Mindfulness - help?

[Angrboda]

I've dabbled with meditation and there is evidence that, long term, it can have some positive benefits. However it's also a hard road strewn with land mines of people saying it does this or that, or that the right way is such and thus. It becomes very easy to fall into a trap of practicing what you believe meditation to be, when, it might not be that. I could give my own advice, but that would be falling into the same trap. Ultimately, because the field of mindfulness / meditation is filled with so much bullshit, you're basically, ultimately, on your own for determining what it is and what it means to you. The only advice I'd give is not to vary your practice, as that can be a distraction, like servicing an itch you feel while engaged in mindfulness. Pick something and stick with it. I would also recommend picking something simple and relatively easy to do. Counting breaths is a good one. Otherwise you might get lost in worrying whether you're doing it right or not. The point is to do it, and persevere even when you get discouraged. Mindfulness and meditation are habits that take practice to be useful.