I have been through it, and have seen many students go through it - what starts out as ‘I want to maximize and dedicate myself to my meditation practice’ - healthy discipline morphs into something else, and practice wanes. When we become too rigid with our practice, it can create a framework that then becomes a burden, too heavy to follow through on. When we think we need a perfect setting, or a very quiet space, or incense to be burning, or to be relaxed before we sit, these becomes barriers to even sitting.
We want instead to have flexibility, a curiosity of meeting our lives with presence and allowing our meditation practice to be honored within this. It means a healthy dose of adaptability is required. Each and every day. As who has the perfect day when it all goes to plan anyway? Ever??
Maybe you just ate a meal, or drank a coffee, and the timing isn’t ideal - meditate anyway. Maybe you are in between meetings but that’s the only window today? Meditate. Maybe you’re feeling like you should do 14 chores before meditating and rationalize then You’ll meditate. Meditate first. Perhaps the only time you’re able to do it is with your toddler watching Bluey next to you, and sure maybe hearing that is distracting - meditate anyway.
What I have found is that adaptability with a daily meditation practice actually opens us up to meeting life with increasing adaptability. When we put aside being precious, and waiting for perfect conditions and just roll our sleeves up and sit no matter what the conditions, an incredible resilience and robustness grows around practice. And that robustness flows into all aspects of life.
The dance between honoring something fully, and adjusting as needed is one we can play with every single day. And that’s the whole point of meditating - to met our lives fully, with a curious mindset. To drop the controlling and perfectionism and move into our hearts.
Try it for a week, watch your Thinking Mind try to rationale and grapple with. See your Ego Structures present very compelling reasons as to why ‘now isn’t the best time’ and try get you to navigate not meditating at all. Pay attention. And then meditate anyway and see what happens.
With love,
Jac x
To anyone that has wanted to learn to teach mantra based meditation, I am putting a call out to anyone interested in a 12-14 month non residential training in Integrated Meditation. It’s going to be an intensive dive into the lineages of Transcendental and Vedic Meditation that will be taught in the way that I teach it, which I call Integrated Meditation. It’s a non dogmatic, non hierarchical approach, with lots of psychology, neursoscience, somatic training, creating safety for you and the students, deep teachings on Vedic knowledge and other Eastern wisdom systems, and is ultimately a leadership training. It’s for people who want to be a boots on the ground teacher. This isn’t for you if you are wanting to fashion yourself as a Guru. There are pre-requisites required and it will be two modules beginning and end in person in Australia, and then the middle component will be online throughout accommodating global timezones and will be an April or May 2027 start.
I am starting to connect through one on one Enquiry Calls with interested people, so email me jacqui@thebroadplace.com.au if you’re keen to have one - with IMTT in the subject, your name and mobile number and time zone and I’ll get back in touch to sort a time for us both to connect.
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