What to Do When Meditation Feels Too Much

I love to practice meditation. I offer a half hour meditation class every weekday morning via my 'Mindful Mornings Club'. It's a privilege and great joy to sit every morning with a community of beautiful souls who are willing to sit with me.

Every day I offer a different meditation. I think it just works for my ADHD brain not to do the same thing every day. If you can do the same meditation every day and just go deeper with it, that is really great. Some mornings I offer a loving kindness meditation and sometimes it's Tonglen or just simple breathing mindfulness meditation. Last week I offered a meditation from Thich Nhat Hanh's 'Blooming of a Lotus'. I chose it at random and it happened to be the one entitled 'impermanence contemplation'. People said they enjoyed it. I got a few texts saying:

'It was very good, puts things into perspective! 🙏' — Caroline

'I found the meditation good and strangely reassuring. It even helped with the bigger global picture to bring compassion to people I often struggle with in that regard. So thank you 🙏' — Siobhan

I then got a text asking if I would do the meditation on our own death. I love requests, so I will offer it on Monday. The idea intrigues me because personally, I find the contemplation on my own death strangely life affirming and it always makes me do things like book a holiday on the credit card because who knows how much longer we've got? So do all the things now. I'm not sure that's the purpose of the meditation but it does have that effect on me…

As I was offering the meditation on death last week I worried that perhaps not everyone would be finding it nourishing! I gave some instruction and permission for people to ignore my words and just go back to their breath, but it got me thinking about what we should do when we feel overwhelmed in a meditation. I want to offer some helpful suggestions if this ever happens to you.

If you have suffered from untreated trauma, it's not a good idea to do deep meditations—not specifically meditation on impermanence, but any meditations that ask you to open to difficult feelings. It can be overwhelming.

It doesn't mean you can never meditate, but it does mean that you need to work on establishing what we call in the Plum Village tradition 'your true home'. In True Refuge, Tara Brach calls it your 'home base'—a place of safety and refuge in yourself that you can return to should you have overwhelming or difficult feelings. It can take a long time to establish this, but we can train a little in doing it every day.

1. Look for places of safety in your body. Focussing on the sensations in hands and feet can be a great place to start. There is usually a lot of sensation in the hands: heat, coolness, heaviness, lightness etc.

2. Widen the attention away from the difficult feelings or sensations. Scan the body for neutral and pleasant sensations and rest with these for a while. Then you can go back and forth between the present and unpleasant, gradually building your exposure or 'tolerance' for the difficult. This cognitive flexibility is a really important skill. Or simply stay anchored with the pleasant.

3. Widen your attention to the space around the unpleasant. To the space around your body, even to the environment you are sitting in. And move back and forth from there. Gradually opening to more spacious awareness that can also include difficulty.

4. If none of this is possible or it feels too much, you feel agitation or distress—it's best to take a break. Go make a cup of tea, phone a friend, have a walk. If you really must continue sitting, you can recite a mantra or just focus on sounds as a meditation. The main thing is to have compassion and be kind to yourself. You can ask yourself: 'what do I need?'

As Tara says:

"Being present with difficulty is not an endurance test. It is not yet another domain where you need to prove you can succeed. Sometimes you simply need to prepare the ground and find ways to feel safe and stable. Sometimes in the face of great pain, you might stay present for just thirty seconds, a minute, five minutes. All that matters is how you are relating to pain. Refuge is always waiting for you: it is here in the moments that your regard what is happening with a kind and gentle presence."

Remember: your meditation practice is meant to support you, not test you. Find your refuge first, and everything else will follow.

May you always find your way home to safety. 🙏