The Dark Side of Meditation

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I don’t actually meditate very often.

There were a handful of years where I sat almost daily (15–20 minutes, nothing crazy), but I’m not there now. And while that practice served me, I’ve since let myself off the curved piece of metal meant for hanging things on.

You know, the hook. The guilt hook. That little voice that whispers, If you were a good wellness coach, you’d meditate every morning before sunrise. If you were a real yoga teacher, you’d levitate while chanting Sanskrit. 

I used to believe meditation was the wellness equivalent of kale: so totally good for everybody, and if you didn’t like it, well, you just hadn’t tried the right recipe yet.

I even judged people for not meditating.

During my yoga teacher training, one admitted she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

I thought, You just haven’t tried hard enough.

Our group threw suggestions at her like prizes on Oprah: “Try walking meditation!” “Just start with two minutes!” “Stick with it!”

We meant well. But, let’s be honest, we were really saying, “You’re doing wellness wrong, honey.”

Months later, I stumbled across a peer-reviewed psychology article about the downsides of meditation. How, for some people—especially those with a history of trauma, anxiety, or depression—meditation can actually make things worse.

We’re talking panic attacks, flashbacks, emotional dysregulation. Turns out, the practice I’d been treating like a panacea was, for some, a Pandora’s box.

Cue me feeling like a total A-hole.

We wellness folks love our sacred cows. And meditation has been worshipped like a magic bullet. And sure, it can be amazing. But it’s not one-size-fits-all. Sometimes tuning inward is the opposite of what your nervous system needs. For someone with trauma, “watching your thoughts” can feel like being trapped in a haunted house.

Even yoga’s ancient texts mention meditation-induced breakdowns, but somewhere along the way, the spiritual crowd glossed over that. We forgot everything has a dark side.

And even if meditation does help you, it can become a crutch. I’ve seen people use it to check out of their actual lives—to “transcend” instead of having the hard conversation or doing the messy, complicated work. It’s like scrolling Instagram for spiritual memes. Just with better posture.

Over the years, I’ve let go of the need to meditate as a formal, structured, check-it-off-the-list practice. And yet, mindfulness is baked into my life in a way it never was when I was white-knuckling my way through daily sits.

Now, I pause to notice the way the late-afternoon light streams in my living room window. I try to really taste my morning matcha latte instead of mindlessly chugging it like life fuel. I look my partner in the eye during hard talks.

And yes, sometimes I do feel called to sit quietly, eyes closed, and just breathe—no agenda, no timer, no “good meditator” gold star. Sometimes that’s five minutes. Sometimes it’s thirty seconds.

What I’ve realized is that mindfulness isn’t about sitting on a cushion in total silence. It’s about cultivating the ability to notice, to be here for your actual life, whether that’s on a yoga mat, in bed with your lover, or in line at Safeway on a Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend. It doesn’t require you to pretend you’re a serene monk living on a mountain top.

My point here isn’t that meditation is “bad” or even “good” for that matter. It’s that no single practice gets to be the holy grail of mental health. Not green juice, not breathwork, not therapy, not gratitude journaling.

When we treat any wellness practice like a moral test—if you don’t do it, you’re failing at life—we miss the actual goal, which is feeling better, not performing better.

So if meditation makes you feel more anxious than calm, it doesn’t mean you’re broken or need to try harder. It means you’re wise enough to notice when something isn’t working.

Consider this your official permission slip to step off the guilt hook. To stop forcing yourself to do the thing everyone swears by if it doesn’t feel right for you.

You don’t get extra points for meditating every day if it’s making your mental health worse. You don’t get docked points for dancing, lifting, hiking, or coloring in adult coloring books instead.

You just get to feel like a human who’s taking care of themselves in a way that actually works.

Because at the end of the day, wellness isn’t about being the most zen person in the room. It’s about having the energy, clarity, and resilience to live your life—not escape from it.

With love & light & a realistic amount of darkness,

Chazz

infrequent meditator. realist. authentic human. coach.