I Sucked At Meditation But It Changed My Life Anyway
- Deb Zaccheo
- Oct 16, 2023
- 9 min read
Updated: Feb 18
HEY... Would you like to meditate with me?
I know, I know... You’re too busy, and your mind won’t stop thinking!
What If I told you that …
Thoughts are just YOUR stress pouring right out of you.
Meditation makes you so efficient and productive that you actually GAIN more time than it takes to sit and meditate.
Meditation is so rejuvenating that once you pay back sleep debt, you need less sleep… So there you have it: more time!
Meditation takes you out of your buzzing head and into your intuitive heart, where DECISIONS are easily and effortlessly made.
Meditation is the most powerful “medicine,” and once you start this impactful brain cleaning, nervous system soothing ritual – you'll feel better so quickly that you can’t wait to meditate every day!
Meditation becomes your sacred solace.
And another bonus… Meditation massively develops intuition.
I will teach you how to stop doubting your amazing intuitive abilities – and help you see that DOUBT is like dry rot for your intuition.
I know, because I was all of these things… Too overwhelmed and busy, in my life and in my mind.
But I was required to Meditate every day as a graduation requisite for my program at New World Ayurveda… and THANK GOD, because my life quickly changed by doing a daily Meditation practice.
Here is my story…
Even though I sucked at meditation… My life got better.
What I learned is that the only “bad" meditation is the one you don’t do.
HOW + WHY I made Heart Based Meditation a daily practice:
My daily practice of Heart Based Meditation began as a graduation requirement from New World Ayurveda. While I had always wanted a regular meditation practice, like many, I could not find the time in my busy life of hurry, scurry and worry to regularly meditate – Even though I knew that daily Meditation would ground my frazzled nervous system, preventing me from being so scattered and spacey, and from perpetuating my own cycles of havoc and suffering.
Over the years I purchased many meditation books, including “Meditation for Dummies,” which mostly collected dust on the bookshelf until I couldn’t stand my overwhelming life anymore, and was desperate for a reprieve of peace and calm. I often heard that Meditation could do this, so I began reading these books and experimented with many different types of meditations. I attended a Sunday night meditation group for a few years, but could not establish a daily Meditation practice, nor did I experience the divine settling of mind that I often read about.
What a blessing for me to be trained in Heart Based Meditation (HBM) through New World Ayurveda (NWA) and required to log 200 hours of meditation in order to graduate from NWA as an Ayurvedic Practitioner!
Quickly, I began to reap amazing results – which of course made me want to meditate every day. Twenty minutes twice a day seemed a small price to pay for such profound change in my life; for the healing of my nervous system and the deep restorative sleep that I soon began to experience after starting HBM.
Heart Based Meditation has changed my life. It helped me feel more grounded, centered, present, conscious, and even more loving! I can process information better; I am wiser, and can tap into my intuition for more wisdom anytime. It is like I have a massive library of information that I don’t have to remember or store in my brain. And I look (and feel) younger in my late fifties then I did in my forties. In fact, research shows that consistent meditation increases telomerase (an enzyme that prevents and reverses premature cellular aging) by 30 percent.
But at first, I felt like I sucked at meditation. Like I must be doing it wrong, because my meditations were exploding with thoughts, including planning and reviewing my mental to-do list. But then I learned that lots of thoughts mean lots of purification of the nervous system!
Because I needed 200 hours of meditation to graduate from my Ayurveda Health practitioner training, I diligently continued to close my eyes and silently sing my mantra – sometimes experiencing dream-like visions, which I learned was just more purification, especially if I was tired.
Occasionally, I fell asleep during meditation, which I later learned was my nervous system taking the sleep that it needed. It is said that “sleep in meditation is twofold," as it can be five times as restorative as nighttime sleep. And, nodding off during meditation is an opportunity to pay back sleep debt. I do not advocate sleeping through meditation... But if sleep happens, it will likely be short, deep, and incredibly healing. AND, if you end up sleeping through your entire meditation, no problem… Just return to meditation for five minutes and THEN transition back into activity.
During my meditation training, I learned that we don’t resist anything we experience in Heart Based Meditation. We simply let go and allow to occur whatever needs to happen.
Sometimes I caught myself mentally writing my to-do list, planning dinner, contemplating something going on in my life, or even calculating my finances (oops!)... And simply returned to gently singing my mantra inside my heart. During my Meditation Teacher Training, I learned to center into my heart chakra to get off the thought train.
And yet despite all this mind activity, within just a few days I STILL noticed a strange, rather unknown feeling for me… The feeling of being “present.” I observed that I was able to focus better, and my mind was less clouded with chatter. Wow… All this, in less than a week of Heart Based Meditation. All of this, even though I felt that I sucked at Meditation!
And then I learned not to judge the quality of the mediation based on thoughts. That thoughts are purification, a necessary part of the process, just like dreams are a necessary purification process in sleep. Each thought represents tens, if not hundreds, of stresses being released. And once released, they are gone forever!
There are studies that show that the physiology of meditation can be very deep, even when thoughts are present – So one cannot subjectively know the depth of their meditation.
I learned to instead base my meditation on two criteria:
Is it effortless?
Am I noticing improvements in my daily life?
The point of Heart Based Meditation is not the experience during the meditation, but rather the improvement in daily life.
My Meditation Roots:
When I was 11 years old I went to a sleep-away nature camp, and found a sense of calm and safety from a guided meditation led by our cabin counselor. Intrigued, I memorized it and then when I came home from camp, I guided my friends and neighbors through this visual relaxation inner journey for many years to come. And when I became a sleep-away camp counselor, I used it to settle my own young campers. It was magical!
While I often use guided meditations as a tool for relaxation and integration, and as a way to prepare for silent Heart Based Meditation, I want to clarify that guided contemplations do not take you beyond thoughts the way mantra-based meditation does, and therefore don’t provide the same benefits. However, guided meditations are incredibly relaxing and helpful for settling the mind BEFORE a less effortful meditation like HBM.
Heart Based Meditation develops intuition and paves the way to higher consciousness and enlightenment, which are necessary skills to be a healer. In ancient times Physicians (known as Vaidyas), Sages, and Seers were considered wise, holy and enlightened beings – possessing great spiritual power as a result of living pure, simple and meditative lives.
What Research Says About the Benefits of Meditation:
Like everything in nature, we must continue to grow in order to live and experience our full potential. The physical body stops growing around the age of 18 or 20, but the nervous system can continue to grow, and develop greater consciousness and awareness, throughout the life course.
When the nervous system enters a deep state of rest during Heart Based Meditation, the left and right hemispheres of the brain synchronize. Resting both hemispheres of the brain is key to accelerating growth and awareness, and to developing consciousness.
Brain plasticity, a term used by neuroscientists, refers to the brain's ability to change at any age – for better or worse. The brain is constantly making new connections and new pathways, and the research on neuroplasticity shows
that meditation allows people to alter their emotional styles by changing the very brain circuits that govern them.
Meditation is also one of the most powerful ways to strengthen the prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for emotional regulation, judgment, thought analysis and decision-making.
During meditation, our physiology reaps positive change as every cell in the body is given the opportunity to release and re-energize.
Meditation Slows Down Aging
The structure of the brain begins to thin with age. Meditation has been shown to help reverse this pattern by increasing Telomerase, an enzyme that prevents and may even reverse premature aging in cells. Just tiny amounts of stress can suppress Telomerase – so the daily stress that most people endure is massively suppressing this anti-aging enzyme.
According to research findings from a comprehensive longitudinal meditation study by the Shamatha Project, consistent meditation increases telomerase activity by 30 percent. I think it is working for me!
Meditation Enhances the Immune System
Meditation induces electrical activity in the prefrontal cortex, the right hippocampus, and the right anterior insula parts of the brain. These aspects of the brain are directly involved in the regulation of the immune system through the transmission of instructions between it and the nervous system.
Meditation increases the level of dopamine during and after its practice. Healthy amounts of dopamine produce pleasure and can regulate symptoms of depression. Among many other important functions, dopamine also affects movement, sleep, mood, learning and attention.
Depression, cravings, addictions, obesity, and anxiety are often related to low levels of dopamine. Research shows that those who practice meditation consistently over the course of their lives are less prone to experiencing these mental and physiological imbalances.
Research also shows that people who regularly meditate develop thicker corpus callosum in their brains. The thicker the corpus callosum, the easier it is to access creative solutions even while under stress.
A well-known meditation teacher of today says it quite pointedly…
“Stress makes you stupid and sick.”
Meditation allows one to:
Let go of the ego and integrate more of the right brain or “Spirit”
Give the nervous system deep rest, deeper than deep sleep.
Experience greater body awareness and attunement to what the body needs, resulting in better health.
Release old emotional habits and patterns, becoming better able to give and receive love.
Enjoy greater clarity and wakefulness in daily life.
Heart Based Meditation feels like “inner surfing”
You will be given a personal two-syllable mantra sound at your HBM training retreat, and taught how to “ride it like a subtle energetic surfboard,” through the waves of thought, images, and emotions… into the field of consciousness.
Sometimes the ride is choppy. Sometimes it is smooth sailing. Sometimes we drift away. EVERY meditation experience is perfect, and exactly what it is supposed to be.
The key to Heart Based Meditation is to let go… And ride the wave.
When we make contact with the field of pure consciousness, even for a short time, it releases old stresses and impressions lodged deep in the mind, as well as old programming and patterns getting in the way of living our full potential. We experience this purification as trains of thought that the nervous system is releasing. Trying to suppress thought during meditation would stop this important and necessary process.
People who meditate daily are more apt to reach their full potential in every area of life. I feel like it would be a dis-service to my clients if I did not strongly encourage meditation as medicine, for them!
Celebrities + Successful CEOs who Practice Daily Meditation:
Oprah Whimpey
Paul McCartney
Jim Carey
Katie Perry
Jerry Seinfeld
Lady Gaga
Jeff Weiner, former Yahoo executive
Padmasree Warrior, CEO of Chief Technology and Strategy Office of Cicso Systems named by Forbes as one of the top 100 most powerful women in the world.
Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post
Marc Benioff, billionaire CEO
Bob Stiller
Russell Simmons
...And many more.
I have personally experienced, and also witnessed, the blossoming of MANY colleagues and clients as they developed their personal daily Heart Based Meditation practice.
So if you think this easy 'householder path' of daily Meditation sounds like a magic wand... Sign up for my donation-based 'Learn to Meditate' 2hr Workshop or 2-day Retreat and experience the magic for yourself!
The dictionary definition of adaptability is “being able to adjust to new conditions; ...an advantage in the harshly competitive global economy."
So with that notion in mind, think of each meditation you do as building your emotional bank account of adaptability.
Every meditation is an investment in your future self.
Visit www.debzholisticlifecoachastrologer.com to sign up for 'Free Meditation with Training Wheels' and learn more about my donation-based 'Learn to Meditate' Workshops and 2-day Virtual Retreats.
According to the Dalai Lama, "If every 8 year-old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world with one generation."
This is young Bella Faye contributing to her future!
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