Meditation: What I learned from meditating 60 minutes a day in June |
- What I learned from meditating 60 minutes a day in June
- Insight through meditation vs. psychedelics. One point of view.
- Had a weird experience (Day 4 of using Waking Up)
- The ego & meditation
- We are not our thoughts
- The thought that I’m “doing it wrong”
- Reflections on first 10-day retreat
- What to focus on between breathes?
- Breakup
- Meditation to help with anger, jealousy, and anxiety with mixed results
- Intense visualization during meditation
- Beditation
- I don't know what's happening but I feel overwhelmed.
- Realize everything is impermanent
- Fresh torrent for Headspace
- iPause: Meeting Myself At A 10 Day Vipassana Meditation Course
- New to mindfulness - between eyebrows?
- Deep relaxation music
- My goal is mindfulness
- Is it common to feel that ur face is getting numb when focusing on ur breadth
- Can’t find actual working videos
- Just want to vent
- One of the best meditation music you will ever hear
- Body image issues?
| What I learned from meditating 60 minutes a day in June Posted: 01 Jul 2020 11:21 AM PDT TLDR: Meditated for an average of 60 minutes a day in June. Saw anxiety decrease, improvement in the bedroom and hope to meditate 30 min a day in July. In June, I set a goal to meditate for at least 60 minutes a day. Here's why and what I learned. Why: I got divorced four years ago. The final 6 months, my ex-wife gaslit, emotionally abused, and tried turning my daughter against me. It turned out she was having an affair. While I went to therapy for 6 months and am doing much better today, I still have anxiety that I deal with pretty much daily. What I did: I've meditated off and on for 8 years. I really started back up last year and have meditated probably around 70% of the days..though usually I just meditate 10-20 minutes. Meditating 60 minutes wasn't that bad as I broke it up. By the end of the month, I was able to sit for 30-35 minutes. I should note, I actually didn't meditate 60 minutes a day. I averaged 60 minutes a day. What I found during this process is on busy days, I would meditate for 10-15 minutes at the end of the day, just to reach my goal. I felt this defeats the purpose of mediation and instead chose to meditate when I wanted to, for as long as I wanted to. What I learned: I am calmer, but by no means is my anxiety gone. But rather than getting lost in my anxiety, I notice how it makes me feel. Additionally, I used to meditate when I was anxious, but only could last 5-10 minutes at most because the anxiety made me so uncomfortable, I stopped. Now, I've learned that if I make it to twenty minutes, my anxiety starts to fade (was at 25 minutes at the beginning of the month), and is followed by this extraordinary sense of calm. I can only describe it as bliss as I haven't felt this calm in years. Now I'll be super vulnerable and perhaps share way too much information, but since my divorce, I've struggled with erectile dysfunction. Not every time, but at least once a week when I'm about to make love, the thought of "what if I don't get hard" pops in my head and it kills it for me. It's been so bad, that I pop half a Cialis every week to boost my confidence. I should add, I'm healthy. I work out 5 days a week and eat healthily. I've been to the DR. and therapy, both have said it's in my head. Over the course of the month, I saw my ED improve. It still happens, but whereas before, I would shut down and have to stop, now I'm able to make out with my S.O. and then I get an erection. I haven't taken a Cialis in three weeks. as I know I'll never have full confidence until I quit taking them. What's next: 60 minutes a day is hard, especially when you have kids. For July and August, I hope to continue to meditate at least 30 minutes a day, but unlike June, I won't force myself to reach that goal. Instead, I will schedule two sits a day and sit as long as I want. If I have time and want to meditate a third time, I will. [link] [comments] |
| Insight through meditation vs. psychedelics. One point of view. Posted: 02 Jul 2020 01:02 AM PDT I see a lot of people curious about the role psychedelics might play on our path towards whatever place we wish to reach, and if it may replace at least some of the function meditation has. Ultimately, there are no final answer, but from first and second hand experience a lot of common estimates can be made. Mostly cut and paste from a comment of mine from earlier today, here is one point of view. It may or may not match your experience, but my best guess is that most would find my observations true to them. When we are born, we are born with a number of neural pathways directing our actions. When there is pain, we cry. If we aren't fed, we get hungry, and when we get hungry, we cry. When we see or feel a breast, we suck on it. And so on. These are all reactions triggered by something. As we grow, we develop and reinforce an incredible number of new pathways, all of which serves a function in one way or another, and can be activated by some specific condition. Conscious experiences gets "categorized" and over time developed into mental models. We might categorize something reliably producing a certain combination of sense experience as wood. The visual and tactile experience, perhaps even the taste and sound, of a certain configuration of wood might "become" a chair. The pure experience of rustling, green leaves on a towering piece of wood becomes a tree. Over time our library becomes vast. It gets elaborated and expanded so far that it becomes reality. We know of nothing else. What we experience is, in fact, reality. Our own subjective reality. We can never experience the experience of someone else, only ours. We can also only ever really know that what we experience right now is real, because we will never experience anything else. If we experience, it's experienced now. We accept our experience, formed and flavored by pathways perhaps decades in the making, as objective, ultimate, reality. Something that exist independently of ourselves and our interpretation of it. And that's where trouble starts. Shat yourself in a drunken stupor on a party last weekend? Yeah, that sucks, but the embarrassment you feel right now is not caused by something that is real now. It was at some point, but now it's not. Anxiety spiking because you may have to hold a presentation tomorrow in front of half the school and you are as introverted and scene-fobic as they come? Now you react to something that 1) is not real (you aren't on the stage now) and 2) might not even become real (COVID lockdown, sick day, someone else gets called up instead of you and so on). All day long something triggers well developed neural pathways, causing various degrees of anger (that fucker blew me off in traffic), disgust (found a hair on my burger), envy (look at that fancy car he's gotten), anxiety (I really, really should be doing some work right now, so why can't I get off Reddit??) or any number of unpleasant feelings and emotions (along with a number of pleasant ones). We create all kinds of suffering all the time, mundane or severe. All because a simple, but fundamental misunderstanding; I am a separate individual existing in an objective world. Meditation helps change that. Through meditation we can have a seat and look without judgment or reaction at everything appearing and disappearing in consciousness to get a better understanding of our reality, and ultimately come to know that "we" are nothing but an experience, a process running on causes and conditions to produce results, and at the same time that we are all of experience, that there is no separation between "us" and whatever we experience. So, I've done my fair share of shrooms, and though I'm deeply grateful for "them" showing me that it's possible to experience life differently, they lose their value on the path at some point. When we take shrooms, or for that matter LSD or any similar psychedelic, our carefully developed neural pathways goes out the window. Small doses might attenuate or disconnect a few central pathways. Monster doses might disconnect us from our whole pathway-created reality, at some point even the pathways used for creating memories, commonly causing memory loss. In practice the psychedelics temporarily "reroutes" a large amount of connections within the brain, causing existing pathways to become more or less unaccessible for the duration, and forcing pathway connections between normally unconnected areas. So while psychedelics can help to see through the delusion, or fabrication, of self, it also introduces a whole slew of new fabrications, easily leading to pseudo-enlightened conclusions that makes no sense even to the most open-minded people. Using psychedelics without falling into the delusion trap is very possible. With practice we can learn to not trust what we experience, but instead trust what we don't experience. Unfortunately, our profound psychedelic insights tend to fade and eventually disappear as the trip wears off, with only a slight taste lingering. They might in rare cases stick, but most of the time these insights translates poorly to our daily life, making us want to trip again after some time. As the trip wear off, so do all these new pathways, and the normal pathways comes online again. As they were mostly inaccessible during the trip, no major change could have been made, so they turn up more or less the same as before. Which experienced tripper haven't experienced infinite bliss and love for hours, only to be clinging to the afterglow in the days after? Any insights gained tends to stick as intellectual insights rather than experiental or felt insights. The understanding might be there, but the knowing is likely not. Full awakening never happens in one big bang, where all days hence are filled with joy and ease. No, it happens gradually as our thousands upon thousands of conditioned pathways are activated, seen as faulty/flawed, and corrected. Meditation is the only tool I know of that makes this possible on a large scale. Through awareness we become aware of experience, through concentration we investigate it, through insight we can see through ignorance, and through equanimity we let it go. Though psychedelics have a limited potential on our journey, it might just be the most powerful tool available to show you that the eyes you believed were open were in fact closed all this time. If you have seen once, you know that seeing is possible, even if all you have right now is the memory. You could see again now and then through psychedelics, or you could learn how to keep your eyes open through meditation. [link] [comments] |
| Had a weird experience (Day 4 of using Waking Up) Posted: 02 Jul 2020 04:23 AM PDT I'm very new to meditation, and after trying a few apps settled on Waking Up as it was the one I was responding to the most. I've nearly finished my first week of the introductory course, but something weird happened on day four. I was focusing on my breathing as per instruction, but in my minds eye there was a golden aura and two eyes looking back at me. Is this normal? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 02 Jul 2020 04:54 AM PDT I see a lot of people who's meditation gets disturbed by their ego. Because they are feeding their ego with meditation. And because they have reasons to meditate, that belong to the ego to which they cling during meditating. So I recommend to not cling to whatever idea you have while meditating. Just meditate. That's all. And all the feelings you have like for example "I am doing such a good thing", "I am making so much progress", "I am doing such an important thing". That's all the ego. Do not get caught by it. Just let these feelings, thoughts come and go. So be aware to not cling to anything. Your ego can be very misleading. Thank you If you have any questions on meditation, feel free to ask me via PM Yours sincerely, Quinten van Ommen [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 01 Jul 2020 10:52 AM PDT When we realize that that we aren't a conscious self, we lose our attachments to our thoughts and the stories they weave. Thoughts come up, and then they go, feelings come up, and then they go, but we don't get attached to them. We don't think: These are my thoughts, my feelings. When seen objectively, these thoughts and feelings don't have the same emotional pull. They may arise, but they don't proliferate. They come and they go. Meditators report that the relaxation that comes from dropping these self-referential narratives is like taking off a heavy backpack after a long hike. There is a wonderful sense of relief that you no longer have to deal with all the bullshit you have been carrying around in your mind all day long. These narratives cause a great deal of stress, perhaps even most of our stress. The Buddha once compared the amount of stress alleviated when getting rid of the false sense of self to the size of a mountain. While the amount of stress that remained was only a few pebbles. [link] [comments] |
| The thought that I’m “doing it wrong” Posted: 01 Jul 2020 05:59 PM PDT Often times when going through a period of suffering, for whatever reason big or small, I quickly move to frustration, anger, self-criticism, etc., thinking, "why couldn't I have just… I can't believe I didn't …" and so on. I blame myself for not doing … the "right way" like somehow there is a "bad" me that I need to constantly beat back. Of course, this only seems to intensify the suffering and keeps me in a loop that leads me to react to situations based on habitual patterning or a reactive nervous system, rather than with the perspective and mindfulness I've cultivated as an adult. Anyone else ever feel this way? One of my favorite psychological/spiritual podcasts, Bliss & Grit, released an episode addressing just this. I was struck but a particular piece of this conversation and wanted to share, so I transcribed a short bit below. I hope it's helpful. -- What we deal with is not as personal to us as we thought. So the way that we seem to have conceptualized of this, and I don't know if it's the advent of psychology and culture that created it; I don't know if it's just the virtue of having an ego structure; I don't know where we got this per se, but we seem to think of it as, there's a good me and there's a bad me. There's a good me and there's the wrong me; the flawed me. And the good me is kind of habitually trying to get the bad me to do the right things, through judgment, through criticism, through cheerleading, through whatever. But it's all baked into this inner war model. And then we say to ourselves, "why can't I just…forgive myself for not having the body I need, of why can't I just not have bought that thing, or received love, like you were saying, Brooke." And that model, to me, is part of what keeps us cycling in these trances of suffering. Because there's an idea that I could do it differently and I, I am not. And this inner war, this inner divide plays out all over the place, right? So I think if we can instead start to see, that we, as humans, as people having a human experience, as spirits, maybe, having a human experience in a body, we are influenced by numerous things. And it is not just conscious desire, or will, or aptitudes. We are influenced by our capacity, which our nervous system may regulate. We are influenced by the stories that we are told culturally, the stories that were told in our families, and the stories that we tell ourselves. We are influenced by the fascia that we have, the contractions we have in our body, the DNA we have. We are influenced by the feelings around us in the collective. We are influenced by the state of the earth. Maybe we're influenced by astrology and the stars, who is to say where that stops. We are an amalgamation of all of these influences, so the whole idea that we think there's just some bad me that's in self-sabotage against the good me and that we have to be ever vigilantly managing and controlling ourselves is the very thing I think we're being invited to deconstruct, in order to have greater freedom, and love and joy. Vanessa Scotto speaking to Brooke Thomas, Bliss & Git Episode 152. You're Not Doing Anything Wrong. This quote starts at about 31:10. [link] [comments] |
| Reflections on first 10-day retreat Posted: 01 Jul 2020 11:42 AM PDT Know most of this isn't novel, but wanted to share as I had pretty limited experience going in. Happy to answer any questions. My background
My Learnings
[link] [comments] |
| What to focus on between breathes? Posted: 02 Jul 2020 04:54 AM PDT I've been practicing mindfulness based meditation for 3 years now where I focus only on the breathe (try to at least). I was just wondering what you guys focus on in between breathes if you practice a similar type of meditation. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 02 Jul 2020 01:01 AM PDT Hello everybody, I am a 20 year old male and my girlfriend just broke up with me a few days ago. It had been going bad for weeks because she had a lot of stress and she was just really sad. It all came to the point where she was drunk and kissed some guy and we decided to break it off. Although I do not hate her or feel agression towards her, I am very sad and dissapointed and can't get it out of my head. My last breakup got me feeling depressed and abusing alcohol for half a year or even more and I went to therapy, but I don't want to break again so some help is appreciated if you know anything. Thank you [link] [comments] |
| Meditation to help with anger, jealousy, and anxiety with mixed results Posted: 02 Jul 2020 04:45 AM PDT Hello! I've been an on and off meditator for several years, but only just recently have returned to daily practice to help with a growing wave of difficult emotions in my daily life. My bouts of anxiety, anger, and jealousy have been worsening so this is me taking matters in to my own hands to quiet the storm. I'm trying. I've been meditating for 10-30 minutes a day, along with a 1 hour walking meditation, which does feel nice in the moment but of course the terrible emotions still come throughout the day when I least expect it. When I feel those emotions welling up and crashing like a mighty wave against rocky cliffs, I try to Recognize, Accept, Investigate physically, and try to Non-identity them as passing storms. I rationally know that I am not my emotions. But the pain persists! Even with the mediation, I continue to feel driven by my emotions. Too often carried away with them. Even as I scream internally while reciting the R.A.I.N method above, they still rule me. My heart races with anxiety and anger. When does it get easier? Does it ever? It's easy to feel hopeless when your efforts don't appear to be helping. [link] [comments] |
| Intense visualization during meditation Posted: 02 Jul 2020 03:36 AM PDT I've been meditating on and off for the past year. I've recently been diagnosed with ADHD and began taking medication and I've noticed that my meditation practice has improved dramatically. I just had a very interesting experience. At the end of a 40 minute meditation I vividly visualized a large eye. This is totally new for me. It has always been fairly easy for me to project colors and blobs during meditation. Sometimes I could even manipulate them into different forms and colors but they were never recognizable objects. This was totally different. It was as clear as could be. I have experienced lucid dreams in the past and this didn't feel like that. I was totally conscious. I saw the eye for 5 minutes. Then I got the sense that it/someone/something was watching me and I was genuinely terrified. I have always been under the assumption that meditation is about being calm and centered. My concentration broke and I stoped my meditation. Has anyone experienced anything similar to this? I'm thinking that now that I am medicated for adhd I am able to properly meditate for the first time. I would love some feedback! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 02 Jul 2020 03:18 AM PDT Because I don't start work until later in the day, every day I wake up and am able to spend an hour in bed. I simply lay there on my back. Sometimes I focus on my breathing, but mostly I just let my mind wander. I don't make to-do lists, though, or battle anxiety. I do fantasise quite a lot. But mostly just wandering. What's weird to me is that usually meditating upright for 20 minutes feels like a long time to me. Often just ten minutes does. But this hour passes so easily for some reason. I could probably do it for two. [link] [comments] |
| I don't know what's happening but I feel overwhelmed. Posted: 01 Jul 2020 11:28 PM PDT I've been meditating for 9 days now. Today it's just so overwhelming. I am getting upset by small things. I'm more anxious and it's so overwhelming. I lost my appetite to eat. The last time this happened was last year, in march and April. I was dating someone and they were disloyal and treated me pathetically and it made me so anxious because I couldn't fix it and I lost my appetite for weeks, until I mentally detached myself from them and set myself free and then broke up with them. Its happening again, the same kind of anxiety. I'm starting to lose my appetite. I can't eat or swallow anything willingly. I cant seem to get rid of the feeling. I start crying in between the meditation. I get extremely upset over things and I can't seem to calm my mind anymore when those thoughts come up. I'm relatively calmer in a general way but the anxiety is so heightened. I start to remember the stuff that hurt me deeply and I start to cry. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong. [link] [comments] |
| Realize everything is impermanent Posted: 01 Jul 2020 10:35 AM PDT The Delusion: That things we desire are permanent, and have the ability to bring about permanent happiness. The Truth: Everything is impermanent. (Impermanence) The Buddha noted that a major cause of suffering for people was their vain attempt to hold onto things that don't last. You meet someone and think that this initial love will last forever. You get a job that pays well and spend that money on a new car. Things are looking up! It's happiness from here on out -- until the relationship ends, your car breaks down, and your once steady income stream evaporates. We cling to these things, naively expecting them to stay the same, often in the face of logic and reason. We know damn well we are going to age, but when the inevitable wrinkles form around our eyes, and the hairs on our head take on a silver hue, we still get upset and reach for the tweezers. Why Evolution Programmed Us This Way If we hold on to the delusion that love will last forever, it might actually make us more attractive to potential mates. You are far more likely to get laid on your wedding night after a vow that includes "till death do us part" than if you recited the words: "I'll marry you, but there's a greater than 50 percent chance that we are going to get divorced and end up hating each other. Probably within a decade." How the Truth Can Set Us Free When we understand that everything in this universe is impermanent, we stop clinging to things we hoped would never change. We become more comfortable with the fact that our relationships will end, that we will grow old and eventually die. We realize that change is inevitable, so we stop fighting it, and just accept it. When we accept it, we become totally attuned to the true nature of the universe: that everything is constantly changing, so we no longer get stressed out when it inevitably does. It is only through false expectations of how the world works that people get disappointed. There is a story about one ancient stoic philosopher who managed to remain free from grief despite the death of his son. When asked how he accomplished this, he responded, "I never believed my son to be immortal." [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 02 Jul 2020 03:06 AM PDT Is there any new torrent with the current content in the app [link] [comments] |
| iPause: Meeting Myself At A 10 Day Vipassana Meditation Course Posted: 01 Jul 2020 09:32 PM PDT I recently (before Covid crisis) attended the 10 day Vipassana course in Mumbai. I have shared my experiences in detail in the following post - iPause: Meeting Myself At A 10 Day Vipassana Meditation Course Sharing a snippet here: It was the second day of the course, evening session after the tea. Guruji, (late) S. N. Goenka, had just finished speaking into the intercom sitting us through the instructions for the session. Breathe in, breathe out. Just observe your breath. Natural breath. Where does it touch inside the nostrils? Can you feel it? Be aware of every breath, as it comes in, as it goes out. Naturally. The emphasis was on the word – naturally. For, this wasn't any exercise. This wasn't Pranayam, there weren't any specifics on regulating the breath in any way. Just an observation, of the respiration, as it is, in a bid to sharpen the senses using the faculty of the mind and the breath as a tool. A few minutes into the meditation, and a tear rolled down my eyes, taking me by surprise. And then, one more. Before I knew, a stream was flowing down my face. It was the first time after about 2 days of back aching meditation, that I had been able to go a bit deeper and establish a loose connect with my own breath. It was also the first time when I did not want to move. I just wanted to be – with my own breath. My own breath… so soft, so delicate, so pure… bereft of any judgments, any blemishes, any dents of life, any criticisms, any shoulds, dos, don'ts or fears. When was the last time I had met myself like this? My thick crust of resistance succumbed as my thoughts plummeted to a bare minimum. I kept my focus intently on the flowing breath, eventually sinking into a place of infinite surrender. Where was I? More importantly, who was I? [link] [comments] |
| New to mindfulness - between eyebrows? Posted: 01 Jul 2020 09:10 PM PDT Hi everyone. I have been doing guided meditations recently, and I have done them before. I've noticed when I finally get 100% relaxed, I fall into this like "pocket" of basically shooting blank thoughts (turning my brain off and relaxing). Every time I notice I'm finally "there" I realize I'm completely relaxed and try not to break out of it thinking about how proud/happy I am to have gotten there. It's kind of focusing between my eyes I guess? Is there a term for this? Is this normal? How do I get there faster and stay there longer? All inputs are appreciated 🥰 [link] [comments] |
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| Posted: 01 Jul 2020 03:46 PM PDT Hello, I'm new here! If anyone has tips for just starting out I'd really appreciate it! A little about me: I feel like I'm pretty forgetful and never really live in the moment. I rush through chores and do them half assed because I really hate the process. I'm also suffering from minimal trauma due to a close friend committing suicide and me finding him. So I would also like to reduce my trauma and anxiety. Thanks in advance. [link] [comments] |
| Is it common to feel that ur face is getting numb when focusing on ur breadth Posted: 02 Jul 2020 12:14 AM PDT Hi, I just started practicing guided meditation. During this when they ask u to focus on ur breadth then I feel like my cheeks are getting numb and then forehead. Is it common or am I doing it wrong? [link] [comments] |
| Can’t find actual working videos Posted: 01 Jul 2020 11:38 PM PDT Looking for audio videos for sleep ro other things although they never work, i wake up in middle of night because of the audio and pull out my earphones. Does anybody know anything that actually works, everytime i hear a moron say relax your body in the first minute of the god damn video i hate it. I've tried so many times and all of these so called videos that help millions of others doesn't work at all. Ppl say to just believe but how tf do i do that? When it never works [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 01 Jul 2020 05:02 PM PDT Hey everyone i hope you are all doing well, i've been in my spiritual journey for about 2 months now and it felt liberating and i felt at peace, i've learned about thoughts and how you should just observe them instead of engaging with them, and i've started implementing that and living in the present moment, but these days i feel like i'm starting to get engaged in them again and sometimes they trigger an emotion, i still keep trying to observe them and i've accepted the fact that there will always be thoughts, i had a very ex close friend of mine graduate yesterday and sadly our friendship ended on very bad terms five months ago and we stopped talking, but i ended up texting her yesterday and congratulating her and i guess we squashed everything but we're still not really friends anymore (keep in mind i was the one that caused the friendship to end) and it brought up many emotions and memories and these days i've been having so much difficulty trying to not engage in them, i sometimes observe them but most of the time i get lost in them, its not how it is when i first started, things are becoming difficult these days for me to just keep observing them and not engage in them, so i just wanted your opinions on this? Thank you so much for reading and have a wonderful day, and i apologize if you have difficulty understanding what i'm saying, i find it quite difficult to elaborate when i vent. [link] [comments] |
| One of the best meditation music you will ever hear Posted: 01 Jul 2020 09:27 PM PDT |
| Posted: 01 Jul 2020 11:31 AM PDT Skin issues Ive been battling for over a decade. My focus keep keep diverting back to it, my brain wanting to figure out how to get out and fix it ( I do my best in terms of treatments ) but so far no matter what I try nothing works. Its not the pimples that bother me at this point, those usually heal quick, but the redness and scars that were caused during a flair up ( high stress period ) Though I do know that these are body image issues but many fat people can find their way to happiness I should be able to too But how? ( I got zero friends at this point, close talking to people seriously bother me ) [link] [comments] |
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