Last week, I wrote about 3 reasons why I hate teaching meditation. This week, I want to share 3 reasons why I love teaching meditation.

The first reason why I love teaching meditation is that there’s a method out there for everyone. For instance, my favourite app, called “Insight Timer” contains a library of over 220,000 guided sessions. Just think about that – 220,000! There are sessions with music, with nature sounds, or just brief instructions with 20 minutes of silence. It’s amazing!

When I was teaching meditation at Shopify 5 days a week, I had a set of 15-minute practices that I designed and would choose from – probably around a dozen practices that I’d landed on, after experimenting with maybe 25 or 30 different techniques. The folks at Shopify were super generous in giving me feedback on the various methods I tried out, so I was able to quickly eliminate the ones that didn’t resonate with that particular group of people.

The wide variety of methods available to choose from means that one can almost tailor practices to each individual, leveraging their strengths, especially at the start, so that they can both start to master their attention quickly, and start getting the benefits of practicing meditation right from day one.

The second reason why I love teaching meditation is that I get to hear from people about all the ways in which the practice is improving their lives. People have told me that meditation helps them to focus at work, that it helps them fall asleep at night, that it improves their communication with loved ones, that it reduces their levels of stress, that it makes them less emotionally reactive, and on and on. It’s extremely gratifying to know that what I’m teaching is having such a positive impact on people’s quality of life and well-being.

The third reason why I love teaching meditation is that, through teaching it, I increase my own mastery of it. I gain tremendous benefit from meditation, and teaching it has truly accelerated and increased those benefits. I see lots out there that purports to be meditation but which I instantly know is not going to increase people’s mastery over their attention. Teaching meditation has helped me identify what really works when it comes to attention mastery. And attention mastery is really the key – if you can develop that, the benefits will enhance your life in ways you can’t even imagine.

I think that attention mastery is a kind of meta-skill, an overarching capability that supercharges all of your other skillsets. You become more effective at whatever it is that you do, you learn faster, you are more productive, healthier and happier once you master your attention. Teaching meditation has allowed me to gain insight and understanding of the incredible power of developing this capacity.

So, there you have it – three reasons why I love teaching meditation. My takeaway for you? Experiment with many, many different techniques, find the ones that work best for you, and practice those. You’ll be more motivated, you’ll enjoy practicing more, and you’ll start reaping the benefits of practice sooner.