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Recently, one of my meditation students asked me how to take her practice to the next level. She said she was bored with meditation and wanted to know how to get more out of the practice. Have you ever felt bored during meditation? Let me tell you what to do about boredom.

My student found meditation to be interesting and challenging in the beginning, but after several months, it became dull. She was no longer achieving the same relaxation or sense of joy she’d first experienced. Focusing on the breath felt routine and boring. She expected meditation to be more interesting, even more exciting.

And that is the crux of the problem. She expected something.

Boredom is not a problem. It’s just an emotion that can come up. The problem is the disappointment and frustration that can arise when the expectation of a non-boring meditation isn’t met.

Expectations lead to judgements and disappointments. They can even lead us to quit a practice that is healthy and helpful.

Meditation isn’t supposed to be anything. On any given day, it might be

interesting,

or uplifting,

or relaxing,

or challenging,

or difficult,

or easy,

or pleasant,

or unpleasant

but it’s not supposed to be any of those things, or anything at all, actually.

Meditation is about sitting in awareness of whatever is happening in the present moment, without judging it. You simply allow whatever is happening to happen. Allow whatever comes up to come up. You notice it and you notice your own reactions to it.

If you expect a specific result, you’re setting yourself up to judge the outcome against the result you expected.

But, what if you do find yourself caught in judgements about the meditation? What if you just cannot shake the feeling of boredom? The answer is to turn towards the boredom. Get curious about it and thoroughly explore it.

Start by noticing how your body experiences the feeling of boredom. Scan the body and notice what’s there. Do you notice tension, discomfort, restlessness, sleepiness, listlessness, relaxation? There’s no need to analyze the feelings. Just notice how boredom feels.

See if you can notice yourself making judgements about the way the body feels or about the boredom your mind is experiencing. Watch the judgements come up and then just sit with them. There’s no need to try to change them, but you might notice them changing or even disappearing all on their own. Just be patient and observe.

What you’re doing is learning about your mind’s habitual, conditioned reactions to boredom. Bring curiosity to your observations. Imagine you’re a scientist sitting back to observe the mind of a study participant. You don’t want to change what the participant is thinking or feeling. You just want to observe it.

This practice can be applied to any type of expectation. If you expected your meditation to be relaxing and it is not, tune in to the feelings of tension and frustration. Explore your expectations fully to learn more about them.

This lesson translates to daily life, too. When you expect your day to go a certain way and it doesn’t, you might feel disappointment, dissatisfaction, frustration, or anger. If you can approach your day without expectations, you can take each moment as it comes. Instead of focusing on what may or may not happen, you can engage fully in what’s actually happening. Living in the moment like this tends to make life feel more satisfying.

To be clear,