Almost all personal development and spiritual teachers recommend meditation as a way to feel better. I also mention it in the majority of my blog posts and articles as a fantastic method for raising your vibration. So why is it, that when some people begin to mediate, their lives actually get worse? Are these people just doing it wrong? Are they different? Are they perhaps meant to suffer and are therefore being punished for their attempt at feeling better? No, no and no. There’s a perfectly rational explanation for why your life might seem to get worse when you begin the practice of meditation.

You’re not doing it wrong

First of all, there’s almost no way you can meditate “wrong”. All you need to do is quiet your mind and concentrate on your breathing. Even if you happen to fall asleep, there’s no harm done. So the fear that incorrect meditation could lead to a horrible, life-destroying outcome is completely unfounded.

I’ve written an article on How to Meditate, if you’d like to learn more.

Second, the laws of the Universe apply to all of us equally. So, even though we are all unique and have our own vibration, the Law of Attraction will treat us all the same. Meditation raises our energy, period. It doesn’t create or draw bad experiences to us. It just speeds up our energy.

And third, none of us are meant to suffer and there is no entity that will ever punish us for anything, least of all spiritual growth. Now, you may think that this belief sounds ridiculous, but think about this: The last time that something went wrong in your life, did you think, even for a second, “Why is this happening to me?”, as if it was being done TO you? This is an old belief that’s still hanging around in one form or another – the idea that if we do something wrong, we will be punished for it. The whole idea of Karma is based on it. But the only one who can and will ever punish us is, well, us.

So, why DO things get worse for some people when they begin to meditate?

You can never go back

As I stated, meditation helps to raise your vibration and higher vibrations feel better. So, during your meditation and immediately after, you’re given access to much lighter emotions. Your frustrations turn into boredom and then hopefulness. Then, when you return to your old, limiting thoughts and the negative emotions they produce, it feels worse than it did before.

It’s as if you’ve been living on rice cakes all of your life. You might not really enjoy them, but you wouldn’t complain, because you wouldn’t know any better. They would just be normal. But if you’re then given access to a gourmet meal, your whole gastronomical world would open up. The flavors! The textures! The pure enjoyment of it all! Well, going back to those rice cakes the next day wouldn’t feel “normal” anymore. You would suddenly be aware of how bland and boring the food was. You’d have a whole new perspective.

This is what happens when you meditate. You get a taste of nirvana so to speak and going back to your old emotional state feels worse to you by comparison. You’re becoming fully aware of the negative feelings you’ve been putting up with, but you’re no longer so content about it. Things aren’t actually worse, you’re just finally becoming aware of how bad they’ve always been.

Faster Energy = Faster Manifestation

Of course, sometimes, the shit really does hit the fan as soon as a person starts to raise their vibration. Speeding up your energy doesn’t create negative manifestations. But it does cause the manifestations that are already on the way to appear more rapidly, and providing you ignore them, to get bigger faster. Plus, raising your vibration doesn’t automatically get rid of your limiting beliefs.

Think of it this way: you’re in a car, travelling slowly through an obstacle course. The obstacles are your limiting beliefs – the lower frequencies that are active in your vibration (activated by your attention to them). So, while you’re driving slowly, you can navigate around these obstacles. You have some time to see them coming and they’ll generally only come at you one at a time. Even if you hit one, it’s not really going to hurt at that speed. But then, you speed up your energy through meditation, and you begin to drive faster and faster. The obstacles become harder to spot, more of them come at you at once and if you do hit one, well, it’s going to hurt. A lot.

Let’s use a real world example:

You’re holding on to some negative belief. It’s not a huge one, but it’s been niggling away at you, causing some negative emotion; let’s say frustration. But you’ve been ignoring it, because frustration feels kind of normal to you. Then, you speed up your energy. Now, you become aware of the frustration and you don’t like it one bit. It seems like meditation is making you feel worse, when in fact, you’re just feeling the frustration that’s always been there. You keep going with the energy work, but you don’t address the limiting belief. And so, it begins to manifest in a bigger way. You might begin to experience some physical pain. That generally makes us take notice. The manifestation will continue to grow and get worse until you address it. Remember that the manifestation is just an indicator of that limiting belief. It’s just saying “Notice me! Take care of this! You have a belief that’s not serving you!” And it will continue to try and get your attention in bigger and more painful ways until you either give up and release it or die. How bad it has to get before you do something about it, is entirely up to you.

You still have to do the work

Meditation only gives you access to the better feeling thoughts, but you still have to choose to actually think them. If your general state is one of “I hate myself”, then meditation will give you access to a slightly higher thought, like “I’m not all that horrible.” If you then choose to adopt that thought, to practice thinking it instead of the old, horrible feeling one, you’ll begin to feel better and you’ll stabilize at that new, slightly higher vibration. If you continue to meditate, you’ll continue to be given access to higher and higher thoughts. But you still have to practice thinking them. Meditation isn’t a fix-all. You still have to be willing to do the work.

Sometimes what seems bad is actually good

Now, sometimes, when it seems like your life is falling apart, it can actually be a prelude to something great. If you want to build a new house, you’ll have to first tear down the old one. Faster energy also means faster positive manifestations. And that means change – something we humans traditionally don’t have an easy time with. We tend to see all change as scary and bad, even when it’s clearly needed in order to make room for something much better.

So, you’ve been focusing on getting a new job and you’ve been lining up your energy. As you speed up your vibration, it’s going to attract that new job and all conditions that lead to it more rapidly. One of those conditions is that you have to get out of your old job and the fastest way to do that is for them to lay you off. No problem, right? As long as you continue to focus on the new job that’s just around the corner.

Only, we don’t tend to react that way. When something “bad” happens to us, we generally focus on that and use it as an excuse to feel horrible. Why did this happen? What did we do wrong? What are we going to do? Etc., etc. The vibration you want to be holding is “New job on the way! Yippee! New job on the way!”, while you’re actually thinking “Old job is gone! Oh crap! Old job is gone!” And of course, those thoughts will slow down your vibration and your manifestation.

Meditation is just a tool

Now, after reading this, you might come to the conclusion that even though mediation doesn’t actually cause negative manifestations, it’s still kind of dangerous, because it brings them about faster. But notice that at no point did I say that meditation actually leads to more negative thoughts. All it does is make you aware, in one way or another, of the thoughts you’re already thinking and the manifestations they’re already creating, while giving you access to better feeling ones.

If you cut your finger and ignore it, it will get infected. If you continue to ignore it, it will get worse. Now, you can choose to continue to look away, taking the stance of “I don’t even want to know”, but ultimately, the pain will get worse and worse, until you can’t help but pay attention to it. But by then, it might be too late. You’ve lost your finger.

Or, you can decide to make yourself aware of the cut while it’s still small and harmless. This is all you’re doing with meditation. The negative beliefs you’re holding on to will continue to manifest in your reality until you release them. The only way that meditating will actually make your life worse, is if you speed up your energy but refuse to think the better feeling thoughts. If you use meditation as a tool to gain access to better feeling thoughts and then actually think them, your life will just get better and better.  It always, always, ALWAYS comes down to choosing better feeling thoughts. 🙂