How To Meditate When You Can’t Meditate?

I used to think I was bad at meditating.
Honestly, for a long time, I thought meditation just wasn’t for me.
When I first heard about meditation, more than ten years ago, it was explained to me like this:
The goal is to quiet the mind. Clear your thoughts. Stop thinking, and peace will follow.

And who wouldn’t want a bit more peace and calm, right?
So I tried.
Turns out, I couldn’t stop thinking.
At all.

My mind kept running, planning, replaying, analysing and instead of feeling calm, I felt like I was failing at something that was supposed to be “good for me.” So I did what many people do when something feels hard and frustrating: I gave up. It wasn’t until years later that my understanding of meditation started to change.
I realised that thinking is not a failure. It’s the nature of the mind. The mind thinks, the lungs breathe, the heart beats.
Trying to stop your thoughts is a bit like trying to stop your heart.
Meditation is not about stopping thoughts. It’s about not running after every single one.

Thoughts will come and go. That’s normal. Meditation, for me, became the practice of noticing thoughts, without needing to engage with all of them.
Some thoughts are useful in the moment. Some aren’t. And instead of fighting them, I learned to observe them and let them pass. That, in itself, is a conscious choice.
You don’t need a silent mind to feel peace.
Often, peace comes from allowing the mind to run, without being dragged along by it.
And most importantly, you don’t need a fancy cushion, a quiet room, or thirty uninterrupted minutes to meditate.
Meditation in aviation looks different.
It can be woven into moments you’re already living. It can be noticing the feeling of your feet on the galley floor, the steady ground beneath you. It can be the sound of a knife touching a chopping board as you prepare crudités for your guests (hello, private aviation crew - I see you :) ). It can be focusing on your breath while walking down a jet bridge, or choosing to put your phone or iPad down and simply looking out the window of a crew bus. It can be applying your face cream while getting ready for duty, feeling the touch of your fingers on your skin, or grounding yourself quietly in the back of an Uber on the way to sign on. You don’t have to sit still.
You don’t have to “do it right.”
You just have to arrive in the moment you’re already in.

Being present doesn’t mean life suddenly becomes perfect or calm. It means you stop living only in what has already happened or what might happen next. When you look around, really look, most moments are actually okay. Simple. Neutral. Sometimes even peaceful.

That moment you’re in right now?
It’s probably steadier than your mind is telling you.

And one last thing, maybe the most important one.

Meditation, at its core, is also an act of self-respect.
Of choosing to check in with yourself instead of pushing through on autopilot all the time.

So if meditation feels hard, messy, or imperfect - you’re not doing it wrong. You’re human.

Start small.
Start where you are.
And maybe, over time, offer yourself the same care and understanding you give so easily to others.

Day by day.

Ivana

Of all the corners of the world I’ve seen, Cape Town feels the most beautiful to me