Keeping Your Meditation Practice Going

If you've ever started to learn and practice mindfulness and meditation, and despite feeling the benefits of it, you've struggled to keep it going, then there's a good chance you've run into one, or maybe all, of these three challenges. Firstly, it's just that life gets in the way. You might start off with a decent amount of momentum, but gradually your time starts to get eaten up with

other stuff. You might even set the intention that you'll at least set aside a few minutes at the end of the day to practice, but then bedtime comes around and you're just too tired. And this can happen a few times and before long you feel too out of touch with it to continue, or some version of that.

And secondly, it's that it can feel hard to stay connected to the purpose of having a regular practice. I mean, besides the fact that, yeah, sometimes it can feel nice and it gives you a few moments of calm and respite in your day, how is this weird process of meditation actually relevant to the context of our day to day lives?

It's hard to keep up with something when it's hard to see the big why that sits underneath it. And then thirdly, it might purely be the challenges that come with going it alone. Mindfulness and meditation can feel like it's a solo pursuit. And as with many things that we try to do on our own, motivation can start to wane, doubts creep in.

We might start to get confused about whether we're even doing it right in the first place. Or it might just start to feel a bit too samey. And because we're doing it on our own, it's easy and natural to start to back off from it. Because you know what it's like when you're learning and practicing something alongside others,

not only do you stand a much greater chance of sticking with it, but it's also likely to be a more enjoyable process as well. Now it's because of these three challenges: lack of time, lack of clarity or purpose and lack of other people that I'm pulling together this new community called dharma-licious.

It's an ongoing online practice group for you if you want to embed mindfulness and meditation into your life to have that anchor point in your week where you can continue to learn, to practice, to grow, to share your experiences, to show up exactly as you are and feel the support of a friendly, like minded community, and get to have those conversations about your felt experience that you wouldn't normally get to have

in day to day life. But the thing that makes this group a little bit different is the focus on practicing mindfulness and meditation in the context of secular Buddhist philosophies and insights. Now, it's not a Buddhist study group. It's not about being a Buddhist and there's nothing you have to believe.

But it is about you investigating for yourself what it really means to live a wiser, calmer, happier, kind, and compassionate life. In other words, it's about bringing a huge amount of relevance to the practice and seeing that clear link between the doing of the practice and the why of the practice. Now, if this sounds interesting to you and you think Oh, you know, I might quite like to be involved in that.

Then it all starts in January. Uh, there's a link here somewhere. Click the link and register your interest. That's the way that I can keep you up to date, informed about more information and next steps. But anyway, let me know in the comments. Have you ever struggled to keep a meditation practice going?

And if so, what was the challenge for you? Be well. Speak soon.