What I’ve Learned from 2,000 Days of Meditation

Yesterday I celebrated my 2000th consecutive day of daily meditation practice.

Metrics are so arbitrary and ultimately meaningless, yet they can still hold great influence over us.

2000 days didn’t feel qualitatively different than day 1889 or 1999 or day 2001, and yet it still felt like a Big Deal. It’s the same way that birthdays with a zero on them feel bigger then the others, even though there are certain birthdays that are bigger than the decade markers. There’s just something about round numbers.

In any event, when I saw the number pop up in my Calm app, I felt a prodding to reflect on the milestone.

After all, nothing has meaning except for the meaning we give it. So what does this mean?

Accruing the Benefits

Obviously there are all the benefits of a regular meditation practice. I’d be selling myself and my practice short if I didn’t acknowledge changes within myself thanks to my practice.

The ability to cultivate greater equanimity — especially in turbulent times — greater awareness of my thoughts, less reactivity in the moment, untangling the knots of my thoughts, more calm, greater self-compassion. All of these and more have been accruing like tiny deposits in my life’s bank account.

Of course I’d be lying if I said it was all bliss and butterflies. Many people start a practice seeking the zen, blissed-out state of transcendence only to become disillusioned when they realize that meditation doesn’t always take you there. When it does, it’s often only after you’ve put in the hours to look at yourself. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows. This is why many people quit.

It’s About Showing Up

This milestone holds significance for me for reasons other than the outcome: it’s about the process, and showing up for it.

A long time ago, I realized that if I wanted space for what mattered most in my life I would have to claim that space for myself.

In a culture that conditions us to celebrate hustle, “getting things done,” and pushing through, its easy to believe the reasons why we “can’t” stop — why we don’t have time to pause.

In a culture that conditions us — and by “us” I mean especially people socialized as women — that it is “selfish” to put ourselves first, that not prioritizing our care of others is a fatal flaw, it is easy to rationalize why we have to scrap our commitments to ourselves the moment someone needs us.

Even if it’s just for a few minutes, the decision to create space for my practice is a tangible reinforcement that I do have the time to pause, that the world won’t fall apart if I’m unavailable for a short time.

To me this feels nothing short of revolutionary — a wholesale rejection of the conditioning that has kept me small.

Each time I show up for myself and my practice I reinforce to myself that I am worthy of my own care and attention. I reinforce that I deserve this space even before I’ve “put in my time to work.”

Showing up for myself is not a reward for completing my work of the day; it’s the prerequisite for starting.

Also each time I show up for my practice I reinforce to myself that I practice what I teach and that I keep my commitments.

These are all mindsets that translate into many other areas of my life.

This is a lifelong practice, so there’s never a “completion” to celebrate.

But for a moment I can stop to celebrate a milestone, to see where I’m standing and how far I’ve come, and know that I have what it takes to continue on the journey.