For the Minds That Won't Sit Still
It's been a while since I've written for the Darman Journal. Lately, one topic keeps looping in my mind: the connection between neurodivergence, meditation, and what it means to find stillness.
Like many women, I was diagnosed neurodivergent later in life - a term for the natural differences in how our brains process attention, sensory input, and emotion. The diagnosis explained a lot, including why I always struggled so much with Savasana, Yoga Nidra, and certain guided meditations.
In my first yin and restorative classes, while everyone around me melted into relaxation, my mind did the opposite - replaying conversations from years ago, building to-do lists, thinking about ten things at once. The hard part was never staying still. It was the mental chatter.
Then came the guided visualizations.
"Imagine you're walking on a beach.""Picture a warm golden light moving through your body."
I tried so hard to do it right. Instead I felt frustrated and distracted, sure I was missing something. For years, I assumed I just wasn't good at meditation.
What I eventually learned is that people experience mindfulness differently. Some connect easily with guided imagery; others find it distracting or simply less effective. There wasn't anything wrong with me - I just needed a different way in.
For me, that way was sound. Instead of forcing my mind to hold an image, I had something tangible to return to whenever my thoughts wandered. For the first time, stillness felt accessible. Not perfect. Not effortless. But accessible.
That said, sound has to be offered with care. Too loud or too sudden, it can pull you out of the experience just as easily as a visualization that never lands - especially for a nervous system that's sensitive to sound. So when I bring sound into a class, I'm always thinking about volume, pacing, and easing in gently.
Because I've come to believe there isn't one right way to experience mindfulness. Some connect through visualization, some through breath, some through movement, some through sound - and many through a combination of all of them.
What I hope to offer at Darman is a space where curiosity is welcomed and students can find what works best for their own nervous system.
If you've ever found yourself lying in Savasana wondering why everyone else seems to have it figured out, I want you to know you're not alone. You may not be doing it wrong. You may simply need a different doorway in.
A note for the curious: the science here is still young, but it points the same way. An estimated 1–4% of people have aphantasia, a genuine inability to picture mental images, so a cue like "imagine a beach" simply can't work for them (Zeman et al., 2015); and in one study, a single Tibetan singing-bowl meditation left people feeling significantly less tension and low mood, with first-timers shifting the most (Goldsby et al., 2017).
