Meditation: I finally loved myself |
- I finally loved myself
- Just had a life changing discovery today
- I live with an abusive parent and I can't do this anymore. Meditation worked for a bit until it started getting worse and I need help. What do you guys recommend?
- Neat trick to re-establish mindfulness during meditation
- “Epiphanies”
- Feeling of rotation while relaxed
- Candle Gazing Meditation
- I worry about how much meditation is appropriate. Some advice would be very much appreciated..
- Trataka - candle meditation HELP
- I just had my best meditation session yet
- Reaching a plateau that is hard to overcome
- Beginner here. I feel lightheaded and somewhat panicky when focusing on my breathing-is that normal?
- Heard of Ziva Meditation??
- Desperate for Assistance
- Meditation and my "true self" have lead to terrifying realisations that feel like mental illness
- what are some really good guided meditations for stopping obsessive worry?
- Meditated in a noisy room with children watching YouTube and it was great.
- Human spiritual maturity is a natural healing, balancing and gentle growth process
- Maintaining the feeling after meditation
- From Anger to Enlightenment: The Life Story of Milarepa
- It's not your ADD - your thoughts are okay, it's what you do with them that matters
- Not sure if I can get some help. It's a real weird issue.
| Posted: 15 Jul 2020 11:06 AM PDT I am still in my first year as a regular meditator. My daily practice is 10 minutes on my meditation block with my mantra. If I'm going to have a break through, it's always been in a guided meditation.... But not today!!! Today I couldn't get a certain memory to float away (I like the blue sky/cloud visualization) so I started to explore the feelings I was experiencing. I was able to give myself permission to experience being angry, gave myself validation to feel that anger, and then asked: what would it feel to give that angry self compassion and love? IT HAPPENED. Tears began streaming down my face as the memory faded and I was just left with two versions of myself, loving myself. It was beautiful. I hope everyone can experience loving themselves... It was better than anything I'd ever imagined. [link] [comments] |
| Just had a life changing discovery today Posted: 15 Jul 2020 03:36 PM PDT So I've been meditating on and off for years. But this week I stayed consistent and did it every day. After one of my sessions I felt so alive. Everything felt so much better. It's like my brain reached a higher level of stimulation on its own. No caffeine or drugs involved. Videos were funnier, shows were better, food tasted better. Everything felt surreal. It felt like "normal." Like when I was a kid. I vividly remember smoking weed for the first time and when I got the effects, (more extreme I know) I still thought, "hold up, isn't this how I used to feel like?" My friends thought I was crazy. But I realized how far out of the moment I was constantly. Lastly, I had the awareness to figure out what was causing my low energy and just depressed life. It was one hundred percent my diet. I literally saw the change in my mentality and feelings as I ate a fast food meal. I now know that my poor diet is fucking up my mental health. Something obvious, but without that clarity I wouldn't actually SEE or FEEL it. Less processed foods for me, and more meditation in my future. It's likely a combination of diet, exercise, sleep, but if I keep on meditating I'll find more answers without necessarily looking for them. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 16 Jul 2020 02:24 AM PDT I have an abusive, narcissistic mother and an alcoholic father, and am just waiting 320 days to move out after I graduate high school. In the meantime, I've been reading books on spirituality, buddhism, and psychology and tried meditation and absolutely fell in love with it. However, I stopped meditating recently. I'm only a few more toxic tantrums away from going insane after going through 17 years of abuse and gaslighting. I'm so fucking desperate to get out of here and I wake up every morning wishing it was already move out day. I've been so patient all of these years but I really can't do this anymore. I feel like I'm slowly falling apart and losing my grip on life. I want to meditate again, but I just feel so lost. I have no friends and I feel like my mental health is hanging by a thread. What should I do? Tl;dr: Meditation worked great for me, but I can't take this shit anymore and I feel so lost. I'm moving out next year, but what do you suggest I try to help make 11 months feel like a breeze? [link] [comments] |
| Neat trick to re-establish mindfulness during meditation Posted: 15 Jul 2020 05:06 AM PDT I've been meditating for many years, and recently, I've had a deep fascination with breath work and using the breath in order to manipulate the mind. One of my more interesting discoveries is that you can actually silence your mind quite effectively by ceasing your breath. Not holding your breath, but simply exhaling and then being still. No inhalation. You can do this for about 7-15 seconds with ease, and without gasping for air as you resume breathing. Do not see how long you can go without breathing again, use it as a gentle way to establish complete silence in your body and mind. The reason this works so well is that the act of raising CO2 in your body (which you do when you're without air) actually calms your nervous system, which in turn calms your inner chatter. Some popular breathing techniques include 4-7-8 or box breathing, which is essentially the same but more dedicated. They're meant to make you exhale more than you inhale, again, a way to raise CO2 and to turn your nervous system into a parasympathetic state rather than a stressed one. I've toyed with this a handful of times now, and every time it results in the same effect. I'd go from having intrusive thoughts to being completely still for a few seconds time, which is enough to give you a foundation to continue your meditation. I like to do it about 3-4 times during a meditation session of 20 minutes. Please give this a go and let me know if it works for you! :) [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 16 Jul 2020 01:35 AM PDT DISCLAIMER: Everything you're gonna read is solely my opinion. I may be totally wrong so continue with a reasonable amount of skepticism but also a reasonable amount of open-mindedness, you might find a "solution" within ;) In a podcast featuring Sam Harris and Adyashanti. "Effort vs Effortlessness", they speak about how the mind is addicted to looking for life changing epiphanies and realizations. On this sub I see a ton of "Meditation session just changed my life" and "I just had a huge realization" threads. As someone who has posted one before, you soon come to realize that it never lasts more than a few days. A lot of people are always looking for something tangible in the path of meditation. We wake up and think will today be the day I solve all my issues? We go on the cushion thinking will this session fix my bad mood today? The good news is that I'm not suggesting you completely ignore these, these states are part of the whole journey but I think that always chasing that "natural high" is setting up a roadblock for yourself from truly reaching a state of zero suffering. It's funny cause our brain takes this as a realization on its own.. 😂 When I first heard it I was like Ohhh I just have to not always chase the solution of life and that lasted about 48 hours until I noticed I was back on the path of feeling like I was missing or doing something wrong. This caused my upcoming meditation sessions to appear difficult and anxiety-ridden as I was putting all this pressure on myself to somehow find this thought that would suddenly fix the rest of the day. I honestly haven't found a solid strategy on how to stop chasing the high but now that I'm typing it I'm realizing it's kind of a paradox.. there's really no other "solution to this problem" other than to stop looking for the solution which is a solution in itself. I am just being careful as to not think it's a life changing idea than just a good rule to always keep in the back of your head. [link] [comments] |
| Feeling of rotation while relaxed Posted: 15 Jul 2020 11:26 PM PDT Has someone experience this? Is it normal? Also, sometimes I see a blue-purple point that moves like a lava lamp. Thank you so much! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 15 Jul 2020 02:55 PM PDT Does anyone here ever do them? I just did one. Not for very long, because my mother started doing dishes in the other room. This experience was interesting, though. Normally, everything around the candle gets fuzzy. The flame will get fuzzy, and will appear different colors. I'll feel super relaxed. This time, I was seeing wild colors in/around the flames. And inside the flame, I was watching what looked almost like a movie on old film. I could see a man walking along a cliff. He then went through what looked like a cave, and cane to the door. He was trying to enter the door but it seemed to be locked. He was persistent though & still trying to get in. I was very intrigued & practically rooting for him before I started hearing the dishes clanking around and it brought me out of it lol. Has anyone had a similar experience? Was my mind just making things out of the movement of the flames, or was it something I was meant to see? I'd appreciate any opinions/insight !! [link] [comments] |
| I worry about how much meditation is appropriate. Some advice would be very much appreciated.. Posted: 16 Jul 2020 12:11 AM PDT For much of my life I've had chronic anxiety, but I've always found it manageable for the most part. Since early last year, however, I started experiencing anxiety attacks unlike anything I've experienced before. My levels of anxiety were so severe that I was practically disabled; I could hardly sleep and I stopped eating and lost more than 20 pounds. There were times when I felt that the only relief was to die. I spoke to a psychiatrist and he told me I'm suffering from depression and need to take medication, but I refused to take the drugs prescribed by my doctor. I saw a few therapists/psychologists but I found them to be a waste of time. The anxiety attacks started to ease after a while thankfully, but by no means have I returned to how I was before last year. I'm still very much suffering, though I'm a little more able to function and think about how I should deal with this. Upon spending some time reflecting, I came to the conclusion that true healing is only going to come from me taking responsibility for my own wellbeing, and having some discipline. So I decided to commit myself to a serious meditation practice. I've dabbled with various forms of meditation and attended some classes in the past, but I was always a bit slack and didn't continue with it for very long. As I said this time I plan to really commit. I think the type of meditation that works best for me is mantra meditation; however instead of going to a teacher I decided to do it my own way. I basically invented a phrase which I turned into my own personal mantra. It doesn't mean anything; it's just a string of made up words, but it's quite pleasant sounding and easy to keep my mind on, and I go into a state of deep rest when repeating it in my mind. (As an aside, I sometimes feel a sort of dizziness after a meditation session, I wonder if anyone has any insight on that?) I've been meditating for a little over 3 weeks now, and for the first time in a long time I feel I'm starting to be more at peace. However, there's one thing that I'm a little worried about. Maybe this is still the anxious/despairing side of me talking lol, but some reassurance/ advice would nevertheless be much appreciated. I typically sit for 3 meditation sessions a day. The duration of a session varies; some times I sit for 10-15 minutes, other times I sit for up to 30 minutes (particularly on days when my anxiety is worse than usual). I've been encouraged by my practice so far, but I'm also aware that there is such a thing as overdoing it. I've read things about people who spend long periods of time meditating, for whom the practice starts to backfire in a sense. People who start to have panic attacks or go into a kind of nihilistic depression. I think Buddhists calling it "falling into the void" or something like that? I don't know… I think the issue is that, as you practice more and more, you might find yourself starting to relive suppressed feelings from past experiences/ traumas (or at least that's part of what happens)? Maybe it's unreasonable for me to be worried about this at this stage, since I'm just starting out in my practice. But I was wondering if someone had any insight on this matter? Perhaps to set my mind at ease lol, especially considering that I've pretty much been doing my own thing, and basically started practicing on my own. The whole reason I started practicing was to try to find the peace and happiness that I've been longing for so long, and I'm genuinely afraid of going back to the anguish I went through last year. I do try to listen to my body/mind, and stop when I feel I've done enough meditation for the day. But ultimately, my own feeling of how much meditation to do is arbitrary. [link] [comments] |
| Trataka - candle meditation HELP Posted: 15 Jul 2020 09:55 PM PDT Beginner here. I read about this type of meditation and decided to go for it. Set up a candle on a stool, slightly lower than eye level. Stared at the candle flame for around 20 mins. While doing this I blinked a lot and never really teared up. My questions: 1. Do I HAVE to stare at it and force myself so my eyes tear? 2. I observed that whenever I lost my focus the flame turned smaller and when I got back on to it it kept growing bigger. Same with the shadow that fell on the stool- the more I focused the darker it became. Is this only an illusion? Idk what to make of it 3. I have a high power of spectacles around -4.5 so the flame/candle was blurry. Should I continue practicing it without putting them on? 4. Any other suggestions/ideas. Considering I didnt really feel "energetic/positive" once I was done PS: sorry if this is too long and not well framed [link] [comments] |
| I just had my best meditation session yet Posted: 15 Jul 2020 11:03 AM PDT I spent my time focusing on detaching myself from my emotions. I faced my feelings of anger, sadness, anxiety, love, and happiness until I didn't feel good or bad about any of them. Once I felt completely detached from my emotions I sat and just enjoyed being completely calm for the first time in a very long time. When I finally opened my eyes I just felt fully at peace with myself and the world around me. I'm diagnosed with bipolar so being this calm isn't something that I'm used to and I think it's inspired me to meditate more so I can feel like this all the time. [link] [comments] |
| Reaching a plateau that is hard to overcome Posted: 15 Jul 2020 11:45 PM PDT I have been meditating on and off for a couple of years, but with the recent conditions meditation became an essential in my daily routine. In the last couple of months I have felt nothing but progress discovering new layers of this amazing practice. But the past month has felt so disconnecting, in a sense that I see myself getting more lost in thoughts and generally not being able to get into that calming state. I feel like it could be ones mental state that builds these mental walls around progress. Have you guys ever been at that stage of disconnectedness before? [link] [comments] |
| Beginner here. I feel lightheaded and somewhat panicky when focusing on my breathing-is that normal? Posted: 15 Jul 2020 08:59 PM PDT Hey guys. Just some background information: I (19F) am struggling with anxiety and other mental health issues, and I have only meditated a few times in my life. I attempted to meditate a few minutes ago and I just seem to get lightheaded and breathing seems so unnatural and just... difficult, which makes me want to stop because I feel like I'm going to trigger an anxiety attack. Am I doing something wrong? I really want this to work:( Edit: I would like to add that the feeling of lightheadedness comes along with a strange tingling sensation/ numbness on my body, especially my arms. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 16 Jul 2020 12:05 AM PDT Guys I came across a video from Mindvalley about meditation by Emily Fletcher. They were talking about Ziva Meditation that she curated it. When I did it for a day I didn't exactly feel like I was doing Mindful meditation but I still got the results of it like the result were quite similar. Still, I don't know about it. Please tell me if you have something to share. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 15 Jul 2020 01:23 PM PDT I recently started meditating, and I have questions that I can't get a straight answer on. I'm fine with there not being a right answer, I just need more thoughts on it. I was told that when meditating I should not have thoughts, and if I do that I allow them to pass and continue thoughtless. I was also told to freely think during meditation. Try affirmations, shadow work, etc. What do you all do? Is there something set in stone that I should be doing for it to be beneficial to me? Any opinion is appreciated. [link] [comments] |
| Meditation and my "true self" have lead to terrifying realisations that feel like mental illness Posted: 15 Jul 2020 05:47 PM PDT I've been meditating for about a year and a half, starting with Calm, then Waking Up by Sam Harris. In Waking Up I've logged 2.5k mindful minutes. I recently completed The Headless Way series in the app by Richard Lang. If you can calm your mind, these experiments are a very effective way of becoming aware of your true self, which is open awareness or consciousness. Your ego and regular self is simply an appearance within consciousness. Once I hit the epilogue, something snapped. I was listening while on a walk, and I had to sit down and cry. Suddenly it all made sense. The nature of my existence, of myself as consciousness, open awareness, I could feel it distinctly. To be clear, this was a joyous moment. I was at peace with the beauty and mystery of consciousness and my existence. Since then my conscious experience has felt different. My thoughts and feelings sit on the same plane as sounds, sensations, and visuals, and I am sitting back as awareness of all of it. It's an interesting and novel way of experiencing the world. But now some very negative effects have arisen. Since I'm aware of my consciousness as a feed of all these sensations and thoughts, I'm much more keenly aware that the entire universe as I know it can only exist in my consciousness. This means I have no idea if anything else truly exists beyond myself. Friends, family, people I love, are all apparently just a part of "me". A scenario like The Matrix, where I'm plugged in and being fed the contents of my consciousness, feels much more possible with this newfound awareness of my consciousness. This is a very unsettling idea that has made me question my day to day experience. These feelings have made me wary about the potential effects on my mental health. The disorder of depersonalisation is described as "The persistent feeling of observing oneself from outside one's body or having a sense that one's surroundings aren't real." But observing one's self is actively encouraged in meditation, especially in Sam's app where he combines the idea that you don't actually have free will, so observing yourself as a puppet playing out your life is a very real feeling. "A person with grandiose delusional disorder has an over-inflated sense of worth, power, knowledge, or identity." Well, logically, if the entire universe exists within my consciousness, and we are all one, and God is within me, that naturally points to the conclusion that I am special or omnipotent. Again, I feel like these concepts are actively encouraged in the world of spirituality. Ironically, meditation has taken me beyond my ego, yet it has now given me an incredibly ego-centric fear, that my entire reality could exist just for me. My newfound reality is that I am completely alone, and that isn't peaceful, it's terrifying. Any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you. [link] [comments] |
| what are some really good guided meditations for stopping obsessive worry? Posted: 15 Jul 2020 07:22 PM PDT |
| Meditated in a noisy room with children watching YouTube and it was great. Posted: 15 Jul 2020 06:22 AM PDT I started out thinking this noise will prevent me from fostering awareness but then it turned into this noise cannot stop me from returning to awareness and it was a self-confidence boost. [link] [comments] |
| Human spiritual maturity is a natural healing, balancing and gentle growth process Posted: 15 Jul 2020 11:11 AM PDT When one hears of "psychic development" in my view it's often misunderstood as developing powers or "siddhis." In my view this is misguided. Psyche is the Greek phrase for the human soul. One only needs to water the plants for them to bloom. We don't need to push, pull or develop anything with artificial, exterior efforts. As with biological maturation, it has it's own inner clock which allows for the body to make normal changes. You don't need to hasten the increase in the size of the body from infancy, or speed up puberty or other changes. They come at the right time in the right way. The entire spiritual path is designed to refine, protect and mature the human being's relationship to the physical, emotional and mental bodies. Good diet, exercise, breathing clean air, prayer, meditation, inspirational reading and purification practice help greatly. All true spiritual traditions encourage cultivation of virtues, lessening of vices, minimizing or avoiding drugs/intoxicants, practicing karma yoga, aka, service to others. There are purification practices in Buddhism called Vajrasattva and other meditation and mantra practices which help greatly if one needs to remove obstacle, but there are not intended to force spiritual growth. Before you build a new spiritual house or remodeling an existing one, the first step is clearing the ground of the heart and mind. Much of healing is the natural course of human development IF we get the ego out of the way. It's a purely, ordinary process of common sense development at it's own pace in that one avoids what is harmful while increasing what is helpful. Forces the centers open too fast, awakening the senses on planes other than the physical can do damage if the consciousness and motives for using those senses isn't free of self-interest. [link] [comments] |
| Maintaining the feeling after meditation Posted: 15 Jul 2020 08:32 PM PDT I've begun to meditate recently as a way of dealing some stress and anxiety that has been building up for a while After meditating I feel like a whole new person but in the best way possible, I believe it's a somewhat temporary dissolution of the ego? not stressed, I am able to observe and analyse my emotions before I act upon them This lasts for no longer than two hours however. How do I keep this feeling and make it apart of my life in every situation possible? Does this just come with years of meditation and practise? [link] [comments] |
| From Anger to Enlightenment: The Life Story of Milarepa Posted: 15 Jul 2020 12:05 PM PDT From Anger to Enlightenment, the Life Story of Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa. In his directorial debut, Buddhist lama Neten Chokling vividly presents the captivating story of Milarepa, the man who would become Tibet's greatest yogi and saint. In the dramatic setting of 11th-century Tibet—a time of roaming sorcerers and yogis, according to Buddhist legend—a young Milarepa falls into a world of betrayal and hardship. The greed of others upturns his privileged life, dropping him into a void of despair, humiliation, pain and anger. He sets out to learn black magic—and exact revenge on his enemies—encountering magicians, demons, an enigmatic teacher and unexpected mystical power along the way. But it is in confronting the consequences of his quest for vengeance that he learns the most. Filmed on the breathtakingly scenic Indo-Tibetan border, with Tibetan monks serving as most of the cast and crew, Milarepa glows with unique visual and spiritual charge. "I cry, weep and feel a strong sense of faith each time I read or hear the story of Milarepa, the great yogi of Tibet." - the Dalai Lama "One of the most powerful stories of love and transformation in world literature." - Richard Gere [link] [comments] |
| It's not your ADD - your thoughts are okay, it's what you do with them that matters Posted: 15 Jul 2020 07:31 PM PDT
- Kosho Uchiyama, Opening the Hand of Thought [link] [comments] |
| Not sure if I can get some help. It's a real weird issue. Posted: 15 Jul 2020 07:21 PM PDT I'm going to try to make this relatively short and straight to the point, so please bear with me. So I'm going through a really weird time right now. I'm in therapy, but of course, I only am able to talk to her once a week. I'm in a really weird rut, and I want to know if I could possibly get some advice concerning the matter? So, I went through a friendship breakup of sorts 3 years ago, and a couple more through the years. I've been trying really hard to get past this, however, there are a couple of things kind of keeping me from fully being able to let this 100% go. When all of this first started, a did a lot of snooping pertaining to the people that cut me out of their life/I've cut out of my life. Through therapy, I realized that this was self-harm, and I had to stop. I ended up getting COVID and spiraling. I'm a lot better now, but this brought up a lot of old feelings. The feeling of wanting to snoop has come back up numerous times. I have to spend a lot of the day fighting it. I can't really even use the computer the same anymore since I think of snooping pretty much every time I pull up google. It's the same with youtube and the same with my phone. I'm basically always afraid that I have little to no willpower due to mental illness. I don't like being the way. I want to change. I think this is where meditation comes in. I heard it's supposed to do wonders with feelings like this. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be meditating about. I've been keeping it up for about 3 days now. Is there maybe a mantra I'm supposed to repeat for myself? Am I doing all of this right? Has someone dealt with something like this before? [link] [comments] |
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