Meditation: Weekly Discussion - November 23 2020 |
- Weekly Discussion - November 23 2020
- Alan Watts Quote to help with Focus
- Meditation works
- Watch out for things that strengthen your ego.
- Bodyscaning before meditation practice
- How exactly do i let go of fear and worry and learn to also forgive myself? I know it will help but i seriously am so lost. I need a map or plan for this.
- Binaural beats (for people who have issues meditating)
- I fucking love meditation
- How to cope with sensitivity to sound/dog barking via meditation/mindfulness? Neighbor's new dog is driving me nuts, every time I hear the barking I go into fight or flight mode, rage and panic.
- Meditation feels like torture
- Are affirmations good or bad?
- Any long term meditators ?
- Meditation ruined weed?
- Critique of eckhart tolle by jeff brown, calling ET a spiritual bypasser
- a spiritual bitchslap: my second birth and how it happened
- Strange experience
- forehead tension
- Watch out for things that strengthen your love
- Is there anyone here who can look into my mind and retrieve a memory from me?
- Insomnia and anxiety management issues
- Hey does anyone know how to make meditation feel less like a chore?
- Surreal experience
- Former Student of Reggie Ray - Finally Speaking Up
- I just heard Lotus Position might be harmful to the body
| Weekly Discussion - November 23 2020 Posted: 23 Nov 2020 07:09 AM PST This is a reoccuring thread for questions relating to your practice and discussion around your experiences. Questions Ask questions relating to your practice, the theory of meditation, various traditions and lineages of thought, or practical tips. If you're new, please read our FAQ before posting, as it contains a wealth of information that all of us should come back to occasionally. Discussion Also use this thread for a more free-form discussion of your experiences and other tidbits that might not warrant their own full post. Use this space to connect with the /r/meditation community, it won't be heavily moderated. Also check out the monthly meditation challenge. [link] [comments] |
| Alan Watts Quote to help with Focus Posted: 23 Nov 2020 08:47 PM PST
Usually when I try to focus during meditation, I try to force myself to focus for the entire time, thinking it is a marathon. I come into it with the expectation that it will be difficult, and meditating this way is exhausting. I was recently reading "Become What you Are" by Alan Watts and saw the above quote. Seeing it this way, there is minimal effort in focusing for one second, and if you extend that out, you are only focusing for one second every second. Something in this really clicked with me and trying to focus during meditation has required much less effort. Just thought I'd share in case anyone else has a similar experience! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2020 05:18 PM PST I first got into meditation just over a year ago. I actually kind of feel like I was forced into it because I suffered a number of pretty big traumas in quick succession and I felt like I didn't have anywhere else to go for support. I found a local teacher who taught me the basics and I built upon my practice from there. I have meditated in some form most days since then (for over a year). Sometimes it has been very uncomfortable, sometimes it has been bliss, sometimes I can't make it past a few minutes, and sometimes I can sit for over an hour, Forming the habit, and persistence is the key. My thoughts are not always kind ones but I have learnt to sit with them and observe them. I received some heart-breaking news yesterday, and for the first time in a very long time my first thought to hearing terrible news wasn't "You should just give up and end it". When I realised that I felt a sense of comfort and was kind of proud of myself for all the inner work I've done. I still have a long way to go, but it's a good start. [link] [comments] |
| Watch out for things that strengthen your ego. Posted: 23 Nov 2020 04:43 AM PST Things like complaining, judging, trying to always be right and so on, they do us no good. They only strengthen the ego, It's not only positive things/thoughts that strengthen the ego though. You might land a date with someone you find attractive, but if you start thinking and feeling like that means anything about you then that's only strengthening the ego. If being accepted and liked makes you feel good, it's inevitable that rejection will make you feel bad, which means you're not free because how you feel depends on what other people think about you. [link] [comments] |
| Bodyscaning before meditation practice Posted: 23 Nov 2020 06:49 PM PST I've been meditating regularly for nearly 1 and half years now, and at times I've done 3 50 minute sessions a day and at the lowest 1 50 minute session every 2 days. I tried alot of different things and overall have found the way for me to maximize each practice. I used to do a body scan to feel out the areas of tension for a few minutes before I would go into my deep practice but in the past 6-8 months I've let that go and simply dove right into it. Now recently, I saw a post from another user who mentioned that he does a body scan in preparation for deep practice. So, I once again got reminded of it and decided to try it for a bit. And my goodness. It used to take me 1-2 50 minute sessions before I'd be able to go into a deep state but ever since I've incorporated body scanning at the start to feel out tension (naturally will release as you scan) the release of tension allows me to enter that deep state MUCH faster. I do the scanning for about 4-5 minutes of the 50 minute session and its absolutely incredible the difference it has made. I also find that laying down on a thick carpet facing the ceiling with your hands resting on your stomach and elbows to your side to be the best position, it allows your muscles to rest because your spine and bones are the in contact with the ground. In lotus and many other seated positions your neck and many of your other muscles are still being used, especially if you're doing long practices. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2020 08:30 PM PST |
| Binaural beats (for people who have issues meditating) Posted: 23 Nov 2020 09:42 PM PST Hey it's almost Christmas, so I wanna throw out some gifts. I have some stellar binaural beats from Thomas Campbell (if you haven't heard of him, check his YouTube channel). These beats are the best I have ever used. They will snap you into a theta/meditative state quick. Not saying they will do all the work for you, but they are a great tool for anyone who has issues focusing and getting to a point-consciousness state. If you dont know what binaural beat are - when listened to with headphones, they are basically sound-waves that puts two separate tones in each of your ears, then your brain converges then into a tone that simulates certain brainwaves. The sort of synthetically guide your brain towards meditative brain-states. That's probably a terrible explanation, but google them if you want a more scientific answer. They will also help you lucid dream, have OOBE's, remote view, etc. If that also interests you. DM me and I will send you some google drive links. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2020 03:58 AM PST Today I chose to meditate over using my phone. Fucking unreal. I never thought I would see this day. Even if its for a short while, meditation really helps me to be at peace. Never felt anything like it. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2020 03:57 PM PST I am just sitting here, listening to the intermittent barking throughout the day (and sometimes it wakes me up 3-4 times per night) and it is driving me nuts. I spoke to the owner last night, he was defensive but we agreed he'll at least let the dog out a bit later in the AM so people could sleep. i am so filled with rage, didn't get closure from our discussion either, so now when I hear the barking it makes me even more angry. I resent the dog, and the owner. Mind you, I am a dog person but shipped our separation anxiety/nonstop howling/barking dog to my mother in law's (who is home and has a larger property) because the dog would howl for hours on end when we left the house. So I feel the unfairness that I had to give up my dog over this issue, stuck at home due to COVID and now made to listen to someone else's bored and lonely pet's screams. I need a mindfulness approach to dealing with sound sensitivity and feeling the anger because I cannot let a sound completely ruin my day, all day every day. Please help. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2020 10:23 PM PST I've put myself through the pain of meditating nearly every day for the past 3 years with little to no results, and upon joining this subreddit a few weeks ago I was absolutely blown away to hear people describe meditation as 'peaceful' or 'relaxing' or even 'pleasant'. I'm so bored while I meditate it feels like I'm suffocating, to the point I'm having heart palpitations. I assumed it was this way for everyone, but now I'm finding out I was completely wrong. So, please tell me, why is meditation so different for me? Am I doing something wrong? Or just wired differently? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2020 10:02 PM PST Could the idea of affirmations be viewed as enabling an attachment you have to a behaviour/feeling/emotion/etc? Or maybe this is a necessary step for self development that leads to the stepping stones of slowly shedding attachment entirely? Sorry if this sounds super out there. I'm super tired and in a unique headspace right now. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2020 09:23 PM PST If you are a long term meditator, please share what changed for you or how are you benefiting from it. Also share your way of doing meditation briefly if possible. If you you have seen or heard the benefits from others (maybe monks) please share that too. Thanks [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2020 04:20 PM PST Ever since I started to meditate, about 4 months ago, weed has never been the same. It makes me feel very anxious and paranoid, and I start getting highly intrusive negative thoughts that I cannot stop. I stopped smoking for a couple months, and when I have gone back to it, its worse. I don't intend to continue smoking either way, but I feel as though I will never be able to enjoy smoking ever again like I used to. Has meditation made me more aware of my anxiety in general when smoking? Anyone else experienced this? [link] [comments] |
| Critique of eckhart tolle by jeff brown, calling ET a spiritual bypasser Posted: 23 Nov 2020 04:35 PM PST Is jeff correct? Is not engaging in your thoughts simply bypassing? Is shining the light of awareness on youre pain actually just you dissociating from it? Are neurotic thoughts the result of suffering (trauma) as opposed to the cause? : Brown: In 'Grounded Spirituality', I critically review Eckhart Tolle's book, 'The Power of Now'. It is my personal view that it is a first stage awakening manual, that is calling itself "A guide to spiritual enlightenment". It begins with Tolle's story of years of shifting from suicidal depression to his "true nature" in the course of a single night. In the attached article, Tolle endeavors to make a distinction between "spiritual bypassing" and "avoidance". It doesn't work. Because spiritual bypassing IS self-avoidance… masquerading as awakening. Critique below… Tolle: Awareness or presence is never avoidance. In awareness, you allow yourself to feel whatever it is that you feel; you do not repress it in any way. Do you sense unresolved pain within? How are you going to resolve the pain except by allowing yourself to feel it? Brown: Actually, awareness/presence can be AVOIDANCE, if the motivation of our quest for it is primarily to avoid elements of the human experience that are painful and uncomfortable, or if the techniques employed prevent a true access to all that we are holding emotionally/energetically. An emotionally blocked person's experience of presence is not the same as one whose entire being is energetically fluid and present. We may believe we are "present", but we cannot be fully present if we are not able to access- somatically, energetically, emotionally- our unhealed traumas. If we have spent years burying our stuff somatically, and trying to rise above it with an addiction to witnessing and meditation, then we are not fully present. We are actually quite the opposite. We are trapped inside the witnessing mind (and confusing that head-tripping game with presence), and somewhat or altogether dissociated from the world of feeling. Only through deep, enlivened, embodied feeling can we open the gate to presence. Presence is a whole-being experience, and it's also a full-energy experience. In PON, Tolle says, "silence is an even more potent carrier of presence". This idea is very common in the patriarchal spiritual traditions, as is the suggestion that our ego, the mind, our 'stories,' our feelings, somehow prevent us from being present. In truth, we cannot be fully present if all of our aspects aren't welcome. Nor can we be fully present if we confine ourselves to silence or stillness alone. Those states only access some threads of the human experience. Others arise through sound, energy, vitality, activity. We can understand why some bypassers and trauma-survivors would choose to elevate silence as the path. It may be less triggering for them, particularly if they were wounded by word and tone. It's a way to control their environment, so that the triggers momentarily subside. But its only accessing one level of presence. Because we are built to move, and to sound, and to shout, and to also access feeling in these ways. To put it simply, most of us cannot access the true and inclusive "power of now", because we are still ruled- individually and collectively- by the "power of then". If we want to be truly present, we must…. come back to life in all regards and clear our emotional debris. Detachment is a tool- it's not a life. Tolle: I believe it was Carl Jung who said, "The fundamental problems are never solved but they are outgrown," which means you reach a different level of consciousness and there the problem is no longer that important. You grow out of it. Many problems cannot really be solved. Psychoanalysis tries to solve all the unresolved issues in your life, but you can go on and on with that because the more you delve into it, the more things you'll discover and at some point you have to step into another state of consciousness that is simply awareness. And then, those things are transcended. You don't suppress; they're no longer that important. And some things will subside and dissolve. Brown: It is true that some problems cannot be solved, and that psychoanalysis is not the solution to many problems. Because excessive analysis perpetuates emotional paralysis. But the answer is not to 'transcend' our issues, nor is it to 'turn around' our stories. It's to go deeper into them, through feeling-based practices- in the hopes of healing and transforming them. Repressed emotions are unactualized spiritual lessons. If we don't work through our material, we can't actually grow as spiritual beings. Because emotional and spiritual maturity are synonymous. We can't grow or become more truly present if we keep 'rising above' our stuff. We can't become fully "aware", if we limit our range of e-motion to silence and stillness. What he is talking about is what I call the "transcendence bypass", which I define as so: The tendency to bypass reality through 'transcendent' means: a rising above, a 'heightened' quest, an ungrounded flight of fancy. Common amongst those who identify themselves as "spiritual," the transcendence bypasser has abandoned healthy detachment, floating off into the dissociative abyss until reality brings them back to the ground. The great irony is that transcendence bypassers are actually the ones most controlled by earthly matters. Their addiction to the above is driven by their unresolved issues down below. They have actually trance-ended nothing. It's all still waiting for them here on Mother Earth. Tolle: Whatever it is you need to understand about your unresolved issues will come into the light of awareness when you allow yourself to feel what you feel. You may occasionally get an insight into something that happened in the past or that caused the pain. The important thing is that you don't perpetuate or add to the muddle of painful feelings within through mind-identification and further thinking so that your emotions begin to use your mind. Brown: Yes, but we can't 'feel what we feel', if we don't engage in body-centered practices that access/open the holdings. Simply sitting in silent stillness will not bring us into contact with all of our unresolved issues and feelings. Some of it, perhaps, but not all. It's too controlled and contained to activate many of the holdings. This is why I believe that body-centered psychotherapies like bioenergetics and core energetics are actually spiritual practices that support a full-bodied experience of presence. Because they make us aware of what we are holding within the body, itself. And they provide techniques to excavate the memories, the feelings, the unsaid words, the aliveness (presence) that got buried with the traumas. Most of us are graveyards of trauma, and transcendence practices can provide us much needed relief, but they will not bring us fully back to life or save our species. Because we are not automatons- we are beings of deep feeling. We have to go down into the body, and bring ourselves back to life through healing and enlivening practices. As for the backwards idea that "mind-identification" is the issue, it is not. The primary cause of our unhappiness is not our thoughts. The monkey mind is not the source of our anxiety. It's a symptom of it. Forget the monkey mind. The mind is not the enemy—unhealed pain is. Men have been blaming the mind for their neuroses for centuries, while deftly avoiding that which sources its maladies—somatic constrictions, and unprocessed emotions stored in the body itself. It's like losing your keys somewhere in the house, and looking for them in the car. Useless, useless, useless. Until they stop blaming the mind—and recognize that its neuroses stem from the unresolved emotional body—there will be no liberation. Shifting out of unhappiness is not a cerebral process—that's just another ineffective band-aid. It is a visceral full-body experience. It's the "monkey heart" that's the issue: the state of inner turbulence and agitation that emanates from an unclear heart. The more repressed your emotional body, the more repetitive your thoughts. Flooded with unhealed emotions and unexpressed truths, the monkey heart jumps from tree-top to tree-top, emoting without grounding, dancing in its confusion. Often misinterpreted as a monkey mind, the monkey heart is reflected in repetitive thinking, perpetual anxiety, and negative imaginings. All of which are emanating from the emotional body. Bottom line is that you cannot heal and resolve your emotional material with your mind. Knowing our issues is not the same as healing our issues. Your emotional material does not evaporate because you watch it. I have known many who could watch and name their patterns and issues—as if they were scientists, researching their own consciousness—but nothing fundamentally changed, because they refused to come back down into their bodies and move their feelings through to transformation. It's safe up there, above the fray, witnessing the heartache without actually engaging it. Yes, you may be able to get so skilled at a witnessing consciousness that you can overpower your triggers. But that's not presence. Real presence comes through the open heart. The key to the transformation of challenging patterns and wounds is to heal them from the inside out. Not to analyze them, not to watch them like an astronomer staring at a faraway planet through a telescope, but to jump right into the heart of them, encouraging their expression and release, stitching them into new possibilities with the thread of love. You want to live a holy life? Heal your heart. That's the best meditation of all. Tolle: You can't achieve absolute perfection on the level of form. There will always be certain limitations here and there, things that have been around and lived inside you perhaps, since childhood. They may continue. So it's only really through transcendence that you go beyond whatever is there that is unresolved but still carried around within you. If you don't add to the pain within, then it gradually subsides and dissolves in the light of presence. Brown: NO. Backwards again. First of all, we are not here to become perfect. We are here to become real… truly fiercely heartfully human. Second, we are ONLY form. The bashing of the allegedly imperfect nature of form is fundamental to patriarchal spiritualities, because they are in so much pain that they elevate formlessness, as though we can actually become that. We can't become that, until we die. Until then, we are in-form and we must work to heal and integrate all of our aspects. Third, what he is saying is that if you float above your humanness for long enough, your pain will simply fade away. This is patently untrue. What actually happens is that it actually concretizes and solidifies, and turns inward against the self in the form of emotional and physical disease. And, again, we cannot taste true presence with so many layers of emotional armor and repressed pain clogging up our psycho-emotional, energetic, and somatic structures. What he is describing is not a true presence. He is talking about a meditative stupor that seeks to dissociate from the pain we hold. He is inviting us to rise above our humanness. We can't. We're human, and there is no complete experience of the "now", if we seek to transcend it. Presence is a whole-being experience. [link] [comments] |
| a spiritual bitchslap: my second birth and how it happened Posted: 23 Nov 2020 06:39 PM PST so i will preface this with a little backstory. hello, i am someone who never really had much in the way of experiences with a rather abusive childhood and it caused me to dive into the mind from a very young age and eat the key, when i hit 21 i realized how wasted my life had seemed and ended up in a feedback loop of negativity, ended up fucking up my chance at college and all that jazz, at 22, i had my first panic attack, became a paranoid anxious wreck all the time, went to the hospital multiple times thinking i was having a heart attack and developed hypochondria. Now, about a month or so ago, i went on a trip with some friends i met online years back, we stayed at the W in miami and one of them (the one ive known the longest and met already before) is 38 and someone who ive envied in the past, he just seemed to have it all together and i never understood why, i will call him Guru for brevity's sake, now ive always had a fear of heights and we were on the 43rd floor, a beautiful sight, though the whole weekend i felt uneasy, dizzy, couldnt really go outside with them, now im not sure how the sub feels about psychedelics and the like but this story doesnt exist without them so anyways one night i was just vibing in my head like i usually would but everyone else was doing molly and shit which i wasnt sure about at the time, but after everyone went to bed, Guru was talking to me but i was still deep in my anxious mind and he started dissecting me and telling me things i knew but knew needed to be said, such things include "you were told to shut up too many times as a kid" he even said " you need to start meditating, youre looking for that clarity, i can see it in you" , i started silently crying during all this but eventually we ended up sleeping without me opening up or anything because i was just in awe in how he dissected me so well. The next day was the day i was both excited and scared about, the LSD trip, Guru wouldnt show up until around halfway through it, ive done it a couple times and was getting comfortable with it but not fully. we dropped and he showed up, i was having a way better time and guru showed, we partied a bit but i started to fall into a darkness inside myself, now i had also done some mdma at this point and this was a new experience for me especially being a less than body-conscious individual, him being someone who's done this thousands of times and noticed something was off so he butted through the commotion and asked me if i was alright, i was like "no, i feel really really weird, bad weird", started naming various things and he quickly came over and his first words were "youre feeling real life, you understand that?...control you mind!" and he took me into the bedroom, gave me something to drink, stated that i was experiencing sensory overload then came over and did this magical thing where he pressed his thumbs into different places on my chest, i panicked when he did this but he explained that i had knots and god it felt like pure bliss was released, and laid down with me and talked to me like no one ever has before,he talked TO me instead of to me if you know what i mean, he put on Sasha and Digweed Northern Exposure volume 1, actually taught me the basics of meditating and trhough all this something just clicked, it was like a switch was flipped in my soul and i just understood, im not going into details about that talk because it is very personal but i will say he told me how i was loved and that he wanted to see me get married have kids all that jazz, things i had accepted wouldnt ever happen, but he left me to meditate in the dark room with Northern Exposure playing and in that room, i blossomed, he came back periodically to check on me and even said "i dont have to worry about you anymore , right? like ever?" and with a new sense of inner confidence i said no, im good now, and actually meant it. ever since then, ive started living, my anxiety still exists but i dont let it persist, i dont know how i could ever be truly depressed again, i feel Awake, now i meditate daily and even micro-meditate throughout the day during low activity points, i started painting, learning more, got rid of a lot of bullshit in my life and am actively bitchslapping my bad habits, etc. i could never thank Guru enough, i love him and i love all of you, keep on swimming and witnessing this beautiful chaos we call the universe. thanks for reading, any questions just ask side note: its like learning a new language, reading quotes and such ive read before actually mean more than they had before or at least its like they have the same meanings but i can peer deeper into them now, very interesting to me TLDR;; i was an anxiety ridden husk of myself, committing what i call chronic suicide, but with the help of a friend during a trip, i woke up and would never want to go back. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 24 Nov 2020 01:52 AM PST I'm a (20F) novice who meditates occasionally. I have a very important exam this weekend and therefore decided to meditate. I also have a mild form of anxiety (currently high functioning because of the pandemic), and things aren't going so great right now. I was meditating (just right now, only for 7 minutes, only an introduction to my session so far), and I had the strangest experience. It was a free guided meditation session (I'll attach the link too) on YouTube. Now, it has become very easy for me to relax (almost at a whim). I 4 minutes into the session I felt like something was invading my brain, then I saw something purple and it occurred to me it was my aura. It wasn't dark purple, it was a lighter, softer shade with a hint of sparkle. It massaged my brain and I feel so relaxed right now. It felt very incredible and I got the nice kind of chills. But as it advanced it felt like I lost sensation in a part of my face and neck and that something had fixed both of these regions. It got sorta scary and I had to unwillingly wind down. All this while it felt like something white filled the space. I am very confused and I need answers. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 24 Nov 2020 01:48 AM PST i get forehead tension so bad mostly when stressed but sometimes not makes me breakou too how do i get rid of it it's nags and uncomfortable all day and sometimes turns into headaches [link] [comments] |
| Watch out for things that strengthen your love Posted: 24 Nov 2020 01:27 AM PST Hey there! Watch out! Do not get caught by it! It is not a joke! Love can make you free! Do you really want to be free? Consider it well! Watch out! ;) [link] [comments] |
| Is there anyone here who can look into my mind and retrieve a memory from me? Posted: 24 Nov 2020 01:22 AM PST |
| Insomnia and anxiety management issues Posted: 24 Nov 2020 01:03 AM PST Hello everyone! I'm new to the practice of meditation and as now even sitting down and not spiriling down in my thoughts is hard. I have a lot of trouble sleeping, even the smallest task gives me anxiety and I have a debilitating fear of failure. I think the art of mindfulness could really help me, but I don't know where to start, my brain is racing all the time and it seems there's no way to stop it. Does someone have some practical advice? [link] [comments] |
| Hey does anyone know how to make meditation feel less like a chore? Posted: 23 Nov 2020 09:11 PM PST |
| Posted: 24 Nov 2020 12:24 AM PST So Iv recently really started working on my consciousness, with meditations , tai chi , mindfulness exercises. Iv been feeling really uplifted and quite spiritual over the last few weeks but I had the most surreal experience last night. Wonder if someone can explain a little more. So I laid down for bed and started doing some meditation, I then had this weird sensation felt like it was coming through both ears all to my third eye like a energy point , I then had a smiling sun stuck in my mind in between my two eyes whole thing lasted about 5 mins with all at the same time continuous. I let it continue till I opened my eyes which gave me the biggest smile. Tried doing quick research but can't seem to find much so can anyone explain further 😁 [link] [comments] |
| Former Student of Reggie Ray - Finally Speaking Up Posted: 23 Nov 2020 08:23 PM PST |
| I just heard Lotus Position might be harmful to the body Posted: 23 Nov 2020 12:03 PM PST I was starting some exercises and stretching to someday be able to use this position while meditating. Turns out, anatomically speaking, this position forces you to stretch your knees and hips joint ligaments and rotate them beyond their natural limit. Overtime, it weakens them and might even injure them, or lead to increased risks of injuries. Be careful people, muscles are fine but joint ligaments are fragile and are more complicated to heal. I'm eager to read your thoughts and comments. Source: https://youtu.be/BbjiHdh-yhY [link] [comments] |
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