Day 17

Take me back to the lesson for Day 16

Here's your suggested reading from Bliss More:

 Read the rest of Chapter 9 (Chapter 13 in the audiobook) (7 mins)

How to tell if meditation is working?

Now that you're meditating every day, you need to know how to gauge progress. Most amateur meditators measure progress by the following:

• How deep they get in meditation

• Going an entire meditation without falling asleep

• Having mostly positive thoughts

• Having very few thoughts

• Having fantastical thoughts

• The time goes by quickly

• Seeing an array of swirling eyes

But contrary to popular belief, these are not accurate measures of progress—because they are all beyond your control.

True progress is measured by...

...what happens outside of meditation:

• Are you sleeping better?

• Are you more adaptable?

• Are you more creative?

• Are you more focused?

• Are you seeing connections easier?

If any of those are happening, then meditation is indeed working.

Today's Challenge:

Meditate as instructed for 20 minutes and notice how you feel outside of the practice. Are you sleeping better at night? Are you getting better ideas during the day? Are you more relaxed? More adaptable? More creative? Even a little?

Assessment

I had a friend who began meditating recently, and about a month later she gave up her years-long habit of obsessively drinking Diet Coke. One day, she just said, "No More." I brought it to her attention the other day—that she quit Diet Coke after learning to meditate, and she said, "Oh yeah. I didn't even realize those two were connected. But it makes total sense." So you may not realize it at first, but progress is indeed happening, and often in places where you're not expecting it to show up.

Accountability Exercise

Post any image that represents what you've noticed as a sign of progress, big or small. It should be something from your life, not something that happens in meditation. And make sure to tag #blissmore and #blissmorechallenge on your post, and take an extra minute to "like" some of the other posts under the #blissmorechallenge hashtag.

Sample accountability post

Wanna get a head start on tomorrow's reading?

Read as much of Chapter 10 as you can (Chapter 14 in the audio version) (17 mins)

(Follow #blissmore to see everyone’s progress)