Am I Meditating Correctly? Am I Doing the Right Kind? | FAQ With Teacher-Of-The-Month Dawn Mauricio
This episode features Teacher of the Month Dawn Mauricio, who addresses common meditation questions like how to choose a practice. She offers actionable suggestions for tailoring your meditation to your current physical and emotional state, and emphasizes the quality of attention over the specific technique.
Deep Dive Analysis
6 Topic Outline
Choosing the Right Meditation for the Moment
Overcoming Choice Paralysis in Meditation Practice
Addressing Resistance to Self-Check-ins Before Meditation
Adapting Meditation Practice to Physical Injury
The Value of a Core or Default Meditation Practice
Dispelling Perfectionism and the 'Right Way' in Meditation
3 Key Concepts
Bringing life into practice
This concept involves integrating one's current physical and emotional state into meditation choices, rather than rigidly adhering to a single practice. It means allowing the practice to respond to one's life, making it more responsive and helpful.
Good enough practice
Instead of striving for a 'perfect' meditation session, this concept encourages aiming for a practice that is simply 'good enough.' It acknowledges that even an imperfect practice cultivates valuable qualities like patience, compassion, and equanimity.
Quality of attention
This is identified as the main factor determining the effectiveness and transformative power of meditation. It emphasizes that the specific technique, posture, or object of attention is less important than the mindful, intentional way one engages with whatever is being done.
6 Questions Answered
Start by doing a quick check-in on how your body feels to determine the best posture (seated, standing, walking, lying down), and then an internal check-in on your emotional or mental state to choose a suitable style of meditation.
To avoid choice paralysis, cultivate a varied library of a few favorite meditation styles, choose one, and commit to it for the duration of the practice, aiming for 'good enough' rather than 'perfect'.
If you resist the initial check-in, revert to your go-to style of practice (e.g., mindfulness of the breath), but cultivate the habit of asking 'how am I practicing?' during the session to allow for adjustments, such as introducing more kindness if tension arises.
Yes, it is helpful to have one to three go-to practices to remove guesswork, prevent choice paralysis, and make it more natural for mindfulness to show up in challenging daily life moments.
No, the specific technique, posture (seated, walking, lying down), or object of attention (breath, emotions, thoughts) does not matter; the main factor is the quality of attention brought to whatever you are doing.
No, there is no 'right way' to meditate, and nobody is keeping score; the transformative element is the quality of attention brought to the practice, not achieving perfection or maintaining a streak.
14 Actionable Insights
1. Prioritize Attention Quality
The transformative piece in meditation is not what you are doing (e.g., breath, emotions, posture) but the quality of attention you bring to whatever you choose to do.
2. Adapt Meditation to Life
Avoid rigidly sticking to one meditation style, as it can feel forceful and unhelpful if it doesn’t align with your current state. Instead, bring your life into your practice by adapting it.
3. Internal Check-in for Practice
After checking your body, do an internal check-in to assess your emotional state or mind activity (e.g., busy, emotional, calm) and choose a meditation style that responds to your current needs, such as loving kindness for tenderness or open awareness for calmness.
4. Body Check-in for Practice
Before meditating, perform a quick check-in on how your body feels to determine the most suitable posture (seated, lying down, standing) or type of meditation (e.g., walking meditation for high agitation).
5. Meet Resistance with Tenderness
When encountering resistance or a desire for things to be different (e.g., due to injury), meet that feeling with tenderness and kindness, acknowledging it without trying to change or gaslight yourself into accepting it, which can be transformative.
6. Establish Go-To Practices
Establish two or three go-to meditation practices to remove guesswork and prevent being frozen by choice. This allows these practices to become second nature and naturally surface in challenging real-life moments beyond formal meditation.
7. Commit to Chosen Practice
After selecting a meditation, commit to it for the entire duration without switching, to avoid being paralyzed by choice. This cultivates the capacity to live with consequences and discomfort, aiming for ‘good enough’ rather than perfect.
8. Inquire “How Am I Practicing?”
Cultivate the habit of intermittently asking yourself ‘How am I practicing?’ during meditation. This brief pause can help you tune into your current state and readjust your approach, such as introducing kindness to alleviate tension.
9. Adjust Practice Mid-Session
If you notice your practice isn’t helpful (e.g., exacerbating tension), adjust how you’re practicing. This could involve bringing in qualities like kindness to balance out the tension.
10. Revert to Go-To Practice
If you encounter resistance to performing a full body and internal check-in before meditation, revert to your default, go-to style of practice instead of forcing the check-in.
11. Seek Incremental Kindness
When trying to introduce qualities like kindness into your practice, aim for just ‘a smidge of a little bit more kindness’ than before. Even small increases are incredibly helpful, rather than expecting to instantly become completely kind.
12. Curate Varied Meditation Library
Save or bookmark a few favorite guided meditations of different styles on your device to have ready access to options when deciding what you need. This uses tech connection time in a way that’s helpful for your future self.
13. Integrate Learnings with Meditation
Use guided meditations specifically crafted to accompany conversations to help ‘pound the learnings from the conversation into your neurons’ during practice.
14. Any Activity Can Be Meditation
Even seemingly non-meditative activities, like trying to choose a meditation, can become a practice if you bring quality attention to the sensations (e.g., phone in hand, scrolling actions) and internal states (emotions, body sensations) involved.
5 Key Quotes
It's not what we're doing that makes the difference. The main factor is the quality of attention we're bringing to whatever it is we're doing.
Dawn Mauricio
I think what gets us sometimes frozen is trying to find the perfect thing. But can we aim for good enough, knowing that even if it's good enough and not perfect, that there's still qualities like patience and compassion and equanimity that are getting cultivated anyway.
Dawn Mauricio
Can there be even just a smidge of a little bit more kindness than what there was a few moments ago? And that would still be incredibly helpful.
Dawn Mauricio
So all that to say is to tune into maybe how we're practicing instead. And if we don't want to do that full check-in.
Dawn Mauricio
It's so transformative. It's something small, but it's huge at the same time.
Dawn Mauricio
2 Protocols
Choosing a Meditation Practice Skillfully
Dawn Mauricio- Do a quick check-in on how your body feels (e.g., new ache, sleepy) to decide on the most suitable posture (seated, lying down, standing, or walking).
- Perform an internal check-in to assess your emotional or mental state (e.g., busy mind, thought obsession, feeling sad or tender, agitated).
- Based on the internal check-in, choose a style of meditation that responds to your current state (e.g., loving kindness for tenderness, open awareness for calm, walking or mental noting for agitation).
- If using guided meditations, save or bookmark a few favorites of different styles on your device.
- Once a choice is made, commit to it and stick with it for the duration of the practice, aiming for 'good enough' rather than striving for perfection.
Adjusting Meditation Practice When Facing Resistance or Tension
Dawn Mauricio- If you have resistance to the initial check-in, revert to your go-to style of practice (e.g., mindfulness of the breath).
- Cultivate the habit of asking yourself 'how am I practicing?' every now and then during the session.
- If you notice tension or an unhelpful intensity, use this pause to readjust (e.g., take a few deep breaths to release tension).
- Introduce even 'a smidge' more kindness into your practice to balance out any present tension, rather than expecting an immediate complete shift to kindness.