Hey friends, welcome back to Radiohead Space.
It's Dora.
Back in 2010, I was sitting in my room trying to meditate for one of the first times.
I had found this recording online, one of few that existed back then, and I wanted to give it a try.
The instructions seem simple enough.
Focus on your breath and just follow the breath.
But within minutes, my mind was spinning.
Should I be following my breath, feeling it, counting the breaths?
And then came this strange panic.
I forgot how to breathe naturally.
Like, suddenly, I didn't know how to do this thing my body had been doing automatically my entire life.
And that's when the inner critic got really loud.
This isn't working.
You're doing it wrong.
Meditation isn't for me.
This is too challenging, and I'll never get the hang of it.
I felt this tightness in my chest.
The sense of falling short of what I thought meditation was supposed to be.
Calm, blissful, peaceful.
And I wasn't experiencing any of that.