1. Non-judging

We react to everything we experience by judging and labelling it:

“This feels good –I want more of this! This feels bad – get me out of here! Oh, I like this! I don’t like that! Oh no, this is an awful thing happening to me. This shouldn’t be happening! I don’t want this! But I want that!!”

We need judgment to navigate our life; good judgment is vital. But that’s not the kind of judgment I’m talking about here. A lot of the judging we do on a moment-to-moment-basis is more of an obsessive than a healthy habit. If we’re constantly judging, we disappear into our (often negative and critical) thoughts, and are far less able to experience whatever is happening in the moment directly. It’s quite simple: the more you experience whatever is happening directly, the more of a sense of peace and happiness you will find. The more you judge, the more difficult life seems to be.

To practice non-judgment in your meditation (or life) simply notice every judgment as it appears, but don’t buy into it. Think “Ah that was a judgment. Whatever. It’s not important” and go back to your breath or whatever you were focusing on. Let it go. And if it doesn’t work and you get caught up anyway, simply repeat: “Ah, I am getting caught up. Whatever. It’s not important” and go back to your breath or experience.

2. Patience

Patience is my favourite virtue. Just too bad I wasn’t born with a lot of it. I probably don’t just speak for myself when I admit I often want things to happen NOW, or even better: yesterday. But that’s just not how life works. Things take their time. Their own time. When you manage to embrace that life has its own unfolding, and rushing won’t help, life becomes a lot more peaceful and enjoyable. And paradoxically, life often speeds up when we allow ourselves to slow down. You get in the flow of things. An image I like to use when I need to practice patience is that of a flower. It would be a waste of energy to try to get the flower to flower when I want it to. It flowers whenever it is time. So, whenever you feel you are pushing and shoving and willing things into existence, but are not getting anywhere: relax, breathe, and realise that everything is as it should be right now. Things will happen when they happen.

To practice patience in your meditation (or your life) embrace every moment exactly as it is, and trust in an unfolding. Sometimes you need to take action and move things forward, but often we do enough of that. Instead, for now, sit back, chill out, and know that everything will happen right on time (even if it doesn’t feel that way).

3. Beginner’s mind

Often we get caught up in our expectations. Unfortunately, nothing is ever going to be the way you expect. Letting go of these expectations, and letting go of how we want things to be, creates space for experiencing and working with how things actually are. This is what beginner’s mind is all about. It’s about starting afresh every single moment and enjoying life as it is. Beginner’s mind says: be curious about your experience. It may not be what you expect or what you think you want, but don’t be hindered by that. You can live your life with freshness and curiosity and without the burden of how things should be. Every moment is a good moment to start anew.

To practice beginner’s mind in your meditation (or your life), get really interested in what is happening right now. Examine it, experience it, enjoy it. Lose the expectations, and find out what is actually happening. Reality may be better than you think.

4. Trusting yourself

When you are deeply anchored in yourself, you become the most important authority in your own life. You trust yourself, and know intuitively whether some action or decision is the right one to take. This is not to say that you stop listening to advice of people around you. Rather, it becomes easier to take that advice, as it becomes clearer whether it is the right advice to follow or not. Confusion subsides. When your mind is running around in circles, getting clear on the right course of action is near impossible. Everything becomes complicated and overwhelming, and you feel torn in different directions. Meditation helps calm the mind and reconnects you with your inner sense of knowing, your intuition. When you are connected to your intuition, you are powerful. When you lose that connection (though it’s never far away) things get messy.

To develop a sense of self-trust in your meditation (or your life) the most important step is to listen. Stop talking, ignore the internal chatter, and listen. Wait for clarity to emerge. When you’re in a rough spot, this can be difficult. Often we are not patient enough (yes, here’s patience again) to wait. Often the mind is too busy. One way to tap into your intuition is to write out your question, practice your meditation, and then ask for the answer. Write it out. You know you are tapping into your intuition when the answer feels solid, positive and sensible. If your answer is negative and critical, undecided, or feels unconfident – that’s not your intuition talking. It’s your overactive mind trying to control things.

Other ways to trust yourself include: trusting your feelings (if something doesn’t feel good, don’t ignore the feeling and keep going), trusting your body (don’t ignore physical symptoms, because they’re inconvenient) and trusting your heart (does this activity make your heart open with joy or make it close down). Trusting yourself isn’t about becoming so sensitive to every detail of your being and experience that they create more obstacles for you to navigate. Trusting yourself is about taking cues from yourself to know when you are on or off track. It allows you to cut through all the nonsense in an instant.

5. Non-striving

This is another of my favourites: non-striving. We want to get somewhere and we want to get there fast. Paradoxically, all our pushing may be slowing us down. That is, if we do too much of it. I am not saying that if you just sit on you meditation pillow long enough not trying to get anywhere, you will miraculously get all sorts of things done. No. But there has to be a balance between going into the world and making things happen, and sitting back and allowing things to happen. Our control minds can drive us (and others) up the wall. It is useful to detach from that control mind from time to time, and simply be. You are not trying to get anywhere. Everything that is here right now is enough. When you truly experience non-striving it feels like a huge relief. You realise that you don’t have to get anywhere, because you’re already there! All of a sudden potential and possibility arise, and the sun shines a little brighter. It’s a shift in perception: a shift that makes the difference between stressed out and miserable; and (more) confident and relaxed.

To practice non-striving in your meditation (or your life): just sit and be still. Drop all ideas of where you think you are heading. Drop your to-do lists. Drop your worries. Drop tomorrow and drop what you are planning for the rest of the day. Focus on right now. Relax, and enjoy. You are already there.

6. Acceptance

Acceptance is a friendly attitude towards what is happening right now. It doesn’t say anything about what action you are going to take next, or about whether you agree with or like what is happening. It simply says: this is happening right now, and that’s all there is to it. Best make friends with it instead of fighting the inevitable tooth and nail. Acceptance makes a lot of sense. It’s far more sensible to focus your energy on those things you can influence (your next action, with regard to what is happening) than on things that are outside your control (the thing that has happened or is happening). That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Life can be irritating (‘It’s raining, I have a cold, I just missed my train and I am struggling making sense of my data.’), and at some level we think that by disagreeing with what is happening we can escape it. The truth: you can’t change what is happening by internally fighting it. You can change your experience of it. And that starts with accepting things as they are right now. When you practice acceptance, you gain power. You are no longer wasting your energy on everything outside your control. You can now use your power to influence those things you do have control over. It is extremely freeing to no longer fight losing battles.

To practice acceptance in your meditation (or your life), notice when you are internally in state of conflict with whatever is happening. Notice when you want things to be different. (That probably hardly ever happens, right?) Then simply accept that ‘this is it’. This is what is happening. Really experience it. And give in.

7. Letting Go

Are you controlling? Do you have difficulty going with the flow? Do you feel like you’re trying to stay ‘on top of things’ but not really succeeding? Letting go can be a challenge, especially if you’re heavily invested in a certain outcome. When you’re over-attached to something, it is easy to become rigid in your expectations. Often such an attitude doesn’t work out for the best, as you lose flexibility and open-mindedness. When you start meditating you’ll soon notice that your mind is really attached to certain thoughts and feelings. These trains of thought keep recurring whether we want them to or not. Strangely enough, it isn’t only positive thoughts and feelings we hold on to. It’s negative thoughts and feelings too. These patterns seem to run on autopilot. When we are doing a lot of mental work, we run into the same phenomenon. Our brain is switched on and we have difficulty switching our thinking off at the end of the day. Long after our thinking has ceased to be productive, our brains keep going over and over arguments in our head. We can’t stop thinking about our work. The good news: letting go can be cultivated. And man, does it feel good, not to be occupied by all those old and tired thoughts and attitudes all the time.

To practice letting go in your meditation (or your life) first notice what you’re holding onto. Experience it, that grasping feeling. Take your time to do this (this probably doesn’t feel so good, but stick with it). At a certain point you will notice its grip lessen. This is the time to say to yourself: ‘I am willing to let this go’. Don’t force it. Just be willing. Allow it to slip away. Then be firm about it: you have made a decision to not engage with these thoughts and patterns, no matter how much they call your name. Every time you notice you are caught up in an old pattern, remind yourself you don’t have to hold onto it. You don’t have to be the slave to your habitual patterns and attitudes. You can detach and let go.