Send Me To Sleep | Meditation (Voice Only)
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What invitation and premium offers does Andrew mention at the episode start?
Hello, it's your host Andrew here. If you're enjoying Send Me To Sleep so far and you'd like to help support the show, the best way to do that is Send Me To Sleep Premium. Over there you'll get ad-free episodes as well as access to all of our bonus episodes. You can find a link to a seven-day free trial in the description notes. Thanks so much for listening and here's just a few ads before the show begins. I think the majority of people in this world when thinking about the idea of meditation get this cliched imagery in their mind of perhaps this cross-legged individual in a robe sat
on a mountain top or perhaps on the grass in a shady glen next to a gently flowing waterfall. They have their eyes closed and their hands in their lap with their palms upturned and
this person that they're imagining is perhaps a monk or someone of some great spiritual significance. And I feel like this imagery of meditation makes the idea of it for the everyday person seem
like something that is not made for them, that is for a particular kind of person who is perhaps more spiritual than they are, that meditation is maybe in some way linked to religious practice, or that meditation is just something that other kinds of people do.
and that there's no real place for it in everyday life.
And I think that's a real shame, because even though I cannot attest to be someone who regularly meditates, I do so when I can, when I find I have a good moment to
And I also understand, from having done it a little bit myself in my life, the real importance of meditation.
And that again, I think, is not a word that most people would attach to the idea of meditation. that it is important. When you ask people, you know, what do you get, what do you think people get out of meditating? They may say they find it relaxing, they find it restful, they find it refreshing, perhaps find it calming.
But Finding it difficult, perhaps, is not something they might say.
How does popular imagery make meditation feel inaccessible to everyday people?
Finding it hard work is perhaps not something they would say.
Finding it utterly profound is probably not an association most people would have with the idea of meditation. And I think that probably is because
most people don't have a strong grasp of what it is that one is trying to do when meditating, what utility it really is to one's life. And when you do understand that a little better, you will begin to see how important it is and how really
though it is of course linked to spiritual practice, you do not need to be spiritual to see the benefit of it. And in some ways I feel disingenuous and overbearing when I try to say that meditation has a point, has utility, as if there is some kind of goal to it.
Because, of course, largely the aim of meditation is not that you're trying to reach a goal.
Perhaps something else that some people might say about meditation is that the idea is to ascend to some kind of enlightenment through the practice.
And like I say, I do believe that meditation can often be a profound experience. But there again, it's not something that is explicitly done with the end goal of ascending into some sort of higher spiritual domain. In fact, it really should be treated as if there is no goal at all to be most effectual.
But even still, those who say explicitly that there is no goal to meditation, I think are too in themselves being disingenuous because
There is, in a way. And I think personally, and I can only speak for myself in this matter, that if I were to describe the goal of meditation, it would be to become comfortable with looking inside of your own mind by sitting with it undistracted for a period of time and getting to know your mind because
Again, I think there is some tendency to believe that meditation is perhaps about clearing your mind entirely, which is of course untrue and to some degree impossible.
You know, thoughts will often and to some degree always do pop up when you're meditating. as they do throughout life.
Your mind is so practiced at thinking that it's going to be hard pressed to stop.
But the idea is not to repress these thoughts.
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