“Abiding nowhere, elevate the mind.”

Meditation belongs to everyone, and it is very hard to do it incorrectly. Everyone can benefit from it. It is an exercise of the mind. Like exercise of the body, it is impossible not to benefit from it.

There are many kinds of meditation. You are probably doing it already somewhere in your life: solo drives at night to nowhere, a half-hour walk where you contemplate, that space you go in your mind when you are numbed out at work, and that extra five minutes in the shower where you listen to the hot water hitting your scalp.

Meditation can be contemplative or observational prayer, ten quiet minutes with your first cup of coffee, or going through your bedtime ritual. Anybody who tells you that these things are not meditation, or that you need to modify your practice to “be more conscious,” has an ego problem that they need to sort out, hopefully, in private meditation.

Overwhelming evidence shows that consistent meditation reduces anxiety, stress, and depression. To be fair, meditation can also activate anxious and depressive feelings, but this occurs in less than 10% of people who do it, and that is from a population that includes people who claim to have no mental health problems. I believe if meditation causes someone mental distress, then their mental health needs immediate attention.

Self-compassion can help with emotional discomfort that can arise. Christopher Germer and Kristin Neff provide some of the best resources for this. Their blockbuster books are in the suggested reading. They are researchers, authors, and psychologists with great information.

Here is a classic self-compassion meditation: Imagine a character or scene from your past (relative, pet, or natural setting) that provoked the experience of total acceptance and unconditional love inside you.

Focus on it until you are relaxed and feel it everywhere. You love that person, pet, or place more than anything, and would do anything to keep them happy or safe. Now, direct that feeling toward yourself.

If this process generates memories, use that as an opportunity to extend your compassion to who you were when it hurt – the compassion that you never got, got conditionally, or inconsistently.

There is not much more to emotional intelligence than being intelligent about emotions. It means bringing emotions into consciousness, up from the depths of the raw instinct that generates them. To do this, we have to put aside the protective, secondary emotions like anger and insecurity, and look at what those emotions protect us from feeling.

Japanese Zazen meditation makes this extremely easy. Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Sit in a comfortable position and stare at one point on the ground about three feet (one meter) in front of you. Now don’t move. That’s it.

When your eyes move, your mind moves. So don’t move. You are taming your wandering mind. Set the example, and don’t move. Discomforts will arise. Notice them, and don’t move. If you react to every discomfort you feel, then your whole life will be nothing but reactions, and you will have given up your agency. Instead, you are cultivating free will. So don’t move.

Allow thoughts to rise up, and allow yourself to be still. You are not doing anything, only providing yourself with a safe space. After a short time, during the present sit or another one, you will find yourself without a narrative in your mind. No more words. This is when you can observe your emotions as they approach you and follow them down to their core. Remember, the only part of you that can suffer is your ego. When it confronts you, be compassionate.