Why Most People Hate Meditation.... And Why it is Not Your Fault

Let’s just start here..... Most people don’t hate meditation because they’re undisciplined, “not spiritual enough,” or have a “monkey mind.”

Most people hate meditation because the version they’ve been handed is completely mismatched to the biology they’re living in.

I cannot tell you how many clients have whispered some version of “Everyone says meditation is good for me, but I swear it makes me feel worse.” or “My brain never shuts up. I must be broken. Meditation doesn't work for me.”

And every time, I want to grab their hands, look them in the eyes, and say,
Please listen to me! You’re not broken. You’re just trying to do an advanced nervous system skill with a body that’s still in survival mode.

Let's unpack this and you can see exactly what I am talking about.

The Myth: Meditation = Sit perfectly still and empty your mind.

This is the story people are given, right? Close your eyes. Sit down. Don’t move. Don’t think.
Let your mind become "still and silent".

It sounds so peaceful and serene. It photographs beautifully and it looks very “spiritually put together.”

But here’s the truth no one tells you:

Stillness is a biological luxury. You want to talk about privelege? There it is. Stillness is a biological privilege that many people find completely inaccessible.

If your system is dysregulated (as most of us are in this modern life we live, this isn't a moral failure it is how we have set up our society right now) so that possibly means anxious, hypervigilant, burnt out, trauma-primed, stressed, or simply unused to downshifting.... Well, sitting quietly with your eyes closed is not calming. It’s threatening.

Your body is like, “Oh, so you want me to close my eyes, stop moving and trust that everything’s fine? Bold choice. Let's not.”

This isn’t a moral failing.
This is literally your nervous system doing its job.

Vipassana: the style everyone thinks they should love but almost no one is physiologically ready for

Let’s talk specifically about Vipassana, because this is the form that gets held up as the “real” meditation. The gold standard. The purist’s path.

And honestly?
It’s beautiful.
Profound.
Transformational.

But it was never meant to be a beginner-friendly entry point.
And definitely not for the average modern nervous system that’s juggling work, kids, deadlines, notifications, chronic stress, unresolved trauma, and a baseline state that’s halfway between “freeze” and “Let me mentally rehearse 17 catastrophic outcomes before breakfast.”

Vipassana asks you to:

• sit for long periods

• stay still

• watch everything arise internally without reacting

• tolerate whatever comes up

• do it all without distraction or movement

Do you know what that requires?

A regulated baseline.
Not a perfect baseline but a body that knows how to return to safety. And most nervous systems today haven't even come close to safety in a long, long time.

People today don’t have a regulated baseline. And it isn't because they’re weak. It is because life is intense. Because we’ve normalized dysregulation. Because we went from evolutionary village-life pacing to modern hyper-stimulation with zero transition time.

Vipassana is like asking someone who hasn’t walked in months to run a marathon.

The practice isn’t the problem.

The starting line is.

When you sit still, you meet yourself — and that can feel like an ambush

The moment people slow down, all the things kept at bay by busyness, distraction, scrolling, noise, work, caretaking, etc. finally have space to rise.

Those emotions you shoved into the corner?
They show up.

That anxiety you’ve been white knuckling and overriding?
It gets loud.

The grief you didn’t take time to process?
It starts knocking.

Your mind is not broken.
It’s trying to use the only strategy it’s had for years: stay vigilant so nothing can hurt me.

When you suddenly remove movement, sound, visual input, and external orientation, your nervous system loses the cues of safety it has depended on.

So it does what it’s wired to do:

Scan.
Loop.
Predict.
Think.
Analyze.
Worry.
Make noise.

It’s not trying to sabotage your meditation.
It is just trying to keep you alive.

Why silence can feel like pressure instead of peace

Silence is only soothing when your body has enough safety to relax into it.

For a stressed system, silence can feel like:

• “Now I can hear everything inside me and it’s too much.”

• “I don’t know what’s coming next.”

• “I can’t tell if something’s wrong because there’s no sound.”

• “I feel exposed.”

If you’ve ever sat down to meditate and immediately felt worse, this is probably why.

Your system is not rebelling, it's communicating.

Meditation is not neutrality. It’s a physiological state.

Most people treat meditation like a skill of the mind.
But meditation is actually a state of the body.

Calm, presence, and awareness don’t come from mental effort.
They come from your physiology downshifting into parasympathetic dominance.

Meaning that: Your body decides whether or not meditation feels good.

If you’re already slightly to moderately regulated, meditation can deepen that.

If you’re dysregulated, meditation can (and will) amplify that.

This is not failure. This is neural feedback.

Here’s the part no spiritual influencer will ever tell you:

Your inability to meditate is not a moral deficiency. It’s a mismatch between the practice and your physiology.

And the solution is not:

• more discipline

• more spiritual striving

• more shame

• more “you just have to sit with it”

• or (my least favorite) “your ego is resisting”

The solution is to build enough nervous system capacity that silence becomes safe.

Not pleasant.
Not blissful.
Just safe enough that you can be with yourself without bracing.

Stillness is the result of regulation, not the method

This is where I want to flip the whole meditation conversation on its head.

People try to use stillness to become regulated. But stillness only works once you already are regulated.

It’s like trying to frost a cake that’s still in the oven. The timing is off. There’s nothing wrong with frosting or the cake, but the cake isn’t ready.

In nervous system terms:

Movement → discharges energy
Orientation → signals safety
Breath → shifts physiology
Touch/pressure → cues grounding
Co-regulation → stabilizes the system

Then meditation becomes accessible.

Stillness is not step one.
Stillness is step five.

This is why somatic practices matter

Before you ask your body to sit still, you have to show it:

• you’re safe

• your environment is safe

• your sensations are tolerable

• your system has enough capacity to hold “neutral”

• activation doesn’t mean danger

• silence doesn't equal threat

• presence doesn’t equal ambush

This is why in Feral Resilience (and in everything I teach), meditation comes after your system has learned:

• how to regulate

• how to feel without overwhelm

• how to shift states

• how to move energy

• how to re-orient

• how to come back to yourself without spiraling

Meditation is so much easier (and so much more effective) once your nervous system understands safety.

Let’s talk about the people who do love meditation

People who adore traditional sit-still, eyes-closed meditation usually share one or more of the following:

1. They have naturally regulated baselines.
   Some people simply start life with a more stable autonomic tone.

2. They’ve spent years building capacity through other practices.
   Yoga, breathwork, martial arts, nature immersion, etc.

3. They grew up in environments where stillness wasn’t threatening.
   Which is more rare than you’d think.

4. They’ve already processed a lot of their backlog.
   So when they sit down, fewer things crash the party.

5. They’re neurodivergent in ways that make internal focus soothing rather than overwhelming.
   This is a small subset, but they exist.

6. They don’t live with chronic anticipatory stress.
   Which… in this era? Is like finding a unicorn.

In other words, the people for whom traditional meditation works beautifully are not the norm.

And yet, we’ve told the whole world this is the “right” way.

So let’s say this clearly:

If silent, still, eyes-closed meditation feels awful to you:

There is nothing wrong with you.
Your body is not defective.
Your mind is not “too busy.”
You’re not spiritually underdeveloped.
You’re not resisting growth.
You’re not failing the assignment.

You are trying to meditate in a way that ignores how human physiology actually works.

Meditation is supposed to meet your body where it is — not where Instagram thinks it should be

For most people today, the gateway isn’t stillness.
The gateway is movement, breath, grounding, orientation, shaking off activation, tremoring, humming, walking, swaying, rocking, or simply noticing without closing your eyes.

Sometimes the best meditation is:

• sitting on your porch watching a tree

• lying on the floor with one hand on your belly

• walking slowly while noticing your feet

• breathing in a way that calms your ribs

• holding something warm

• moving just enough that your body doesn’t feel trapped

Presence ≠ stillness.
Awareness ≠ silence.
Meditation ≠ immobilization.

Meditation is a relationship with your inner world.
And relationships require safety.

When meditation finally works — it feels like coming home, not like punishment

Once your system has capacity, meditation stops feeling like:

• pressure

• failure

• chaos

• boredom

• overwhelm

• self-judgment

• a mental boxing match

And starts feeling like:

• “I can breathe.”

• “I can hear myself.”

• “This feels good.”

• “My inner world isn’t scary anymore.”

• “I don’t have to fight my mind.”

• “There’s space inside me.”

That shift doesn’t come from forcing your brain to be quiet. It comes from giving your body what it needed all along.

So if you’ve been hating meditation? Good news: it’s not the end of the story

There’s a version of meditation that does work for you.
But the path to it is through your physiology — not around it.

Let’s stop pretending the “sit still and empty your mind” model works for everyone.
It doesn’t.

And it was never meant to.

Your nervous system isn’t the enemy.... it’s the doorway.

When you learn how to work with it, meditation stops being punishment and becomes possibility.