365 days of meditation...you're not good at it until you are

I’ve tried to meditate before. Every morning a few years back I put headphones on and listened to different guided meditations that I had downloaded onto my Ipod. Usually I ended up dozing off. I always liked what I heard on the recordings but it never felt like meditation. After a while i just stopped and didn’t think about it again until recently. A friend who has been meditating for many years and credits much of his success, both personal and professional, brought it back up. He gave me a book by Russell Simmons, which I read quickly. Simmons spoke of the positive effects of meditation and he had me convinced. So I decided to give it another go. The thing is, everyone says how amazing meditation is for you, both mentally and even physically, but no one talks about how hard it is. Yeah, they brush over it but they don’t really tell you everything. So here I am. Ready to tell you everything. Everything I experience in my quest to be “good” at meditation. I know. they say it’s a practice. They say that when the thoughts come in you should take note and then let them gently float on by. Hmmmm. Maybe it’s just me, but the thoughts don’t gently do anything. They come rushing in and as soon as I notice them they get even bigger...and louder...and more obnoxious. A guy I know who recently started told me the other day that he’s so happy he’s meditating and that he doesn’t know how even made it through life before. Really? All I can think is that I must be even worse at it than I thought! I can’t even really call what I’ve been doing now for about a week meditation so I’ll just say I’m practicing. I set the timer on my phone for 20 minutes because they say that 20 mins is the least you need to really get the postivie effects. It feels more like an hour. I keep telling myself to relax. I tell myself that the time will go by either way and that 20 mins spent doing something positive is always a good thing, right? Almost every time though, I start thinking that something is wrong with the timer, that 20 mins has come and gone! Confession: I end up looking at the clock more times than not. It’s not all torture, I promise. I have moments, however fleeting, that feel like it could be happening. That perhaps I am starting to float into another realm, but as soon as I notice I’m right back in the middle of my thoughts.