If you’re brand new to meditating then you might be unsure about what to expect from your practice. How do you know if you’re actually doing it right, and feeling what you’re supposed to feel?
In this post I’ll answer a few of the most common questions about what meditation feels like, and how you can know if you’ve entered a deep state of bliss.
To learn more, you might also want to check out this beginner’s guide to meditation, or learn more about what to expect from your meditation practice.
Does Meditation Feel Good?
One of the first questions people ask about meditation is whether or not it feels good. And the answer is…absolutely.
Meditation is a deep form of relaxation, which means that, when done properly, your body will ease away from much of the tension it carries around. This happens on both a physical and mental level. Even a light, or scattered meditation practice can cause you to immediately feel better, and a consistent practice will cause you to bring those deeper states of calm, peace, and bliss with you into your daily life.
Read more about the health benefits of meditation.
Common Sensations and Experiences from Meditating
The fact is, there is no single “right” meditation experience. There are many different styles of meditation (including breath techniques, mindfulness, and concentration exercises) and each person can have a completely different response to age-old practices and techniques.
That said, there are a few common sensations and experiences that you might expect from a meditation practice. You may experience one or all of these during your meditation:
- Deep Relaxation. As I mentioned above, meditation is, first a foremost, a process of relaxing both the mind and the body. Even a short practice can help you to release tension, let go of negative energy, and feel rested.
- Lightness. Another common experience of meditation is a feeling of lightness. This can come in the form of a physical lightness in the body – you may feel more alive and awake – but it can also be interpreted as a mental lightness. Many meditations target light visualization techniques to enhance this feeling.
- Joy-Bliss-Love-Light. If it’s your first time meditating, you might not have ever had the profound experience of eternal joy wash over you. While this feeling might not come on your first few tries, consistent practice inevitably leads you to feeling profound states of joy, bliss, and love.
- Peace. Along with increased feelings of love, you’re also likely to experience a deep sense of peace and inner calm. This peace goes far beyond the relaxation described above, and includes a sense of nonjudgmental acceptance and understanding that All Is Well.
- Clarity and Confidence. Meditation also works to help you quiet the mind. For many people, this helps release negativity and causes you to see events and circumstances from a new, clearer perspective. Many people develop a higher level of understanding, which leads to confidence in everyday actions.
How Do You Know If You Entered a Deep State of Meditation?
Several of the above sensations can be experienced by beginning meditators, and some can even be induced after a short, and relatively simple meditation practice.
However, how do you know when you’ve taken your practice to the next level and begun to experience deeper states?
Well, there’s no official line to cross, and, as I mentioned above, there’s not a single experience you might expect, but generally speaking, deep states of meditation will cause you to feel each of the above sensations even more profoundly.
As your practice deepends, you will also begin to experience a sense of oneness, a profound connection to the universe and everything that surrounds you. With time, this may cause you to practice more loving kindness in your daily life, develop a stronger sense of inner peace, and overall sense of well-being and love.
This experience of oneness is often what people mean when they talk about attaining enlightenment. In the broadest sense, that experience is available to anyone who seeks it.
