Meditation is not what you think

Meditation is not about emptying your mind. It's about noticing that you have a mind.

This distinction changes everything. Most beginners give up after a few sessions because their thoughts won't stop. But that's exactly what meditation is: noticing that the mind has wandered, then coming back. Again and again.

Every return is a repetition. Like a curl for your attention.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, who founded Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), puts it simply: "You don't have to like meditating. You just have to do it."

There's no good meditation or bad meditation. There's just the practice — imperfect, repeated — that adds up.