Hey there. It's Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson. In this week's vlog, we're going to talk all about meditation. In particular, the different kinds of meditation. I think there are really four types of meditation. There might be more. This isn't a professional expert rundown on it. This is just musings from a regular meditator. I have been meditating for 30 minutes every morning for 23 years. It's a topic that I'm passionate about, I'm curious about, I love to learn about, and I have taught my students in my college courses on positive psychology in particular the science of how meditation changes your brain. So, I guess I am a professional in a way. My PhD is in brain and cognitive sciences, so my expertise is in the brain. Meditation changes the brain. It rewires the brain, which I think is fascinating.
In this vlog, I want to cover the topic of what do we mean when we say meditation? I think there are so many misconceptions about it. I also want to emphasize that before I started meditating when I was 28, I had a good eight years where I wished I was meditating regularly. I always thought about it. I would hear the word meditation and I would just get this pained pang of, I really want to be meditating, but I would try it and it would be such a terrible experience. It was so painful. It was so disastrous when I would sit and try to quiet my mind and breathe. It just felt awful, awful, awful to do that. It was profoundly punishing. It was an experience that would condition me not to do it anymore. And so, I would want to meditate. I would think about meditating, but then when I actually would meditate, which was not very often, by the way, in those eight years, I probably actually tried it three times or something, but it just didn't go well. It felt impossible. It felt like I can't do this all the time. It was awful. So, how did I get over the aversion to meditation? How did I actually become a regular meditator? I think I'm going to answer that question after I go through the four types of meditation because I think once you see that there's different ways to approach it, within that framework, I'll tell you the style that actually was my savior. There was one way of approaching meditation that worked for me to bootstrap me into the practice at all.
The first type of meditation is just focusing. This is the classical meaning of the term meditation, I think. The idea is that you're going to sit and you're going to focus your mind, maybe on your breath, maybe on a mantra, maybe on a sense like what you're hearing, or you could keep your eyes open and do it on what you're seeing, but you're training your mind. You're bringing your mind back to the present moment on purpose with intentionality. You're not letting your mind wander, but of course your mind will wander. The idea is that whenever you notice that you're off thinking about something, you bring it back to your point of focus. Again, whether it's the breath or a mantra or what have you. Or counting exhalations, count to 10, and then just recount. You could just do that for a long time. Well, I can't. I mean, I always find when I try to count, it's shocking how hard it is to count to 10 over and over again. Shocking. That seems like it should be so easy, but it's actually really not. But anyway, this is training the mind. You're not actually relaxing. You're focusing. You're being very deliberate. This is what I think people mean generally when they say meditation. Okay, but that's just one type of meditation. What are the other types of meditation?
A second type of meditation is to meditate on something. I believe in the Bible somewhere it says, "Meditate on the Word." Christ said, "Meditate on the Word." So, you could take a Bible verse or a passage out of a reader like the ON THIS BRIGHT DAY book, if you have that book or a Rumi poem or something and just sit and think about it. I've done that. I think it's a really interesting thing to do. You can also take a problem from your life like, I don't know, should I move to Fiji? Whatever you're contemplating about your life and take it to meditation, like think about it in meditation. Often if we're struggling with something, we need space and time to ponder it deeply. So, the idea of meditating on something, thinking something through or letting your mind really mull something over is another use of meditation. In the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the 11th step is, "We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." Meditation is an integral part of the 11th step. And in the big book, when it talks about meditation, it actually uses this second type of meditation as its example. It says, "In the morning, sit and consider your plans for the day," which is meditating on the day ahead. And then it weaves in prayer. It says, "Ask God to direct your thinking." So, that's an interesting thing is you can of course weave prayer into meditation if you want to. You're sitting there. It's a good time to sort of check in with your guardian angels or pray to the God of your understanding or what have you.
Meditation, one can think of as listening. This would be back to, I think the first type of meditation is if you're using meditation to listen to your ancestors, your angels, God, whatever, your highest self, then you're really focusing on tuning your brain, your body to be an antenna to receive and you're listening. You're focusing on what do I sense or hear? Okay. But not with your ears, but with your spirit, right? Okay. So, focusing is number one. Thinking about something, meditating on a topic is number two. What are the last two types of meditation?
The third type of meditation is to just sit and be and let your mind wander, to not put any requirements on it besides that. To let your mind be, to just sit there and let your thoughts unravel. Let your mind chew on a problem if you've got one to think about. Focus on your breath. If you want to breathe and feel what that feels like, just sit there. It doesn't matter what you do. Let yourself think. Let yourself fret. Let yourself stress. Let yourself be. Just sit there. That's the third type of meditation. Sit. Sit and be for a bit. Set a timer. Doesn't matter what happens during that time.
The fourth type of meditation is some form of living meditation, walking, washing the dishes, doing whatever you're doing. It's so interesting. My friend married a man a bunch of years ago. They're still happily married today, who I believe spent, I think it was nine months in silence at a Buddhist meditation center. Nine months. Blows my mind. I could no more be silent for nine months than I could fly to Mars. I mean, really. But I was excited to talk to him because I'm a regular meditator and I was curious what does meditation practice look like? He said, "I don't anymore. I meditate every moment of every day while I'm living my life. I don't actually sit anymore at all. " It blew my mind. I said, "Really? You don't sit and meditate anymore?" He said, "Nope. I sat for nine months all day, every day in silence. And now I can meditate while I live my life. I'm meditating while I get dressed. I'm meditating while I make breakfast. I'm meditating while I clean up from breakfast. I'm meditating while I work. I'm meditating while I'm taking the train to work. I'm meditating always." I was just so floored by that. Now, this is something that's talked about in Buddhist tradition. When you wash the rice, wash the rice. When you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. I think food prep actually is a really beautiful opportunity for meditation. There's something so meditative about it, focusing on the beautiful vegetables that you're chopping and washing and bagging up. It's a beautiful opportunity for meditation.
So, those are the four types of meditation. Again, I don't know that this is exhaustive. It's just, this is what I think, but seems to me that these are the four types of meditation. Feel free to put in the comments down below if you can think of a couple more. Great. Love to hear about it. Expand our collective understanding. Would love to hear about it.
For me, what enabled me to start a meditation practice was getting permission to try that third route, which was just to sit there and let my mind be, to not have to feel like I needed to be focusing on anything in particular or breathing in a certain way or anything. The idea that I could set a timer for a specified amount of time and that the win would be if I just was still sitting there when that timer went off, was so relieving to me. That's what it took. I started to do it. I started to set a timer and sit there for the specified amount of time. I will say that over the 23 years that I've been meditating every morning, a second practice that I've adopted now, this is just me, this is just what it's taken for me to be a regular meditator has been really, really helpful, the practice is I set myself up when I meditate to allow myself to just rest if needed because these last 23 years, I've been pregnant and a mom for most of it and also working really hard as a professor and then the founder and CEO of Bright Line Eating® for all of it. Life is exhausting sometimes. I am not always up for meditating. Sometimes I need to rest, but I take my specified meditation time, which is 30 minutes. It could be five minutes, 10 minutes, two minutes, whatever. I recommend starting small, actually. For me, I just started with 30, but I set myself up with the gear, the supplies, the tools to rest, including sleep, if that's what I need that morning. Always. Meaning when I am about to meditate for 30 minutes, I set my timer for 30 minutes. What I do is I grab my meditation bench, which I got it at meditationbench.com. I get no money for telling you that. I just love it. And I can't meditate without a meditation bench because if I don't have a meditation bench, I'm either in pain or I'm falling asleep. And point blank, I need a meditation bench to meditate. I can kneel on it. It goes under my butt, but I'm kneeling on the ground and then my spine is tilted the right way. I can breathe properly and I'm so comfortable, so comfortable with that meditation bench. I just love it.
So, I get out my meditation bench, and I also get out a blanket that I'm going to wrap around myself. I wrap it around my waist, my lap, like my legs and my feet and everything because I get cold really easily. I don't want to be cold when I'm meditating. I get my blanket and then I get a yoga bolster, another blanket, and a heavy beanbag eye mask. I put those off on the side, right in arms reach, but just far enough away that they're not going to be bothering me while I'm meditating. Then I sit there and I breathe, and I do whatever I'm going to do, like my mind does whatever. I'm breathing, I'm just there, I'm just chilling. If I get tired, if I'm wiped out, I fold up the meditation bench and I put it behind me, and it becomes a pillow that I rest my head on. I get the yoga bolster. I put it under my knees so I get very, very comfortable. I put my two blankets on top of myself and I put my eye mask on my eyes and I lie back. Lie back, knees supported underneath with this bolster and then I can just go to sleep if I need to, or I can just lie there and breathe. Now, the brilliance of this is that those mornings I get a few minutes of meditation in because it takes a little while for me to fall asleep or I sit there for a couple minutes before I realize I'm too tired and I need to go to sleep. Some mornings I know off the bat I'm too tired and I just go right into my reclining pose. I know right away I'm just needing to fall asleep, but still I'm going to breathe for a couple minutes before I actually fall asleep. Now the genius here is that under 30 minutes is a length of nap that is not going to make you groggy when you wake up. That's a power nap and you're going to wake up refreshed instantly. If that's what I need, that's actually what my physiology needs, and that's fine. I get a couple minutes of meditation and then I get a 25 minute power nap and I'm more prepared for my day. I reinforce the habit of being a regular meditator for another day. I have seemed to train my perfectionist habit tracker part of me to not begrudge myself those mornings when I am lying down and napping because I count it. For me, it ticks the box.
I'm meditating for 30 minutes, whether I'm lying down or sitting up or however it is that I'm doing it, it ticks the box and I am a regular meditator. A lot of mornings I get 30 full minutes of meditation, some minutes I get two minutes, some mornings I get two minutes and I'm off to sleep and I got a power nap and a couple minutes of meditation. We're calling it a win. The thing about meditation is it's so daunting, I find, and so aversive and terrible if you force yourself to have to, if you "should" all over yourself because of it, because those of us who need meditation the most, those of us who have addictive brains and sensitive emotions and jumpy minds and insecurity and all of these things that lead us to eat addictively, we are the least prepared to be able to sit with ourselves for any length of time, right? In my experience, you've got to just give wide berths of permission for it to just be however it is. It doesn't have to look like anything in particular for it just to be a win.
Then what happens is slowly, slowly, slowly you creep up on yourself and learn that it's okay to just be there with yourself. It takes time to be able to breathe into a moment and have it feel okay. But that is such a beautiful gift when you get there to just know that your inside terrain is actually a safe, warm, loving place. It takes time though. It takes time though. And the bootstrappy way in is just to give a lot of permission. It doesn't have to look a certain way.
Those are the four types of meditation. That's how I became a regular meditator. I just want to let you know that this week in Bright Line Eating Land is all about meditation because I'm offering a meditation workshop for the first time in Bright Line Eating history. A workshop all about meditation and it's going to kick off with a free webinar. Anyone can attend and the webinar will be recorded, and you will get the replay to it, but only if you register. The webinar, which is, as this vlog is being released, it's tonight. The webinar is Wednesday night. Wednesday night in mid-March 2026. So, if you're listening to this sometime in the future, you missed it. Sorry about that. But the webinar is on the new science of meditation. There are four studies on meditation and the brain that have come out in just the last year that completely revolutionize our understanding of how meditation rewires the brain. I'm going to explain those four studies to you and then I'm going to be talking about the workshop that I'm giving on Saturday.
The webinar is "The New Science of Meditation." The workshop is going to be called, "Bright and Present: Mindfulness Meditation to Rewire Your Brain for Lasting Food Freedom." What's exciting about this workshop is not just that you're going to get two hours in a beautiful group setting to learn how to meditate together, even if you're an experienced meditator, there will be a lot in there that you will learn, but it's going to be specifically also for people who don't have any meditation practice currently or people who are intermediate in their experience. The really exciting thing is that you're going to get a package of lots of short meditations that I have recorded for you to use at specific moments during your Bright Line Eating journey, like when you have a food craving, or when you want to deepen your identity as someone who is devoted to your plan, or when you want to celebrate and live into your experience of being liberated from the food and weight struggle, or when you're in the ditch with your food and you need to crawl out of that ditch and you want support Rezooming™, or when you're stuck as someone who's procrastinating on something and you need support getting into action and breathing and being gentle with yourself as you take the next indicated right action. Many little topics.
I've never done this before, given you specific guided meditations to support you in your Bright Line Eating journey, but that's what this workshop is all about. A lived experience in the workshop. Registration is capped at 500 people so that during the workshop, my team can be answering questions and making sure that everyone is taken care of because it is a live experience, that workshop, but of course it'll be recorded and you can experience it at any time if you want to. This week is all about meditation. This is all about the book Maintain, by the way. Everyone who registers for this workshop, on behalf of them, we will be donating books to three different libraries in the United States. Every registrant will get three books donated to three different libraries, like one book to each library. You get it. We've upped our goal actually. We're going to try to get books into 10,000 libraries in the United States, which is almost all of them. There's only 12,000 libraries in the United States. So, that is what we're doing. If you're interested in meditation, click the link below to register for that free webinar on the new Science of Mindfulness Meditation, and I will see you there. It's Dr. Susan Peirce Thompson. I love you so much. Thanks for joining me with the weekly vlog and I'll see you next week.
