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Today, I’m answering some of our listeners’ questions about meditation and mindfulness.
Question 1: I want to practice meditation, but my friends and family don’t support me. What do I do?
A lack of support can manifest in different ways, and the response depends on your personal situation. You’ll have to exercise judgement in choosing an appropriate course of action, but I have some ideas that may help.
Sometimes, people  dismiss the value of the practice or openly oppose it because they misunderstand it. It may be possible to gently educate the people you care about. Some of the most common misunderstandings are that meditation is a religious practice, that it’s a new-age practice, or that it involves an attempt to escape from reality. 
Even in the absence of misunderstandings, people might dismiss the practice because they don’t understand the value of it. In this case, you might explain how mindfulness benefits you. If appropriate, you might even invite others to try it for themselves. In my experience, though, it’s never a good idea to push, cajole, or force people to practice. These tactics are likely to incur resistance. An open invitation is more likely to be successful.
You could also ask your loved ones to simply respect your choice to practice even if they don’t agree with you. And, if you need it, you can look for support elsewhere. You could work with a meditation teacher, join or start a local or online meditation group, practice at a local Buddhist center, or go on retreat, for example.
If your family makes meditation difficult by interrupting you or making too much noise while you’re practicing, find ways to work around the distraction. If possible, go elsewhere to meditate. Again, one possibility is to join a meditation group that meets outside of your home, but you can also get creative when meditating on your own. Go to a local park or a carel in a library, for example. I used to meditate at my desk at work, and when I was a university student, I was able to find quiet spaces in some of the public buildings on campus.
And don’t forget that it is not necessary to be in a quiet place. Meditation is about sitting mindfully with whatever comes up in the present moment, and that includes noise. Although it is easier, especially for beginners, to meditate in a quiet place, it is completely possible to meditate amidst a lot of noise. Simply allow yourself to notice the sounds without getting engaged by them, without following them with your thoughts. Let them come and go from your awareness without getting attached to them in any way. 
Another option is to apply mindfulness to activities of daily living instead of or in addition to meditating. If you’ve never tried this, I recommend starting with mindful hand washing. You’ll find instructions at mindful15.com/hands. From there, expand the practice by bringing mindfulness to other activities, one at a time.
In some cases, you may be able to negotiate with your family for a daily period of quiet, perhaps at a regularly scheduled time. Don’t forget to ask how you might return the favour.
Question 2: Sometimes when I meditate, I hear music in my head. I repeats over and over again. How do I get rid of it?
Ahhh, earworms a.k.a. brainworms, or sticky music. Sometimes caused by hearing music, they’re also triggered by seeing words from a song, feeling emotions associated with a song, or hearing a few notes from a song. Apparently, they occur just as frequently for men as for women, but in women, they tend to last longer.
There are all sorts of theories about how to “cure” earworms. Some recommend listening to the entire song from beginning to end, because they believe earworms are a result of the mind’s inabi...