Dropping into Meditation
Many people sit down to meditate and quickly feel like they’re failing. The mind is busy, the body feels restless, and instead of calm, there’s frustration or maybe even self-criticism.
The problem isn’t you, it’s that meditation is often taught as something you do with effort. It actually works best when effort gradually falls away.
One helpful way to understand meditation is as a series of simple “dropping” steps — not things to achieve, but layers that naturally soften when conditions are right.
1. Drop the tension
Meditation happens most easily when the body is in a relaxed, safe state —sometimes called the “rest and digest” mode of the nervous system.
If there’s a lot of tension, meditation can feel like hard work. It’s a bit like trying to drive a car that’s stuck in the wrong gear. So, before anything else: let the body settle. Slow the breath; soften the shoulders.
2. Drop into the body
Most of us live from the neck up, lost in thoughts about the past or future. Modern life keeps attention in the mind and away from the body.
But meditation doesn’t really happen in the head. It happens through the felt experience in the body. Gently letting attention drop into the body often brings an immediate sense of grounding.
3. Drop into space
This is a step that’s often missed, yet it’s key to deeper meditation.
Alongside sensations and breath, there is also space — the openness in which all experience is happening. When attention relaxes into this sense of space, awareness naturally deepens. Many people touch this on retreat or by accident, but learning how to recognise it makes accessing deep states of meditation a breeze.
4. Drop all control
Once the ground is prepared, real letting go becomes possible.
At this point, meditation isn’t about managing experience at all. Thoughts, emotions, sensations and sounds are allowed to come and go exactly as they are. Nothing needs to be changed.
What comes later
With practice, these steps can unfold in just a few minutes. Even short daily sessions of 10 minutes can open deep states of awareness and peace.
Over time, something else may happen: the sense of being a ‘meditator’ softens and drops away. There is simply awareness — aware of breath, body, sound and space. Some traditions call this the sense of ‘I Am’.
Later still, even that subtle sense of a separate ‘I’ may drop away, revealing awareness without a centre. What’s left is a feeling of deep peace and interconnection. This isn’t something to force — it unfolds naturally when the time is right.
Meditation isn’t about striving for special states. It’s about learning how to let go and stop getting in the way of what’s already here.
If you’re curious to explore this more deeply, I offer private meditation coaching and guided support.