Meditation Trauma | Why Can't I Meditate?
Are you tired of being told that meditation is the answer when you know how much you hate it and that it doesn't actually work for you? By the end of this video you'll understand why that is and you'll be able to finally move on from meditation, and find a tool that actually helps you move forward.
Watch the video below or read on for the full transcript.
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Before I was diagnosed with PTSD and Complex PTSD meditation was one of the things that I tried again and again to help me heal and move forward with my life. Were there days when meditating was great? Sure. But most days it was awful. It was a trudge. It was like pulling teeth! And I wasn't any better for the effort.
Since coming to understand my history of trauma however, and starting to look at meditation through a trauma-informed lens, I now know that meditation was hurting me more than helping me, and I needed different tools to manage my mental health. So let's dive into four reasons why meditation can be so hard to do (if not downright harmful) and what you can do instead.
Disclaimer: The advice to meditate exists for a reason. It can be very helpful for certain people. In fact it is scientifically proven to be kind of an amazing tool. That being said, it's not right for everybody and that's who I'm talking to today.
So the first reason why meditation can be both really difficult to do and even possibly harmful is if meditating itself is a trigger for you, and it's triggering a flashback or an emotional flashback.
I went into great detail about flashbacks in this video, so I recommend checking that out later. But basically a flashback is a form of time traveling where your mind and nervous system go back into the past into a time where you experienced a trauma or complex trauma. It's as if it's happening again now in the present. And that can be overwhelming emotions, you can feel suddenly like a much younger version of yourself, or you can have actual flashes of a very specific memory go through your mind. If you are sitting down to meditate and you're experiencing any of that, stop what you're doing immediately. Go find someone who is trauma informed who can actually help you heal and move forward from that trauma and find better tools to use than meditation. Because triggering flashbacks is creating the opposite from what meditation should create.
The second reason why meditation can be really hard to do, if not harmful, is because for some reason (and this is an extension of being triggered, it's just a much more minor version of it that isn't full on flashback material), but it's that your mind and/or nervous system find the circumstances of meditating to feel unsafe.
So for example, a number of the things that you need to do to prepare yourself to meditate and to have a quote-unquote successful meditation session is to make sure you are grounded in your body and present with your thoughts. If you are somewhere else and you're not able to even initiate any form of mindfulness to get into the meditation, you're not gonna be able to meditate, and you're just gonna be wanting to be anywhere but here. And there's a really fine line because, for those who meditation can be a great tool, there is discomfort with it at the beginning.
I'm talking about something different where it suddenly feels like you're prey trapped in a cage and there's a predator nearby. It just doesn't feel safe to slow down. There's this underlying anxiety and fear and that can be an indicator of either a history of trauma or something else going on.
Because it is very very difficult to meditate if you cannot feel safe. Safety is a prerequisite.
Comment below and tell me if you relate to either of the first two reasons, either flashbacks or this not being able to feel safe. I know I relate to both of them strongly, and I also relate to the next two that I'm about to talk about.
Reason number three why meditating can be really hard to do if not downright harmful is if you have chronic illness and or chronic pain.
When I first learned how to do Transcendental Meditation, which is kind of like the meditation of meditation (it's the one that most people refer to when they're talking about meditation, and in fact is the one that is used in most scientific studies on meditation), my teacher would tell me that one of the most important things in preparing to meditate is getting physically comfortable. And this is separate from feeling present and grounded in the body that I talked about earlier. Because let's say you are able to become physically present and grounded in your body and you feel safe doing so, yet when you show up inside your body your body's screaming in pain. And no matter what position you get into: pain, pain, pain, pain, pain!
It's not fun.
You usually end up backing out because it's a different kind of not feeling safe. You don't feel trapped in a cage. You're suddenly... Your body becomes the cage, and your body is also the predator, and it just feels awful. So you dissociate and you run away in your mind and then you're like, "Oh. I'm supposed to be meditating."
If you are dissociating from your senses so the pain isn't overwhelming, you are going to be unable to meditate because you need that presence in order to meditate.
And then this is specific to one of my chronic illnesses. I have something called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), which is also a form of dysautonomia. Weeee. Which basically means my autonomic nervous system (my fight, flight, rest, and digest).. Wonky. It's always doing the wrong thing. And while most healthy individuals can use for example breathing exercises and meditation to calm the nervous system and transition from fight or flight into rest and digest, my body is all like, "F that!"
It was always deeply frustrating to me that I would maybe have everything else - all my other ducks in a row, but I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my blood, my heart was racing, and nothing I did would affect that. And it would make meditating impossible.
So chronic pain, chronic illness, and dysautonomia (under those umbrellas) are huge hindrances, or can be huge hindrances to meditation.
And that's okay.
I'm gonna get to that more later, but it's okay. There are other things you can do besides meditation.
Last but not least, reason four why meditation might be really hard for you to do if not downright harmful, is if you are neurodiverse or neuroatypical: you're either on the autism spectrum or you have a form of ADD or ADHD or some other form of neurodiversity. That can make it really hard to make your brain do what you in theory want it to do.
*Julia is the first character with Autism to be featured on Sesame Street.
Having strong executive functions is really important for meditation, and often in those who are neurodiverse their executive functions aren't as strong as a neurotypical person. If you identify as neurodiverse, I highly encourage you looking for some resources that are specifically for that in relationship to meditation, because I cannot speak to that.
Personally, while my symptoms often end up in the neurodiverse category...
(For example my perception score is really high on the autism spectrum, but I understand that to be because of my extensive history of trauma. I am perpetually hypervigilant and that's why my perception is off the charts neurodiverse, not because I'm autistic. And my executive functions are also weakened because of my fatigue, brain fog... And those are things having to do with my chronic illnesses. It's not necessarily that I'm neurodiverse, but I end up with similar symptoms. But again, my brain for the most part works normally, and so I don't want to speak to neurodiversity and take someone else's voice and story here.)
All I know is that neurodiversity can make meditation really difficult, so that's why I wanted to include it here.
Those are the four reasons.
Meditation itself is triggering
Grounding and becoming present feels unsafe to your nervous system
You have chronic illness or chronic pain
You are neurodiverse
Now what on earth do you do if you identify with one or more of those things? Let's talk about that real quick.
Let's start by thinking about what the actual point of meditating is. The point of meditation is to strengthen your ability to be mindful and present in your day-to-day life. You don't meditate to become better at meditating, you meditate to become more present in your life, so that way the train of your thoughts can't run away with you constantly.
The stronger the muscle you develop when you meditate consistently, the better you're able to notice in the moment if you're no longer present, if you're stuck in your thoughts or if you're not grounded in your body, and then you are able to bring yourself back to the present and feel grounded. The whole point is to be mindful so you can notice and you can come back to the here and now inside your body and inside your mind. That is the entire point.
But saying that meditation is the only way to strengthen that cognitive ability is like saying the only way to cardiovascularly strengthen your heart is to run. And we all know that's not true. Any form of cardiovascular exercise will strengthen the heart, it doesn't have to be running. So I just want to emphasize to you that there are other ways to strengthen your mindfulness muscle that don't involve meditation.
I'm going to give you one simple exercise for this today that you can try instead of meditation. And we're going to think of this by going directly to the point of meditation, which is to increase your ability to notice in the moment throughout your day-to-day life that you're not actually here, and bring yourself back into your body and into the present moment.
How do we do that?
Really simple.
You get out your phone and you set a repetitive alarm. And let's say it's every two hours from when you wake up to when you go to bed at night.
And whenever the alarm goes off, your job is to take 30 seconds to stop what you're doing and to notice: where you are, when you are, how you feel in your body, what your thoughts are doing... You want to focus on being the observer of your experience in these 30 seconds (instead of being at the mercy of your experience). You don't want to be caught up in your thoughts. You want to notice what your thoughts are doing and observe them, and get a little bit of emotional distance from them.
Similarly, you want to try... (If it's safe. If you struggle with that safety thing by grounding yourself maybe don't try this part.) If it's safe, notice how your body feels, what positions you're in, if you're experiencing any discomfort.
So the alarm is the reminder to notice. And that's what meditation helps you do, it allows you to do that without being reminded by an external source like an alarm, but you can use an alarm until such a time as you don't need one anymore. So the alarm lets you know to stop and to notice and to come back to yourself in the here and now in your body, and to observe your thoughts.
And then you just go about your day, and when the alarm goes off again you repeat the process.
So there you have it. Four reasons why meditation might be really hard for you to do, if not harmful, and one exercise you can try instead of meditating.
If you're interested in another exercise you can try instead of meditation, I talked about a really simple grounding exercise at the end of this video, so I recommend going and checking that out.
And if you're interested in finding out a little bit more about what I do as a coach (yes, I'm a coach), I highly recommend checking out my free Masterclass on overcoming procrastination and resistance. It is my secret weapon against those two banes of existence. All you have to do to get a copy of the replay is to go to this link, sign up with your name and email, and it's 100% free to you. The replay will show up in your inbox.
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I'll be back next Tuesday with another video. Talk to you then. Bye.
OUTTAKES: Do I look much too glam for this video today? Probably. Do I care? No. Can I memorize a script? No. Apparently not. A book shifted and scared me. Excellent. Do I know what I'm talking about? I'm tired and I don't want to things right now. Was that... That was... Can I do better? Wow. Words are really really really really hard tonight. If... Wow wow words! Having... What adjective am I looking for?