What Would Happen if I Didn't Meditate?

[Gareth]

I started meditating at the back end of 2010. It was haphazard at first, but then there was a day in 2011 when I began to see a glint of the power of mindfulness. At that point, I deepened my practice and began to meditate every day and for more time. Then the benefits became simply enormous to me, and have been meditating (virtually) every day since then. Now and then it doesn't happen for whatever reason, usually when I spend a day in the company of people who I don't feel like telling that I meditate. But it's extremely rare.

Throughout this time I have been extremely lucky to be living with two Zen masters i.e. my two small boys. I spend a lot of time with them, and it is extremely solid mindfulness practice; they lead, and I follow.

I often wonder what would happen if I stopped meditating. Does anybody have any experience of this? Do the worries start to creep back? Would I slowly start spending bundles of pointless time in the future like I used to? At the minute, I almost feel like mindfulness has infected me, and I find that I'm practising informally for huge parts of the day. Maybe I ought to do an experiment for the cause. Don't feel much like it though.

[JonW]

I lapsed in formal meditation practice for a few weeks before Xmas. Not wishing to send out the wrong message here…but I didn't find myself slipping back into the old auto-pilot habit. I continued to be mindful throughout the day. My hunch was that my mind was now hard-wired to be mindful. I went back to formal sitting meditation in the New Year and realised how much I'd missed it though.
Practice IS key, particularly at the beginning and especially during those first eight weeks.

[ken300]

Gareth,

I started meditating a few years ago (3 or 4) & within a few weeks I felt a massive difference in how in control i felt - i could suddenly deal with situations that would normally have made me stressed & panicky before, it really put things into perspective.

After a few months of meditating every day I 'lapsed' for a month & before I knew it the old loss of perspective and getting really stressed & panicky had crept back in and I was at the end of my tether again & having sleepless nights about stupid things.

It wasn't obvious that's what was happening, it was a very gradual subtle thing for me - just like if you exercise then stop you don't realise that you're losing the fitness benefits that you've gained until you find yourself out of puff after climbing up a long flight of stairs!

Now I won't go for more than a day or two without meditating, especially when I'm on holiday, that's when I really want to be 'aware'!

Ken

[larorra]

I'm like you Ken, can't go more than a day or two without a formal practice, for me its hard at weekends, - babysitting duties, however, I do get plenty of informal practice with my grandbabies, and the young ones, and these times are so special and so much more enjoyable since I found mindfulness.

[Bitterballen]

I am in the same boat as Ken and Jackie. I find that I require regular formal practice to help me reap the benefits of mindfulness. Although I would say that it is less of an issue today than it was shortly after the I completed the 8 week course.

[rara]

Haha, yeah, I do get cagey after a small stint off. What's great though is that it's like an instrument or a martial art. You would be a bit rusty coming back to it but it wouldn't take so long to play catch up!