Consider three qualities when meditating;
those of permission, friendliness and curiosity.
Permission to follow whatever arises in your experience, or continuing a practice that you are familiar with, or permission to experiment with a practice that you may be interested in, or to move if you are uncomfortable.
You can learn to be friendly with our experience in meditation. Meditation instructions, or ideas you have heard about meditation, may lead to pressure to get somewhere, or to be someone. From gently becoming familiar with what goes on in one’s meditation, you learn how to meditate and pave the way for other positive qualities such as calm and caring.
Curiosity is a natural doorway into knowing more about your inner world and the conditions that shape it. It is our interest in our experience that enables us to become insightful, understanding and wise. This kind of interest invigorates and engages us in our meditative process.
Over time you learn more about the inner conditions and habitual patterns of thought and feeling that shape your life. You understand which conditions shape difficult inner states and those that shape beneficial ones. Seeing different states arising out of various internal and external conditions can change how you view your experience and what you think of as yourself.