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As a meditation instructor who has been meditating for greater than twenty years, it’s truthful to say that I’ve realized a terrific deal in regards to the observe. I’ve realized what does and doesn’t work. I’ve realized the pitfalls that maintain individuals again from progressing in meditation. And I’ve realized one in all most basic errors individuals make. It’s a mistake I actually made for greater than 5 years. That mistake is Utilizing mindfulness and meditation as escapism.
It’s a mistake that’s all too straightforward to make. Inevitably all of us undergo struggling, as Buddha stated. All of us face stress, anxiousness, worries… Certainly, proper now, as I write this, two of my closest associates are in hospital, and I’m most actually fearful. At occasions like this, it may be all too straightforward to show to meditation as a type of avoidance, closing your eyes and pretending that actuality doesn’t exist so that you don’t should face the challenges. And for those who’re not cautious, this may turn into a lifestyle. That’s exactly what occurred to me.
My Expertise Utilizing Meditation As Escapism
About fifteen years in the past I made the choice to to migrate from England to Canada to be with the lady I really like. Earlier than I left, I had in thoughts the concept of a fairytale voyage throughout the Atlantic, imagining that all the pieces can be good and simple. That didn’t occur. Leaving my household and starting a brand new life in a brand new nation was in truth extraordinarily annoying for me. And, as an avid meditator, I turned to my meditation observe for assist. I meditated for hours daily beneath the pretense that I used to be “looking for enlightenment”, all of the whereas refusing to face actuality. Meditation took over my life. The extra I meditated, the additional I escaped from actuality. However the additional I escaped from actuality, the more serious my actuality turned as I uncared for my wants and tasks.
This charade of “meditating within the search of enlightenment” brought about me to spend 5 entire years of my life disengaged from my real-world scenario. As I ignored actuality, actuality obtained worse. As actuality obtained worse, I felt increasingly more reliant on meditation as a option to escape from all the pieces… it turned a vicious cycle.
Finally, I did be taught to cease escaping. I made basic adjustments in the way in which I meditate. Certainly, right now I meditate particularly to assist myself to interact with life in significant methods. And thru my personal meditation periods, I assist others to do exactly the identical factor. However maybe you aren’t ready to have the ability to take personal classes. And that’s why I’d prefer to share my insights right here.
So, let’s have a look at the connection between meditation and escapism, and the steps we are able to take to make it possible for we use meditation to interact with life quite than escaping from it.
Are Mindfulness And Meditation Escapism?
Mindfulness and meditation can generally be a type of escapism for those who select to make use of them to disengage from challenges in your life, quite than as a method for self-awareness, self-regulation, and private progress.
For those who’re utilizing meditation as escapism, you would possibly discover these indicators:
Avoidance: Utilizing meditation to keep away from going through troublesome feelings or conditions.Disengagement: Disengaging from totally different features of your life, particularly difficult featuresEmotional Suppression: Utilizing meditation to forestall your self from experiencing feelingsLack of integration: Studying classes and gaining perception from meditation however not utilizing these insights in the actual world.
Why We Escape And Why We Shouldn’t
The temptation to flee stems from the will to keep away from ache. It’s one thing most of us can establish with, as a result of, in fact, we have now all been by ache. As an illustration, let’s say that somebody we love passes away. We all know that we have now a painful highway forward of us as we must overcome grief and different sophisticated feelings, however we turn into overwhelmed and shut down emotionally. Or maybe we face divorce and the concept of filling out the paperwork and maybe shifting out appears an excessive amount of to bear. At these occasions, we’re prone to be tempted to show away from actuality and to flee, akin to by sitting on the ground for hours on finish daily meditating as an alternative of really doing what needs to be executed.
The issue with escapism is each sensible and psychological. On the one hand, escapism prevents us from taking essential steps to beat challenges in order that we are able to transfer ahead in life. Neglecting these challenges can usually make them worse as nicely, as an illustration refusing to simply accept that mortgage you took out and thereby not paying it should solely make your debt enhance because the curiosity racks up. As for the psychological facet, avoiding difficult feelings tends to make issues worse, so for those who fail to face a painful emotion when it occurs, it should steadily develop inside you, changing into worse and worse.
As a substitute of Escaping, ENGAGE
![meditation and escapism](https://www.thedailymeditation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Untitled-design-25.jpg)
We now have the selection of utilizing meditation to flee or to interact with life. Escaping will solely ever make our scenario worse as we fail to fulfill our wants and tasks. Participating, however, means dwelling life with objective, accepting no matter comes alongside, and dealing with painful feelings quite than operating away from them.
Some methods to cease escaping and begin participating embrace:
Establish your private values: To stay a lifetime of worth, you first have to resolve what values matter to you. Get a pen and paper and write three private values that matter to you and why. Examples of private values embrace: Compassion, Spirituality, Household, Authenticity, and Environmental Consciousness.
Set significant objectives: Now write an inventory of objectives that relate to the non-public values you wrote down above. As an illustration, if one in all your private values is household maybe a objective may very well be to spend X quantity of high quality time with a sure member of your loved ones every week. Make your objectives difficult however achievable.
Embrace challenges: As a substitute of escaping from challenges, see them as a possibility for private progress, and create a plan to beat the problem.
Follow gratitude: As a substitute of specializing in what you don’t have, observe gratitude for what you do have.
Be conscious of escapism: Search for occasions if you end up escaping and discover methods to interact as an alternative. Merely being conscious of escapist conduct will show you how to to alter it.
Meditate like this: There’s a particular approach to make use of meditation to interact quite than escape. I’ll focus on this beneath.
Utilizing Meditation To Have interaction, Not Escape
In my personal meditation classes I usually work with shoppers who’ve unintentionally been utilizing meditation as escapism, and I assist them to reengage with life by making key adjustments to their meditation observe. I’d prefer to share one in all my major suggestions for doing this.
On the finish of every day, write a journal entry (or simply make an observation) of essentially the most difficult ideas and feelings that you just confronted throughout that day and the real-world scenario that they regard. As an illustration, perhaps you had a nasty argument along with your partner and so the difficult emotion right here would probably be anger and the scenario can be arguing along with your partner. Or you have got a giant presentation arising at work and also you’re very nervous about it. On this occasion, you’ll write in your journal Nervousness about work presentation.
Now, you need to use your meditation session the subsequent day that can assist you to face the problem you wrote down in your journal. For instance, in case your problem was anger/arguing you would possibly prefer to observe compassion (Loving Kindness). Or in case your problem is Nervousness/Work Presentation you would possibly love to do Conscious Respiratory (to cut back anxiousness) mixed with a visualization of the presentation going nicely. Mainly, you might be utilizing your meditation observe to treatment the problem that you just wrote down in your journal.
Please notice that doing this does require good data of the totally different meditation strategies and their results. You are able to do this working with me in my meditation remedy periods, and I’ve additionally created a free useful resource on this website that reveals you all of the totally different meditation strategies and their results (see our major menu).
Remaining Ideas
We are able to use meditation for escapism or to interact with life, and naturally, to take advantage of life, we need to have interaction. The most important drawback, and my concern, is that it’s all too straightforward to unintentionally use meditation for escapism, and this may have critical detrimental results. It occurred to me. And as a meditation instructor, I do know that it has occurred to many different individuals too. Fortunately, we have now the volition to alter our meditation observe and to begin utilizing meditation to interact. Making that change may be the most important step to discovering success and contentment, and objective by meditation.
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