Alright, I’ll Meditate. So What?

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Deciding to get on the meditation bandwagon? Or rather feeling FOMO for not being on one already? No matter the situation, “Just Meditate”– is the ONE suggestion every successful person seems to give us. Be it heartbreak, productivity, happiness, confidence, addiction… anything.

Most of us have dabbled with it briefly, casually, intermittently, and most often doubtfully. I have done so for the past seven years. I must admit, I read a lot more about meditation than practice it sincerely. But this time, I decided to do it, dedicatedly. And I did. For an hour every day for two months straight.

You know the subtle changes most people talk about? They are not so subtle anymore. Neither to me nor to the people around me. While I didn’t get a brain scan to show my before and after results, I have experienced significant changes that I want to share with you.

Meeting My Monkey Mind

The second I close my eyes, limiting the stimulus of the external world, the flood gates to my internal world open up. Oh boy- is it a mad mess in here or what? The chatter begins, and quite frankly it keeps going on, and on, and on. The internal chaos is so loud, it is very unsettling. Scientists have discovered this chaos to be the activity of the default mode network (DMN), the brain network that is responsible for mind-wandering and chattering, a.k.a the “monkey mind”. It is especially active when we are not focused on anything, in particular, causing quite the trouble to our being.

Since meditation is a tool to quieten this monkey mind, expect RESISTANCE. It is like the first time you do a two minute plank and your body screams to stop! The mind’s scream is inevitable- it wants to go back to its comfort zone, the chatter.

I decidedly sat through those minutes of discomfort to feel my mind slowly give in. Almost like the chaos of a storm in a lake, where all the mud rises up. But you allow it to be still for a while, and the mud eventually settles down. It doesn’t go away, but it isn’t as meddlesome any more. An interesting study carried out at Yale University found that mindfulness meditation decreases activity in the DMN (monkey mind) part of the brain.

As I committed to this every day, I find that I always meet (or rather become aware of) my monkey mind, but as I keep going, it is active for a shorter and

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