The first thing to do if you are wanting to start practicing meditation/contemplation is to start by paying attention to and “tracking” everything going on inside yourself. Your inner experience is complex. It is made up of your thoughts and feelings, but there are other things, too – physical sensations, imaginings, intentions, a million little impulses. Before practicing meditation/contemplation, your inner experience can feel out of control. The goal is not to completely control your inner life or eliminate all the “noise.” It is just to start with what is there and organize it a little to achieve a more centered experience.

In order to do that, just let everything that comes into your awareness come. You might want to write some things down or spend some time following a particular thought, daydream or impulse. You are just seeking to assimilate all these experiences and learn what to do with each of them. Some of the things that pop up will need to be dealt with. Some you will learn to just let come and pass or push them to a different part of your awareness. These things will not cease being part of your experience. You will just hold them in your awareness and know better what to do with them as you operate from your deepest and fullest self.

A lot of people get frustrated when they try this sitting and paying attention. Their experience is disjointed, confusing, distracted, even painful. They wonder what the point is or just feel like it’s not for them. It’s easy to get out of the practice at this point. It’s like when you go to organize a garage full of boxes. It is overwhelming, and it is tempting to just close the door and walk away in frustration. It seems easier just to try to forget those things are there. We do this with a lot of things in our lives and our lives remain confusing, directionless, and impulsive. The practice is just to start going through the boxes – even if you just work five or ten minutes a day. The repeated iterations of that will get you closer to a more organized experience and your realest self.

You may encounter some things you need to deal with as you start sorting through your inner experience. Some of those things you have been avoiding for good reason. Some will just take some time to go through. There may be difficult memories, guilts and fears you have been burying for a time. You may need to spend some time dealing with those or get some help to work through them. You have been avoiding having a deeper experience because these things seem too difficult or you are not sure how to resolve them. But you are eternal. There are many profound experiences occurring inside you all the time and you may not believe this, but you can get through all of them.

Something else will happen when you try to get down beneath all this stuff. You will be faced with both loneliness and the potential of real intimacy. As you settle down into your deepest self, you will have the feeling of being truly on your own. This is part of the reason we avoid contemplation. It is sort of terrifying to have no distractions and be left with only yourself. At the same time, as you get to know yourself on a deep level, you will also be capable of being known on a deep level. Ironically, that is also terrifying. But you are deeply and fully known already. Contemplation is just the practice of becoming aware of that.