I meditated first thing every morning for a month. Here's what I learned.
An overthinker's case for doing the obvious
Nothing.
I learned nothing.
Meditating every morning does exactly what it says on the box.
It has had pretty immediate benefits with regard to:
Routine
Resilience
Spaciousness
How meditation has helped my routine
I’m an overthinker. I like challenges. ‘Thrive in complexity,’ as they say over on LinkedIn.
But this can also get overwhelming.
If I get too overwhelmed, I can procrastinate.
I’ve done this since childhood, so I know how to navigate it well without letting it affect the quality of my work or my commitment to other people. But it does impact the quality of my life.
In the mornings, I would often mull over what the day would bring. I’d try to figure stuff out. Make a mental to-do list. Down to small things, like whether I’d add honey to my breakfast that morning. Sometimes, this would trigger procrastination. I’d start checking my email, news, newsletters, etc., while still in bed, and would have to keep my phone out of reach from my bed for this reason.
This often would lead to a greater sense of being overwhelmed, because by the time I’d get up, I’d feel like I was ‘behind’. Whether I actually was or not doesn’t matter; it was more a feeling of knowing when I intended to ‘start being productive’ and when I actually did.
Morning meditation means that before anything else, I get up, sit down, and take a few minutes.
I’m blown away by how a simple practice like this has upended a deep-rooted set of habits.
My alarm goes. I might snooze it for 10 minutes, if the day allows for it, but then I get up and sit down to observe my thoughts. To breathe. To find focus. To bring myself into the present moment and sense whatever is there: in my body, my mind, my room, my greater surroundings.
If I can’t be bothered, I set a timer for just 3 minutes.
Often when the timer finishes, I stay still a little longer.
Then I’ll get ready, and when I get to my desk, I usually spend a moment journaling. Jotting down whatever’s happening in my head.
Journaling often gives me peace that I don’t have to “hold on” to certain things I’d like to remember or revisit. This has benefits before and afterwards.
After journaling, those thoughts have a place. But journaling also means that if any thoughts come up prior, for example, during meditation, I can observe those thoughts without grasping on to them. I know my mind well enough to know that those thoughts will reappear as soon as I sit down to journal later.
But morning meditation has also made me more diligent with how I finish my day.
I usually set a priority for the next day. I clean up my tabs. Structure my to-do list. This way, I know it’s all waiting for me. I don’t have to think about it. My mind is less likely to dwell on it during meditation. And prior to it. My mind is calm(er).
Resilience: “I can always sit down and look at a tree”
This calm at the start of the day is beginning to feel like a friend.
However the day goes, I know that my friend is always there.
I first got into meditation in my early 20s. One day, I had a few hours to kill between university and my side job. I wandered around the city. Then I looked up and realized that, despite having walked those streets often, I had barely seen what’s around me. My attention was pulled into the present moment and I was filled with wonder.
For a while, I practiced bringing myself back to that state. I vividly remember the tree in my parents’ garden. How beautiful it was when I was present enough to witness it.
Since then, for almost two decades, I have felt strengthened by knowing that worst comes to worst, I can always sit down and look at something as common as a tree and experience wonder. It’s a truth that can’t be taken away and is always there to return to.
And to be clear: it’s not about the tree. It is not even about using your eyes.
I was never consistent with my practice. In some tough periods, it could take me months, maybe even years, to see a tree the way I did that day in my early 20s.
But that was more an emergency button.
Now this calm that I meet when I get up in the morning is somewhat accessible throughout the day. All I need to do is take a moment for it.
Spaciousness
I like to think about my morning meditation as sitting in stillness. Meditating feels like a verb. Something active. Something you can do right or wrong. And while meditation is far from passive, for now, I approach the practice as sitting in stillness. It’s less prescriptive, but still captures the practice.
Sitting in stillness has many layers. I sit down. I check on my breath. I check on my body. I check on my surroundings. I check on my thoughts. Are they still? Wherever I find non-stillness, like noise or discomfort, I place my focus there. In order to feel the discomfort, to hear the noise.
It may sound counterintuitive to people who haven’t practised meditation, but the greater the awareness I can bring to something, the stiller it often becomes.
Thoughts dissipate. Quite quickly. If you observe them, you shift focus away from participating in those thoughts toward a concentrated stillness.
At least that’s how I would describe my experience.
The result is that my thoughts throughout the day are surrounded by more space. I can observe them. Decide what to do with them. Respond to them or leave them be.
Just to be clear and to temper expectations: it’s just a small beginning.
Let’s compare it to someone struggling to do a push-up. They start practising against the wall, then on their knees, and finally do a single push-up. Soon, they might be able to do two of them. Two push-ups don’t make you the strongest person in your town, but going from being able to do one to two push-ups means you’ve doubled what you can do. You will feel this in your body.
And you can achieve it by doing just 1 small thing every day.
Being able to hold a tiny bit more space for your thoughts might just amplify the depth of calm you experience.
How to start
I started this article by saying I learned nothing.
I knew all of this.
I knew what would happen when I started meditating regularly. I knew to find a regular moment for it. I knew I don’t have to do it for 60 minutes straight away. I knew it’s okay if I can’t “clear my mind”. I knew that the people around me who meditate regularly seemed somewhat more joyful, more peaceful, more resilient.
But somehow it didn’t turn into practice.
So I can’t tell you how to start.
You probably already know how. Just do it once. And then do it again.
To me, having this small moment brings so many benefits on its own, regardless of whether I can find stillness or not.
Even if it were a one-second practice, it would benefit me.
Wake up, get up, sit down, get up, start the day.
That practice alone creates space around the thoughts that would often trap me in decision-making mode before even getting out of bed.
So even if I have days where I sit down and my mind is stormy, I will still experience a benefit, even if I wasn’t able to sit in stillness.
This is the big difference from the other times I started this practice. And why it’s a no-brainer to keep it going. No matter how I feel. No matter how brief the session.
All I have to do is show up.
If you’re new to meditation, there are many great meditation apps you can try. I also recommend reading Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh’s guide to mindfulness and getting the free Plum Village app, which features guided meditations by Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic community.
ᕱᕱ For your ears ᕱᕱ
Jacob van Eyck was a blind Dutch composer in my hometown of 17th-century Utrecht, who worked as a carillonneur and bell tuner. His ear was so refined that he advised bell founders on acoustics. In the evenings, he’d play recorder for passersby in the Janskerkhof, the park outside the Janskerk, improvising on popular melodies. Those improvisations were collected in Der Fluyten Lust-hof. "Engels Liedt" is one of them, performed here by Gerard Stempfel.