Why Do I Feel Like I’m Starting All Over Sometimes?

After we have put in some time with mindfulness practice and have been practicing for a while, we have a certain sense of how things will go when we meditate.

But sometimes, when our life is hectic, stressful, or challenging, we might find ourselves sitting down to meditate and having a hard time with the practice.

Some people have described it as “I feel like I have to start all over,” or “I feel like I had to go back to the beginning.” It’s a sense that we don’t know what to expect and how to get to where we want to be.

So what can we do about that?

Here’s the good news: “Starting over” is not a problem! Every time we sit down to practice mindfulness meditation, we are actually starting over. Every breath that we take, when we feel the coolness in our nose as we breathe in, we are starting over.

Because we have never taken this breath before. We have never experienced this moment before. What better thing to do than to completely start over, start fresh, with each breath, with each moment?

Each time we breathe in, if we can connect with our breath with a beginner’s mind, that is true mindfulness practice. Starting over with a beginner’s mind, with each breath, is the same as nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment, which is the definition of mindfulness.