Why is meditation so difficult?

[kristina]

If I'm lying down, I fall asleep. If I'm sitting straight, I get distracted with thoughts in my head.

When doing the walking meditation, I get distracted with all kinds of thoughts in my head.

The misconception about meditation is that the goal is to "empty your mind". The goal is to train your mind. If you have thoughts in your mind, your goal isn't to silence them, but to guide them. When you have a thought, don't think "oh! I got distracted! Augh!" and continue feeding into the anxiety. Instead, just observe that you had a thought and then guide yourself back to your chosen meditation. New thought comes back into your mind? Once you notice it, guide yourself back with love and compassion.

Many of us are stuck because we have trouble applying selfless love to ourselves when we could easily give it to another.

Meditation is an exercise. You don't get strong by going to the gym and picking up a 300 pound weight today, right now. You progressively pick up weights, adding a little more at a time. When you observe that you had a thought and steer yourself back to your meditation, you just successfully did some mindfulness right there. Each time you walk that path back to your meditation, you will beat it into your head and the next time, it will be easier.

And frame how you put your learning in your mind differently. It is not that you are getting distracted. It is that you are learning to meditate. Instead of thinking, "I am distracted", when you catch yourself wandering down a thought trail think, "I am learning to meditate." That is all you are doing.

It's taken me four years of having a lot more time to meditate than the average human to get to a point where I can just DROP in. That's like a university degree's worth of time spent sitting with myself. I started out as someone with uncontrollable mental chatter and intrusive voices.

The best things in life are not "easy".

Wow. Thanks for the perspective, Tae. I'll endeavor to be kinder to myself as I move forward in my meditation. Thank you for your input. Truly

I agree. I like to think of thoughts like a breeze blowing. You wouldn't try to stop the breeze but perhaps you would like to observe it instead. Or like you say, direct it. Stillness is something that requires practice, gentle practice.
There is nothing you must do from the astral plane until you accomplish what is desired here.
Mindfulness is just being saturated in the moment and things change from one moment to another. What captivates you this moment will very possibly change in the next. When something captivates you, go ahead and be captivated with all your attention to it.