No one is “bad at meditating”: Embracing Mindfulness Meditation to Improve Health
There is a large body of research supporting the fact that mindfulness meditation reduces many negative health outcomes, such as heart disease, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and cognitive decline. Why, then, is it not more regularly practiced, especially among helping professionals? Many individuals new to meditation often say, “I am bad at meditating” or “I can never clear my mind.” This type of reluctance is born out of a lack of knowledge about what mindfulness meditation really is. We live in a society where we are inundated with information and taught to be constantly progressing and multitasking. For many, the idea of taking a few minutes each day to simply “be” is confusing at best and frustrating at worst. However, the secret to mindfulness meditation is simple, and it can change our lives.