There's another approach to meditation that will work in every situation of life, no matter how painful or challenging.

There's concentration meditation.

So if you're walking, being with a pet, eating, washing your clothes, watching fish in an aquarium or caring for an aging parent or whatever, your attention narrows. This is the kind of focused attention that musicians, athletes, naturally get into when they're totally focused on their "game"

There's open monitoring, open awareness meditation.

This can ALSO be when you're walking, with a pet, eating, etc.

This is the kind of natural opening of awareness that occurs when you've fallen in love - with a person, with nature, with a pet. And yes, it's possible as you practice to learn to evoke this more and more.

And there's kind intention meditation.

Where rather than focused or open attention, you go directly to your heart. This is especially powerful when your heart is broken, when you're overwhelmed with rage or anger or sadness, when you have a friend or partner or child who is aching and desperately in need of being hugged.

And there's, finally, spontaneous meditation, which is a kind of natural integration of all three as you get the sense of what is needed in each moment. Then you don't need any scripts as life becomes the meditation teacher.

I personally, after decades of practice, still find simple breathing practices immensely helpful for the initial settling down, but then "something" (God, or Goddess, or the universe, or Tao, or whatever you like to call it) takes over and the sign you've let go is a sense of opening of the heart and utter surprise.

Thanks for a great column!!