Reverse Meditation

Why do we meditate? The main reason most modern people start meditating is because it helps us feel better—reducing anxiety, improving sleep, decluttering the mind, and so forth. “But where does your meditation go when things go bad?” asks Andrew Holecek.

Any meditator who sticks with it long enough will hit a turning point, when the methods that once brought inner peace stop working like they used to. In Reverse Meditation, Holecek reveals that’s when our practice really begins—when we are called to throw out any assumption that meditation somehow insulates us from the confusion, suffering, and uncertainty of life. “By putting your meditation into reverse,” he teaches, “you’ll actually find yourself going forward. Step into your pain and you can step up your evolution.”

With his signature blend of depth and accessibility, Holecek teaches three expansive approaches to meditation—shamatha-based mindfulness, open awareness, and the boundary-smashing reverse meditations—along with on-the-spot practices for snapping into a meditative mindset even in trying moments.

The reverse meditations make you feel better, even when everything seems to be falling apart. They do so by expanding your sense of what “better” and “bad” truly mean. Instead of just noticing a thought and letting it pass by, reverse meditations ask you to pull that thought into awareness, and sit with it. Many reverse meditations are about repairing our relationship by making yourself aware and dealing with the ways we make ourselves and others miserable.