{"id":13643,"date":"2023-04-30T10:30:11","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T10:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yogajournal.com\/?p=110768"},"modified":"2023-04-30T10:30:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-30T10:30:11","slug":"3-myths-about-meditation-that-teacher-aditi-shah-wants-to-demystify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/30\/3-myths-about-meditation-that-teacher-aditi-shah-wants-to-demystify\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Myths About Meditation That Teacher Aditi Shah Wants to Demystify"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Peloton fans probably know Aditi Shah<\/a> as one of the fitness platform\u2019s experts on all things meditation. But Shah wasn\u2019t always so keen on the concept of meditation\u2014in fact, it took years for her to connect to it on her own terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was taught meditation at a young age,\u201d says Shah. \u201cBut it was a specific kind of meditation that I wasn\u2019t able to do; it was more of a \u2018clear-your-brain\u2019 kind of meditation. I don\u2019t know that I really got it; I was climbing trees barefoot and couldn\u2019t sit still and I didn\u2019t like a slow meditation practice. And breathing was not resonating with me at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years later, after graduating from college, Shah found herself searching for some grounding and guidance. \u201cAs everybody is after college,\u201d she says, laughing. Yoga quickly became a regular part of her everyday life. But she was hesitant to revisit meditation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was interesting to me, but also a little scary because of my previous experience,\u201d she says. \u201cIt made me feel like I was a failure at it, like \u2018Oh, I can\u2019t do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But as Shah continued to explore meditation, she realized that it wasn\u2019t necessarily about shutting off her internal monologue and that there were many other approaches and philosophies around meditation that did work for her. Whether it was about tuning into the quality of her breath or practicing self-compassion when her mind did wander, Shah gradually forged a new relationship to meditation. Over time, as she developed her own personal relationship with the practice, she realized just how many pervasive myths about meditation were preventing people from experiencing its benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to clear your brain or quiet your mind or get rid of your thoughts \u2014 that\u2019s not the aim of every meditation practice,\u201d Shah says. \u201cSometimes people think you can\u2019t meditate with a busy mind\u2014 but many of us have busy minds and everybody thinks! That\u2019s what our minds do. That was helpful for me to understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Shah has an entirely different perspective on meditation. She\u2019s adamant that there\u2019s more to the practice than many people think, and she\u2019s passionate about busting myths and misconceptions. Following are three of the most common\u2014and pernicious\u2014myths that she observes.<\/p>\n

3 Meditation Myths That Aditi Shah Wants to Demystify<\/h2>\n

1. Meditation is a Form of Escapism<\/h3>\n

Shah says the type of meditation she\u2019s most drawn to is vipassana, otherwise known as insight or mindfulness meditation<\/a>. The term \u201cvipassana\u201d originates from Buddhist and Hindu traditions and refers to \u201cseeing things as they really are<\/a>.\u201d It involves devoting deep attention to physical sensations, breath, and concepts of impermanence and release from attachment (among many other things).<\/p>\n

Shah studied vipassana for two years and attended several silent retreats, which helped her understand that meditation is anything but escapism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite the opposite,\u201d she says. \u201cMeditation is about inviting in the reality of what\u2019s happening. Even if you are tuning out some external noise, it\u2019s not that you\u2019re drifting into a fantasy; you\u2019re actually trying to really look inward and do so truthfully. It\u2019s like you\u2019re holding a mirror up to what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, there are caveats to it, like you\u2019re being nonjudgmental and you\u2019re being compassionate,\u201d Shah continues. \u201cBut we all have this inner world, and sometimes we don\u2019t even know what that landscape looks like. So you\u2019re not trying to escape it. You\u2019re actually trying to get a better idea of that picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Meditation Takes a Lot of Time<\/h3>\n

During her two-year vipassana course, Shah and her classmates were required to practice meditation each day. \u201cAs busy as my life is, there are people with busier lives and honestly, bigger responsibilities, like children or working at a hospital,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd they made time to meditate, on the train some days, or sitting in their car before leaving for work.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Shah discovered and what many practitioners have found to be true is that there\u2019s no such thing as the perfect time, place, or situation in which to meditate. The reality is that meditation and mindfulness can take place any time, anywhere, whether for one breath or many.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really believe everyone has the time to meditate,\u201d says Shah.<\/p>\n

3. Some People are Just Bad at Meditation<\/h3>\n

One of the reasons Shah stayed away from meditation until her early twenties was that she repeatedly told herself that she just couldn\u2019t get the hang of it. But through studying and connecting with other practitioners, she realized she was far from alone in that limiting belief.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no such thing as a bad meditator,\u201d Shah says. \u201cThat\u2019s something that takes practice to believe. But if you keep practicing, you figure out that actually, everyone is kind of the same. It\u2019s pretty hard to focus for many of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shah isn\u2019t sure if there\u2019s a specific type of meditation for every person out there. But she believes the practice can serve a variety of purposes, including bolstering the brain\u2019s resilience and providing a structured space for exploring existential questions or connecting with spirituality.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many different Eastern worldviews have different definitions of meditation,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you look at Patanjali\u2019s yoga Sutras, it actually defines meditation as just a one-pointed concentration and doesn\u2019t say what that point of concentration has to be. So you could be practicing meditation while practicing yoga\u2014because they are related in that sense\u2014 without necessarily sitting down and doing the kind of meditation that I\u2019m teaching. Some people think that meditation is just a body scan or relaxation and it\u2019s not. There are so many different types.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, what Shah does know is that before she saw a shift in her practice, she had to commit to curiosity and consistency.<\/p>\n

Photo by Wini Lao<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

About Our Contributor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michelle Konstantinovsky<\/a> is a San Francisco-based independent journalist, writer, editor, and UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism alum. She\u2019s written extensively on health, body image, entertainment, lifestyle, design, and tech for outlets including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Scientific American, Glamour, Shape, Self, WIRED, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Teen Vogue, and many more. She has also served as the health and wellness editor at Fitbit, senior health writer at One Medical, and contributing editor at California Home + Design. She completed 200 hours of yoga teacher training in 2018 and is still trying to understand the physics of hand balancing. Follow her at @michellekmedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Spoiler alert: Yes, meditation is for you.<\/p>\n

The post 3 Myths About Meditation That Teacher Aditi Shah Wants to Demystify<\/a> appeared first on Yoga Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[37,35,36],"class_list":["post-13643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ayurveda","tag-blogs","tag-yoga","tag-yogacourseware"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}