Is This Thing On? How to Tell if Meditation Is Actually Helping You (No Bullshit Edition)

So you finally caved and tried meditating. Maybe you lit a candle. Maybe you sat on your floor and stared at the wall like a haunted Victorian ghost. Either way—welcome to the club. 

It’s awkward at first, right? Sitting with yourself. No distractions. No scrolling. Just you and your brain… which apparently has zero chill. And now you’re left wondering: “Is this even doing anything? Am I just sitting here, marinating in my own anxiety for ten minutes a day?”

I get it. I felt the same way. 

I didn’t exactly slide into meditation with grace. I have the kind of brain that overthinks my overthinking. Stillness of body? Easy. I can lie there like a corpse in a murder mystery. But my mind? A nonstop circus, complete with clowns and fire jugglers.

But I decided to give the Waking Up app a shot. I’m not even kidding—by the seventh session, something flipped in my brain. It wasn’t some big mystical experience where I floated off into the cosmos or unlocked my third eye. It was subtle, but powerful. I started catching myself in the act of spiraling. Instead of mentally swan-diving into stress, I could pause. Breathe. Choose.

Meditation didn’t make my life perfect. But it gave me space—between me and the chaos, between a trigger and my reaction, between my thoughts and the assumption that I had to believe all of them. And that space? Life-changing. I didn’t stop getting anxious. I just stopped assuming my anxiety was always right. I didn’t stop thinking too much—I just started noticing the thoughts before they dragged me face-first into doom.

Eventually, I realized I was yelling less at traffic. I wasn’t as quick to pop off. I caught myself in the middle of a mental tantrum and thought, “Wow, look at me spiraling. Cute. Not.” That level of awareness alone felt like winning.

And here’s the weirdest part—I started looking forward to it. Not the sit-on-a-cushion part. Not the trying-to-breathe-and-not-panic part. But the stillness. Not of my body (again, my body’s been pretty damn still since the womb), but the stillness in my mind. The hush that creeps in when I stop chasing every thought like a hyper dog after a squirrel.

Because here’s the thing that no one really tells you at first: 
The goal of meditation isn’t to stop thinking altogether. Good luck with that. Your brain’s job is to think—just like your lungs breathe and your heart beats. The goal is to notice your thoughts. All of them. The boring ones, the angry ones, the sad ones, the spicy ones you wouldn’t admit to your therapist.

And when you notice them, you realize something big: 
Just because a thought pops into your head doesn’t mean it’s true. You don’t have to believe it, follow it, or give it the keys to your entire nervous system. You can just say, “Huh. That’s a thought,” and let it drift by like your drunk Uncle Cletus at a wedding. No need to engage. That’s the power of meditation. It’s not about becoming some peaceful robot. It’s about learning to sit with your messy-ass brain and go, “I see you. I don’t have to obey you.”

So if you’ve been wondering whether your meditation practice is actually doing anything, here’s your sign. You don’t need to levitate. You don’t need to feel “zen” (bonus points if you do). You just need to notice—maybe you’re slightly less reactive, slightly more patient, slightly more capable of sitting with your feelings without needing to escape them instantly.

And that, my friend, is the magic. Keep sitting. Keep noticing. Even when it’s boring. Even when it feels pointless. That quiet shift? That subtle pause? It’s everything. And if all else fails—just remember: you’re one meditation away from not throat-punching someone today and catching a charge. That’s a win.

Now go meditate. Your circus performers can wait.