse of what it feels like to live from the heart, to express your true nature, not the version of love we've been handed, not love mixed up with fear, control, possession, or performance, but the real thing. That open, alive, present experience of connection. Have you ever talked to anyone who surfs, surfs the ocean? They'll often tell you it's almost like being with source. A friend of mine put it beautifully. He said, It's my religion. Out there in the water, in the now, held by the power of those rolling waves. I can imagine it must feel something like being back in the womb. Water, movement, the rhythm of the tides, the moon moving the ocean in the same way it moves us. And instead of fighting the moment, you write it. What a metaphor that is for life, for loving ourselves, for staying present, for allowing rather than resisting. Maybe that's meditation. Not controlling the wave, but meeting the wave. And then there's a mind like mine. Now, if you've got a mercurial mind like mine, Virgo Ascendant, a stack of planets in the third house, you'll probably understand this. I sit down to meditate, and suddenly my mind has 17 tabs open. And the more I try not to think, the more I think. Even think about thinking. So I've stopped fighting it. I keep a journal beside me. And when something keeps circling back, I don't tell it to shut up. I write it down. I dump it on the page. Because now I know it's safe, it's there, and it's captured, and I can come back to it. And sometimes that's all the mind needs to know. I've heard you. You don't have to keep shouting. If something is sitting in your heart and leaking into your mind, try that. Put it on paper. Let it have ghosts somewhere to go. And later perhaps you can transmute it, alchemize it, burn it if that's your ritual, and then come back to the stillness. Not because you forced yourself there, but because you've created enough safety inside yourself for stillness to arrive naturally. And this is the bit I really want to leave you with. If meditation isn't working for you right now, don't force it. Don't turn the meditation into another piece where you abandon yourself because you think you should be doing better. Find the doorway that works for you, the garden, the ocean, the journal, the tears, the music, the child, the sunrise, the wave, the movie, the breath. Whatever brings you home to yourself. Because that's where the inspiration is waiting. And right now we're in a particularly potent time for this. The nodes have moved. The north node is now in Leo. The direction we're moving towards, the territory of the heart, creativity, self-expression, courage, and the unfolding of our destiny. And opposite is the South Node in Aquarius, representing what we're moving away from, our past patterns, our old ways of conducting our lives, the way we've learned to stand outside ourselves, to observe, to detach, to follow the collective rather than necessarily listening to the wisdom of our own heart. And we're in eclipse season two, so everything can feel ramped up. It's change on steroids. Things are being stirred, old patterns are asking to be seen, new possibilities are asking to be felt. And this is why I think the now moments are so important. Because when you're present, when you're actually here with yourself, inspiration has somewhere to land. And when that inspiration comes, take notice. Because it may not be random. It may be your soul speaking to you, and perhaps your soul isn't shouting, perhaps it's whispering, but it's whispering loudly. It's saying, look here, notice this, follow this. There's something here for you. That sudden idea, that creative impulse, that feeling it says, I don't want to do this. That little nudge to write something down. That moment when something catches your attention and you don't quite know why. Don't dismiss it. Don't immediately label it a distraction. Write it down. Follow the thread because it may be a piece of the jigsaw puzzle. A jigsaw piece of your destiny. You don't need to see the whole picture. You only need to recognize the peace that's being offered to you now. And maybe that's one of the gifts of being present. When you're not busy trying to force yourself into stillness, you become available to receive. You hear the whisper, you notice the nudge, and you feel the inspiration. And perhaps that inspiration isn't taking you away from your path. Perhaps it is your path revealing itself one whisper at a time. The now moments. We have to give our hearts the chance to experience these now moments. However they show up: meditation or the sky, a garden, a cry, a laugh, a wave, a piece of music, a conversation, a sunrise, a movie that moves you, a page in a journal, and a hand in the soil. All of it can be us breathing the breath of life from our souls. So if you've been putting yourself under pressure to meditate, maybe take the pressure off. You don't have to become someone else to be present. You don't have to empty your mind to be connected, and you don't have to sit perfectly still to meet your soul. Sometimes meditation is simply this: you're here, you're breathing, you're feeling, you're noticing, you're receiving, you're alive. And perhaps that's enough. And you know what's funny? I actually sat down to meditate this morning, and I couldn't. My mind was busy. There was something wanting to come through. So instead of forcing myself to sit there and quiet my mind, I picked up my journal, and this podcast came out from that journaling. From following the thread, from pure inspiration, from listening to what was whispered loudly into my soul. And that's really the whole point of this episode. Sometimes the meditation is the right thing. And sometimes the meditation is what happens instead. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I hope it's taken a little pressure off, and perhaps the next time you sit down to meditate and your mind won't cooperate, you'll pause and ask yourself, what is wanting to come through? Because perhaps that's where your meditation is. Perhaps that's where your inspiration is. Perhaps that's where your soul is speaking. And if you really do want to meditate, I want to say this too. Meditation is a beautiful thing to practice, it really is. But it's a muscle. And like any muscle, you strengthen it through practice. So go gently. Start with five or ten minutes, and please don't beat yourself up when you keep popping out of it. Because you will, your mind will wander. You'll remember something you forgot to do. You'll suddenly think about the shopping, you'll hear a noise, or you'll itch. You'll wonder how long you've been sitting there, and that's okay, that's the practice. Noticing that you've wandered and coming back again and again and again. So I'd love to offer you something I call heart breathing. So close your eyes, relax the muscles in your face, and let your jaw soften. Drop your shoulders and then let them drop even more. And just let yourself be held by the earth beneath you. Now breathe in gently through your nose for a count of four. One, two, three, four. And breathe out slowly through your mouth. Again, in through your nose. One, two, three, four. And slowly out through your mouth. And one more time. In through your nose. One, two, three, four. And slowly out. And now on this next breath, breathe in through your nose for the count of four. One, two, three, four. And this time breathe out slowly through your nose. And at the very end of the exhale, the R sound. Let that sound come from you. Let that R open your heart. And now gently drop your gaze inward towards your heart. And just feel. What does your heart feel like? Don't try to make it feel a certain way. Just notice. Because your heart has an entirely different feeling to your head. Feel it. Your head speaks in thoughts. It analyzes, it compares, it remembers, it plans. But your heart, your heart speaks differently. More quietly. More lovingly. And when you begin to feel that difference, you begin to recognize another kind of intelligence. The intelligence of your heart. This is where for me the intelligence of the soul lives. So breathe in and breathe out from your heart. Put your hand on your heart in the centre of your chest. And breathe in and breathe out through your heart. And when your mind wanders, because it will, simply notice and come back. Back to the breath. Back to the heart. Back to now. That's it. That's the practice. And if you can do this while sitting with your beautiful bum directly on the earth, even better. Let yourself be grounded. Let the earth hold you. Feel the connection beneath you. Because sometimes we don't need to escape the body to find the soul. We simply need to come more deeply into the body. So if you really want to meditate, practice and be gentle with yourself. Five minutes, ten minutes, you could even put a timer on if you want. And then perhaps a little more the next day. Or whenever you're ready. Not as another thing you should be doing, but as an invitation to a place to come home to. And remember, when you pop out of meditation, you haven't failed. Coming back is the meditation. Coming back to your breasts, coming back to your heart, and coming back to yourself again and again and again. Because soil needs stillness too, not just tending, not just digging, not just planting. Sometimes the soil needs to lie fallow, to breathe, to receive the rain, to receive the sun and to simply be. And so do you. Thank you for listening. I am Kristen Day, and this is soil to soul. Satnam Namaste. And you may find your way into the now in whatever way your soul is inviting you there. This is soil to soul, and this is the soil to the soul that lets you breathe. See you in the next episode.