For a long time, I believed meditation was something I needed to do.

It had a shape.
A posture.
A certain number of minutes attached to it.

Eyes closed.
Mind quiet.

If I didn’t meet those conditions, it didn’t quite count.

That understanding carried me for a while. Discipline has its place. Especially at the beginning, structure can help us show up when we’re unsure, uncomfortable, or just learning how to begin.

But over time, something in me started to loosen.

Not because I was giving up on meditation—
but because I was listening more closely.

What changed everything for me was loosening my definition of what I counted as meditation.

With practice, I began to realize that almost anything could become meditation if it was done with intention and presence. Sipping a warm cup of tea. Eating a nourishing meal. Creating art. Writing. Walking. Even having a disagreement with another person.

I stopped measuring my practice in minutes per day.

I began inviting more presence into my lived, daily life.

Meditation stopped being something I checked off.
It became something I returned to.

I was first drawn to meditation through pain.

I was living with PTSD, and my therapist kept gently encouraging me to explore different forms of meditation. In those early years, discipline mattered. It gave me the ability to practice even when it was hard—especially when it was hard.

At first, my mind was loud.
Louder, actually, when I closed my eyes.

Stillness didn’t feel calming.
It felt activating.

Eventually, I was introduced to the idea of meditating with my eyes open, and something shifted. I began to feel safe enough in my body to stay present. Over time, closed-eye meditation became possible again—but only after my nervous system learned it was okay to be here.

Discipline helped build that bridge.

It didn’t cost me much—just time, and some frustration as I learned what did and didn’t work for me. For a while, though, discipline also kept me in a box. I believed meditation needed to look a certain way.

Loosening that belief is what allowed my practice to grow.

There came a point when I realized discipline alone wasn’t enough.

I could force myself to sit and meditate every day if I wanted to. But if I wasn’t grounded and present, I didn’t actually receive much benefit. Meditation became a kind of detector—it showed me when I was ungrounded—but it didn’t respond well to being forced.

Meditation didn’t respond to forced participation.

As my practice matured, something softened.

I stopped trying to make meditation happen.
I began allowing it.

I remember a guided meditation where an old memory surfaced—one I wasn’t prepared to meet in a room full of strangers. When it arose, I acknowledged it gently and told it we would return later.

I wasn’t rejecting it.
I was choosing myself.

That moment taught me something essential: I get to decide how I walk along this healing path.

Sometimes turning toward the hard is exactly what is needed.
Other times, doing so would cause harm.

Relationship requires discernment.
It requires pacing.
It requires grace.

Over time, meditation began to feel less like something I was doing to myself and more like something I was doing with myself.

I know this somatically now.

When I’m grounded and present, I can feel my body. I can name what I’m feeling. There’s a sense of being here. When I’m ungrounded, it’s harder to tell. Often there’s numbness. Distance. A subtle disconnection.

That awareness itself has become the practice.

Today, I feel as though I live a large portion of my life in a meditative state—not because I’m always sitting in stillness, but because I’m often present.

And when I notice I’ve lost that presence, I return to more formal meditation as a way of coming home. I also continue to seek out guided meditation classes because they stretch me, introduce me to new landscapes, and remind me that practice can evolve.

Presence shows up for me everywhere.

In how I respond to triggers.
In how I process something that surprises or hurts me.
In how I interact with my children.
In walking alone in the woods.
In moving on my mat.

And I notice when presence disappears, too.

Often when my phone is in my hand and I’ve zoned out.
Or when I’ve taken in more news than my nervous system can hold.

Sometimes there’s a feeling waiting to be felt, and I’ve postponed it because it isn’t convenient. Other times, my body just feels distant.

When I notice this now, the voice that arises is usually curious, not critical.

Oh. I’m ungrounded.

That simple naming brings me back.

Meditation has deeply changed my relationship with self-judgment.

There was a time when I didn’t even notice the judging voice in my mind—it was so familiar it went unseen. Now I can observe it. That doesn’t mean it’s gone. It means I have a choice in how I engage with it.

Compassion, for me, feels like gentleness.

Warmth.
Softness.

It’s the practice of offering myself the same grace I so freely extend to others.

What I most want people to unlearn about meditation is the idea that there is a right way.

There are countless ways to meditate. The invitation is to try many approaches and discover what works for you right now—and to remain open to the fact that your practice will likely need to change as your life changes.

I know mine does.

If someone only reads one paragraph of this, I hope what lands in their nervous system is this:

Wherever you are in this moment is okay.
You get to start from here.
And this is enough.

For me, meditation is being in a state of presence.

Presence brings awareness.
Awareness brings choice.
And with choice comes freedom.

Letting your whole life become meditation doesn’t mean doing everything perfectly. It means staying curious about your own experience. It means seeking to understand what lives beneath the surface rather than judging what you find there.

And if you feel like you’re bad at meditation, I want you to know this:

You haven’t failed.
You simply haven’t found the way it wants to meet you yet.

And that, too, is okay.

A Simple Embodied Practice: Returning Through the Senses

You don’t need to sit in stillness to practice meditation.
You don’t even need to close your eyes.

You can begin right where you are.

Take a moment to let your body arrive.
Feel the surface beneath you supporting your weight.

Now, gently begin to notice.

Five things you can see.
Without searching. Without judging.
Just letting your eyes rest on color, shape, light.

Four things you can feel.
The temperature of the air on your skin.
The texture of your clothing.
The quiet presence of your breath.

Three things you can hear.
Near or far.
Inside or outside.

Two things you can smell.
Or, if scent isn’t available, notice two sensations of breath moving in and out.

One thing you can taste.
Or simply notice the lingering flavor in your mouth.

There is nothing to fix here.
Nothing to achieve.

This is not about getting it right.
It’s about remembering that you are already here.

When your mind wanders—and it will—see if you can meet that moment with curiosity rather than correction.

Presence is not a state we hold.
It is a relationship we return to.

Even one conscious breath counts.