28/01/2026
Meditation — it has so many benefits, but why do so many of us find it so hard?!
I bumped into a colleague today who I often do online yoga classes with. We ended up having a surprisingly deep meditation chat in the middle of the stairwell at the office.
She’d missed class the night before and asked how it was. “Great,” I said. “We started with meditation, which I really enjoyed, we imagined a candle and focused on that image — but I find it so bloomin’ hard. My mind wanders constantly and I have to work so hard to pull it back.”
We both have busy, high-pressure jobs and full lives outside of work.
Our minds are used to being packed full, jumping from one thing to the next, so we’ve conditioned ourselves to never really switch off.
Meditation is the opposite of this. It asks us to practise noticing thoughts without engaging with them — and to be ok with fewer of them. The quietness allows space for reflection without judgment and enables us to peel back the layers to find our true Self.
The key, I’m learning, is gently bringing attention back to the technique: the breath, a mantra, a candle flame, or the words of a guided meditation. It’s trial and error to find what works.
Honestly? I still find it hard.
I think of meditation like Couch to 5K. You wouldn’t jump up and run 5K without training — you build it slowly. The mind is the same. With practice, it becomes more flexible and quieter.
I’m noticing, by having a regular meditation practice, I’m less caught up in the daily monkey-mind chatter.
In the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred and ancient Indian text, the mind is likened to horses pulling a chariot. Without reins, they run wild. Meditation helps us hold the reins.
Meditation is a hard because of the fast paced, constant stimulation world we have created but it’s a more than worthwhile practice especially in today’s high pressured and high stress environment. We need to retrain our brains to operate in a different way.
Silence is golden as they say…
I’d love to hear what meditation techniques work for you, or what you find most challenging about your practice.
