Psychological aspects of meditative practice

We all have thoughts and beliefs about practice.  Unfortunately, the belief that your session “should”  take a certain form or last a certain amount of time may just stop you cold.    Everyone has a unique set of circumstances to mold to a practice session.

In the beginning stages of skills acquisition, the process can feel a lot like work. There must be fifty ways to make unintentional sounds on a guitar.  Not only that, the instrument is built to amplify every little sound, pleasing or not.  Now it’s all about managing expectations. Why are you playing guitar anyway? To relax, refresh your mind, invigorate your brain? I touched on this topic in the stress management section of musicalpath.com here.  We all have different aspirations, often restricted by our daily schedules.  But, anyway you look at it, it has to fit with your life. It can’t become a source of guilt because you haven’t had time to practice and rise to meet your own expectations.

Finally, we need the ability to tolerate errors.   Most of us find errors frustrating, but that’s because we’re being judgmental of our performance.  The meditative approach has room for evaluation, but not the good/bad aspects of judgment.  Spot an error in movement or sound?  Just slow down and observe your actions intently.  Slow motion is a wonderful way to get a very clear idea of what you are actually doing.  Like forgetting to breathe.  Just smile, relax, plan your next move, execute it, analyze it, and smile again. And breathe. Easy!