Pete Kelley on why ‘just sitting’ can be time well spent

Life is hectic, right? It’s hard to take time even to see where your day is going, as you rush through your schedule until you fall into bed, clutching a list of what’s to be done tomorrow, and feeling guilty about what you didn’t finish today.

I’ve got a suggestion.

When I retired 18 months ago, I felt strongly that this was a ‘now or never’ opportunity to do a bit of that stepping back and (even if a tad late in the day) looking at my direction. I’ve written about some of this before… taking up yoga, starting to learn to draw.

But a year ago, I also took up meditation. And the simple purpose of today’s column is to urge everyone to try it.

It’s hard to describe why. If I said it has ‘changed my life’, you might expect too much too soon, or think I’ve been smoking my socks. I’ve heard of people who have quite a strong experience straight away. Great. But in my case frankly - perhaps because, as an ex-journalist, I was quite sceptical - it was probably six weeks before I noticed anything.

What I noticed was by no means mystical. It was just that to a small but significant extent I seemed to become more focused, so that I got through my daily ‘to do’ list (yes, retired people still have them!) better and faster. I now try to meditate twice a day for 15 to 20 minutes each.

So what happens when you meditate?

Technically, you are just thinking about one thing (perhaps counting your breaths, for example) in order to calm your thoughts down a bit. Nobody can do that for more than a microsecond. The trick seems to be not to feel you’ve ‘failed’ when you notice your thoughts inevitably wandering, but just to go back to your one thing, and continue.

As this implies, you don’t feel like you’re doing much. With a little practice, you may start to find it pleasantly relaxing… a little oasis of calm. That’s encouraging. But on a busy day, you might not feel you ‘deserve’ that. And pressing duties can easily push out that 15 minutes of ‘just sitting’.

Your problem will be to persuade yourself it’s time well spent.

The purpose of this column is to tell you it is.

How does it work? I really don’t know. There are various explanations, ranging from the simply psychological to the mystical. Some believe it is a gateway to communication with something beyond ourselves… something interpreted differently in different faith traditions.

But the one that most appeals to me, at present, was suggested by a fellow-student on a course. At least in the initial stages, meditation may just be a form of ‘self brain-washing’. We are forever, she said, ‘brainwashing’ ourselves in negative ways (about how supposedly inadequate we are, for example, or how much we should be worrying). In meditation, we may be just taking a few minutes to ‘brainwash’ ourselves more positively… that we can be calmer, happier, more compassionate.

So how would you start?

Personally, I went to Norwich Buddhist Centre where they offer some excellent beginners’ drop-in sessions as well as short courses if you want to explore it further (Google for times). But there are also quite a lot of apps and YouTube videos to give you a first taste.

I’m no longer too bothered about the explanations. A year on, my memory has improved (again, just a little) and I’m more decisive. It’s still early days.