I’ve had a hard time writing about my journey with mindfulness. I started out as the anxiety-ridden soul on a steady IV drip of hustle fuel and exhaustion glorification. It may not have always shown in how I carried myself since I was trained from a young age to keep up a professional facade of false calm, but I was a wreck on the inside.

I started practicing yoga in 2018 and dipped my toe into meditation in 2019. Both of these practices relate deeply to the overall practice of mindfulness for me, though I strive to take that presence with me in all the different facets of my life. I consider myself a reforming workaholic; there are an incredible amount of mental blocks that stop us from slipping into a meditative state when we become obsessed with our output and how much we can pack into a single day.

I’ve learned enough to see just how early in the journey I am.

My fiancé and I have been encountering so many incredibly talented artists, musicians, and technical creatives in NYC that we’re noticing a trend. People who are serious about something, no matter what that something is — tend not to overhype their skill level. So many people who have refined a skill will still call themselves beginners.

I don’t want to sound arrogant and say that I’m at that kind of level with mindfulness — that would invalidate so many elements of what this practice means for me. But I have come far enough to see a little more of the true depth of how much farther I have to go. I’m a beginner through and through. But even though I have a long way to go, it’s not an intimidating quest anymore. I’ve been able to make baby steps of progress on this journey and I’m confident that if I keep showing up and meditating almost every day, I’m going to keep honing this ability. But more important than that, I can reap the benefits of calm in every session along the way.

Meditation is getting easier and feels genuinely soothing.

When I first started meditating, I fell into a trap each time. I would get so frustrated with my inability to calm my racing thoughts that I would come out of the experience feeling shame that I wasn’t “good at meditation,” guilt that I had wasted time, and overall unhappy. I would even do some rather strange things, like using meditation time to ideate on my writing projects — which was actually rather soothing in its own way.

My journey with meditation got tremendously easier once I started taking my mental health more seriously. Though I like should have started much sooner, I began working with a therapist in 2021 and I’ve never looked back for a moment. It’s always hard to navigate all the paperwork and costs associated with any form of health care, but being able to work on the driving force of my chaotic thoughts — anxiety — in a direct way has done wonders for my ability to slow down, find calmness, and meditate.

You need to discover what practices you truly enjoy.

I’m a guided meditation gal, even now. Whether it’s in a workshop with a meditation facilitator or simply a recording I find online, guided meditations are typically a lot more effective for me than complete silence or just an auditory component. If you’ve tried traditional meditation but foury end that your thoughts wouldn’t quiet down, guided meditations with elements like visualizations can go a long way to taking you to a new and difference place in your mind.

This is where a bit of trial and error comes in. Even within the category of guided meditations, there are so many different combinations of breathing activities, visualizations, gentle movements added, or somatic gestures like tapping on your body, rubbing your limbs, and a myriad of other mindful practices. Try everything. Even if it feels silly at first, find a little alone where no one will see you rhythmically tapping on your shoulders. Give it a whirl. You might find that something you didn’t expect actually makes a big difference in your practice.

For me, meditations with a visualization component really ring true to me. I had the good fortune to be part of a deeply spiritual yoga studio with a practical approach to mindfulness and the “woo-woo” side of yoga, as we love to call it in the west. But since they did approach it very practically, focusing on how things like meditation calm the nervous system, I was able to approach it with a more open mind. They would lead guided meditations on self-love and other topics that felt grounded enough for a skeptic like me to get into.

It’s okay to break the rules a little if you’re feeling the emotional benefit of it.

If you’re staying attuned and grounded in the moment, I believe there’s a little wiggle room with how we approach these practices. There are times when my energy is low and I’ll lay down to do a meditation that was probably intended to do seated. There are times when I mindfully move to my inhalation and exhalation during meditations that were probably intended to do still.

But here’s a secret that I’ve realized:

You don’t need to deny everything your body asks for in these still moments.

If you really want to move, try gentle movements with your arms. Seated side both stretches and twists are really nice and easy to do without interrupting the focus of a meditative state. One of the key things for me is to focus on what will actually bring me greater calm. If that means a few shoulder circles, then it’s a few shoulder circles. If it’s a seated forward fold, it’s a seated forward fold.

It’s taken years of struggling to meditate to reach this point where I feel like I’m making progress, but I’m also at peace with still being a beginner. My personal approach to meditation at this stage of my journey is to listen to what my body is asking for. If my thoughts are pulling me away, I’ll forgive myself for getting distracted, and try to breathe back into a state of quiet and calm. It’s a process, it takes time, and not every day is perfect, but every time you try, you get just a little bit better.