Meditation Doesn't Require Peaceful Circumstances

There's a common idea that meditation is something you do once life has calmed down: a quiet room, a settled mind, a body that has finally relaxed. When life is not calm, it can feel as though the practice has nothing to offer, or as though you are somehow failing at it.

That hasn't been my experience, and it isn't what I teach.

Meditation is not escape

It's easy to confuse meditation with getting away from what is hard. But meditation is not necessarily:

• making difficult feelings disappear

• becoming calm on command

• pretending everything is peaceful

• accepting harmful circumstances

• overriding fear or anger

• suppressing the body's warning signals

• becoming detached from reality

Fear and anger often carry information. The body's warning signals are not problems to be quieted; they are part of how we stay safe. A practice that asks you to override them isn't one I would offer.

What meditation can offer

What practice can do is develop a capacity. Over time, it can help us:

• notice what is happening

• remain present with reality as it is

• recognize what is within our control, and what isn't

• create a little space between experience and reaction

• maintain connection with ourselves

• access choice when choice is available

• meet difficult circumstances without being completely consumed by them

None of this makes a hard situation easy. It changes our relationship to being in it.

What this looked like for me

Years of practice meant that when I found myself frightened, in significant pain, and sitting in a jail cell, meditation was available to me.

Meditation didn't make the danger disappear. It didn't stop the pain or change what was happening around me. But I turned to the practice I'd spent years cultivating. I closed my eyes and meditated.

I did not meditate because the circumstances were peaceful. I meditated because they were not.

In circumstances where I had almost no control over what was happening, meditation gave me a way to meet the moment without being completely consumed by it. It did not help me escape reality. It helped me remain present enough to meet reality.

An important note

What I've described was the result of years of established practice. It is not a suggestion that anyone who is in danger should meditate instead of acting. If you are in danger, getting to safety comes first. Meditation is not a substitute for:

• getting to safety or calling emergency services (911 in Canada)

• domestic-violence support

• legal help

• medical or psychological care

Meditation can sit alongside all of these. It doesn't replace any of them.

If life isn't peaceful right now

You don't have to wait for things to settle before you begin, and you don't have to do it the right way. A practice can be a few breaths, feeling your feet on the floor, or noticing what you can see in the room. You can keep your eyes open. You can stop whenever you need to. You remain in choice.

If you'd like a gentle place to start, you'll find free practices and a free guide on the Meditations page. Wherever you are on your path, you are welcome here.