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I Meditated Every Day for a Month to Get My Anxious Mind to STFUCould 30 days of meditating be the secret to obliterating stress? |
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The first few times I meditated, I felt like I had an itch emanating from the center of my brain. Thoughts swarmed my brain like flies. One time, I obsessively thought about how parched I was, to the point where I convinced myself I might literally die of thirst in the time it took to get through my meditation. Another time, I found myself speculating about "Game of Thrones" plot points. I was constantly redirecting my mind back to my breath. When my time was up, I like I'd just finished running a 10K.
My frustration with how terrible I was at meditating was enough to make me want to throw in the towel, but Goldberg encouraged me to stick with it and try to refrain from judging myself. "There's nothing you can do wrong if you're sticking with it," she reassured me. "Everyone has a learning curve," It'd be like sitting at a piano for the first time and expecting yourself to play a concerto."
She was right. Over time, I found meditating easier the more I practiced. Every several days, my meditation duration would increase by a minute or two, and surprisingly the 14- to 16- minute meditations I did toward the end of my streak didn't feel as difficult as the first 10-minute meditations I tackled.
SEE NEXT PAGE: Holding Myself Accountable
