What does meditation feel like?

Meditation is a way of practicing mindfulness and we often have an expectation that it is a blissful, comfortable, satisfying experience of peace and quiet.

In reality, your first experience of meditation might feel more like you are sitting on the side of a motorway, watching the cars go by and trying to spot your favorite car in its nicest colour. You notice lots of things, even birds in the sky but not your favourite car... you might even get bored.

You may even be lucky enough to see that gorgeous car, that perfect incarnation of metal and rubber.. but it doesn’t stop for you to keep enjoying it. So you savor every moment, focusing on nothing but that car.. and no matter how much you wish for it to remain in sight, it continues to drive away from you.

You spend the next little while loving that amazing moment, then missing it, then wishing the car could come back… reliving it.. will there be another one? will it be the same?

Mindfulness and meditation are not searching for a good car (or a ‘good’ feeling), or trying to fill your motorway with Ferrari’s.

It is simply observing the flow of cars.. noticing the sports cars, trucks, buses, broken down vehicles, emergency sirens.. all of it being noticed equally and non-judgmentally.

This might sound boring, and I understand that.

But this is actually the same thing that Formula 1 drivers do whilst they are racing. They are able to make their perception of time slow down, because they practice observing everything and not clinging onto a single piece of information, they let present moment observations flow through them like water. You can get that same grounding feeling of connection, by practicing mindfulness anywhere, anytime.

Shauna Shapiro PhD does a great job of explaining this in her TEDx video. I love her recommendation at the end, try it out and let me know how it goes for you.