- A Meditative mind is like a pool of water reflecting the universe. Even if a stone is thrown - such a mind will resonate with the splash, enjoy the ripples as they spread, and admire the journey as it sinks down.
- Meditation can be harmful
- Lover of the Buckwheat Cushion: does your ass don't hurt after hours of meditation?
- Mindfulness is the best way to calm the brain/body from trauma
- Last night I finally understood why it would be such a waste not to meditate.
- My Life Purpose
- Trying to practice mindfulness sometimes makes me feel like a robot
- Being happy is possible during stressful periods of change: "Between a stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Victor Frankl
- Help…Scared during meditation
- Retreat in south of Spain or Portugal
- To those who have made a long term habit of meditation. Do you find that you need less sleep because of meditation?
- What are those step like chairs called?
- What is visualization?
- Wanting to practice meditation- seeking advice, tips, and a few questions
- I taught myself how to do transcendental meditation, and I've written out a step by step guide on how to do it. If you can, give it a try and let me know your experience.
- Need help. Don't know what to do with/about an inner voice that I can't seem to have any control over.
- Even an iota of conflict within has to be watched and not ignored. Action emanating as a reaction to this conflict is perpetuation of conflict. Tenselessness in action is the key. Result can never make you tension free.
- If you're struggling with mindfulness of nostrils - try expanding your area of focus
- Completed Medito's 30 days challenge. 10 min of mediation every morning. It's was a really really wonderful journey and gonna continue it further.
- Patience in life
- Energy stuck in head and tension issues
- Is this worthwhile?
- Meditations that don't introspect?
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 09:33 PM PDT |
| Posted: 19 Jun 2021 04:14 AM PDT While it has a lot of positive effects for the majority of us it can be dangerous for mentally fragile people. They get delusional, hallucinate and decide to take their lives. Megan was one of them. Her story: "I love you, I love you, I love you," Megan told her mother on the phone. "I'll talk to you in ten days." She then went off to her first silent meditation retreat. She had just gotten over a breakup, so she thought a ten-day meditation retreat would help restore her. During the retreat, she'd have to give up her cell phone and maintain a mandatory "noble silence." Every day, she'd meditate for a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes, sitting cross-legged on a rug and focusing on her breath. On the seventh day of the retreat, things took a dark turn for Megan. During meditation, she began to feel heavy, and an "immense fear" gripped her. She began to lose hold of reality—and of herself. She kept thinking: Is it the end of the world? Am I dying? When her mom and her younger sister went to pick her up from the meditation center, Megan resisted. "You're not really here," she told her sister. "I'm creating you. You're just a projection." After she returned home, Megan's troubles did not relent. A few months after the retreat, she took her own life. A study in PLOS One, a prominent peer-reviewed journal, reported a whole host of "meditation-related difficulties": 82% of them reported suffering from "fear, anxiety, panic or paranoia" as a result of their meditation practice. My Takeaway: - No one size fits all. Meditation is not for everyone. - Don't blindly trust what people say. - Be cautious if you have mental problems - Start small - Consistency > intensity . Vipassana might be very intense for many. - Pause/completely stop the practice if you experience any mental problem. [link] [comments] |
| Lover of the Buckwheat Cushion: does your ass don't hurt after hours of meditation? Posted: 19 Jun 2021 05:01 AM PDT I'm I the only one that feels like sitting on some kind of rock while sitting on a buckwheat zafu? I meditate 2h per day and trying to transition my cross-legged sitting to a half-Burmese... but the buckwheat cushion kills my ass after a while. Do you get used to it? [link] [comments] |
| Mindfulness is the best way to calm the brain/body from trauma Posted: 19 Jun 2021 04:48 AM PDT Being very in the present is the only want to let your body know you are not under threat anymore if you experience raised stress from a past traumatic event. I am working on this [link] [comments] |
| Last night I finally understood why it would be such a waste not to meditate. Posted: 19 Jun 2021 06:01 AM PDT I suffer from chronic depression and have trouble controlling my mood often and last night I had another episode of spiraling negative thoughts and emotions. Waves of guilt and inadequacy carried over me and I went from enjoying a nice movie with my alone time to pausing said movie and crying to myself and feeling such despair. At one point I wasn't even really sure why I was so sad which made it more frustrating. I went into my bed at one point, hoping to cry it out and sleep it off, but I couldn't. I couldn't shake it off enough to relax my body and sleep. I recently got into meditation practices more and my YouTube feed is filled with breathwork practices and guided meditation. I came across Wim Hof's famous breathing exercise. I've done it before in the past but was hesitant to do it in that moment because everything feels like a chore when I'm depressed, but I decided finally to sit up cross-legged in my bed, close my eyes and do it. The first round felt a bit like a chore I'll admit, until I did the one-minute breath hold. I felt that familiar feeling of peace and clarity that reminded me of why I even started breathwork and then immediately my mood shifted. After I finished all three rounds- surprised also at how long I could hold my breath and feel bliss at the same time- I was smiling like crazy and felt energized. So I took it a step further and wanted something deeper. I came across Good Mythical Morning's video where Rhett and Link did guided holotropic breathing to open all their chakras. Even though they said they don't recommend people try it alone, I did it anyway. And my goodness, would it be strange if I say I think I had one of the most memorable, life-changing experiences of my life during that? My solar plexus and sacral chakras were vibrating well after it and I was so overcome with whatever energy it created within me that my whole body started shaking and twitching and I had to lay in bed for several minutes just to "remember" how to move myself again. The experience felt like an 80ug acid trip with a small bowl of weed, I swear. And that's when I finally realized something that's been holding me back. I use weed a lot to cope with my depression (even though many times it can make it worse and even trigger anxiety) and have stopped cold turkey for almost a week now. When I've done these deep meditation practices I have realized more and more how I can harness this clarity and euphoria and uplifted-ness without substances. I never realized the experiences were so similar. These substances are just cheat codes but we don't realize that we have the cheat codes already in our minds. I ended up listening to Baba Hunaman and Om Namo Bhagavate and chatting the mantras and getting into such deep meditation that I felt liberated and at total peace. I felt like I had found a sanctuary- a home in my mind where I could stay forever. I don't have to be a prisoner to my mind anymore. I can very much explore this space and cultivate it like a garden and harvest ideas about myself from it and make it my safe haven. Ugh, I woke up this morning so excited to share this with someone. Most of my friends and family I talk to about this think I'm crazy. I thought it was crazy too until I tried it for myself. Now I know it's possible to be at peace in my head. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Jun 2021 01:30 AM PDT Hi! Im not sure if this is the correct place to post this so apologies in advance if it is not. I'm hoping I can get a few insights to what has been a very confusing time for me. I've been struggling for the past 6 months in trying to get some sort of idea of what my life purpose is. I feel stuck without knowing how to discover what my purpose is. I've been looking into past life regression to see if something or someone is holding me back in this life and I read that some souls come into this life purely to teach other people their life lessons. (My life number is 9 so I've gone through A LOT to now feel I do have some wisdom on life!). My partner of 5 years certainly falls into this category… He has been immensely hurt in the past but instead of forgiving those people and letting go of the anger etc he thinks everyone has some sort of vendetta, including me, and uses psychological mind games as a form of control, is constantly angry, belittles me to feel better about himself due to insecurities etc. I'm aware he does this when he does (this was occasional occurrences) and I have used self protection as a method of not allowing him to upset me when he does it. However in the past few months it has increased in occurrences & it came to ahead today where I told him I can't do it anymore & until he learns to love himself & forgive those people who've hurt him (including his 2 children's mothers) then we can't go forward (He is no where near as bad as what he was like when we first met and I feel like he's not AS angry but still has a fair way to go). I left our house & I'm staying at a friend's house while they are away as I needed space to clear my head. Today while I was meditating I had a kind of epiphany moment in where the question came into my mind, is it my life purpose to teach him his lessons in his life by releasing his anger etc in a kind compassionate way??? Does MY life purpose equate to helping someone else LEARN their life lesson?? I love this man unconditionally however I do know what my limit is in that I can't change him, only he can do that, but can life purposes mean this or is it something completely different?? [link] [comments] |
| Trying to practice mindfulness sometimes makes me feel like a robot Posted: 18 Jun 2021 09:10 PM PDT I recently read 10% Happier by Dan Harris and one of the analogies he learned about mindfulness in his journey was the waterfall analogy. For the unfamiliar, the idea is to consider all of your thoughts a waterfall and to imagine yourself sitting behind it, calmly observing the flowing thoughts. I had a particularly stressful day today where I was annoyed, anxious, and impatient at times. I'm a beginner in my mindfulness journey (haven't even formed a meditation habit yet), but I tried to use this analogy to become more present. As an example, I would consciously think to myself "I am angry right now" and just look at it like another thought, but that left me feeling like a robot because I wasn't allowing myself to feel an process an emotion. I know there is lots of nuance around this topic and practicing mindfulness does not mean you can't experience emotions, just sharing some thoughts from today. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Jun 2021 06:08 AM PDT Things changing in our lives tends to be a source of anxiety - it might be a new boss in work, the end of a relationship or moving house. Change tends to trigger us to think of all the things that might happen and our mind tends to focus on the bad outcomes even if they're not likely. Even more difficult is when we know that change is coming but we're not sure of what it is. Our brains are hard wired to feel more comfortable in scenarios it's familiar with and less so in new ones. Its actually very natural to feel this way, so give yourself permission to feel anxious. Sometimes when we're feeling stressed about the future we're not really fully aware of whats going on inside and we get caught up in our thoughts. It's like being engrossed in a film without realising that we're sitting in a movie theatre rather than being part of the movie itself. Taking the time to stop, realise how you're feeling about the change you're going through and accepting how you feel is an important first step. You can do this each time the feelings arise but you can also take some time to meditate on what lies underneath what you're feeling. The second step is to accept the truth of the change - the real truth. Not the worst case scenarios and all the terrible things that we're imagining but the facts of what we can see right in front of us. Maybe we feel like denying the reality of whats happening or distracting ourselves with consumption, but accepting the facts as they are, without speculating and without putting our judgement on the situation is critical to maintaining your wellbeing through periods of change. And finally, be kind to yourself. You may feel some negativity towards yourself for not coping as well as you think you ought to. But its worth telling yourself "may I give myself the compassion I need." Give yourself space to adjust to the new world, its not easy to move to a new normal and it takes time for your mind to become comfortable with new surroundings. You will get there - this change can be the start of a new adventure for you. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 08:32 PM PDT Hi all! I've noticed that when I try to meditate I get a sense of fear like overwhelming and I stop. this has happened twice already which is why I didn't try meditating for a while; but today I tried again and just felt so much fear.. can anyone explain this? [link] [comments] |
| Retreat in south of Spain or Portugal Posted: 19 Jun 2021 03:55 AM PDT I am in south of Spain and Portugal for one week and I am looking for a meditation or mindfulness retreat. It would be great if someone can recommend one [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 09:45 PM PDT I meditate using some form of mindfulness almost every day, but I also do longer, deeper meditations at least 3 times a week. I've noticed many benefits from meditation, but I've also noticed that I just don't seem to sleep for as long as I used to. I just wake up earlier, sometimes sleeping for as little as 4 or 5 hours. But I usually wake up feeling like I've had a full night of sleep. Has anyone else noticed this? [link] [comments] |
| What are those step like chairs called? Posted: 19 Jun 2021 03:40 AM PDT I see in movies monks sit in the meditative posture but on some sort of elevated step almost like a single step that puts their pelvis off the ground. You know what I'm talking about? What is it and how much are they? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Jun 2021 03:31 AM PDT I am asking this generically, although I'm asking it here because I feel like other meditators May have more insight into this. If possible I'd also like to know what people who have aphantasia cannot do or can. I think my confusion here is due to the fact that I have several different phenomena that are similar, for instance I can imagine fantastical or mundane images but these are incredibly vague and I'm not really seeing anything. When I have tried this when meditating or falling asleep I have actually seen things and had lucid dreams as well, I don't know if this is the same thing as just vaguely imagining or if this is completely different. Also when I close my eyes I can see hypnagogic imagery at times, usually I have to be falling asleep though. Other times when I close my eyes I see what I assume other people see blackness with other artifacts coming from the retina. I'm also incredibly interested in improving my visualization skills if anyone has any recommendations with that, to improve my ability to visualize in the mind's eye. Thank you. [link] [comments] |
| Wanting to practice meditation- seeking advice, tips, and a few questions Posted: 18 Jun 2021 08:26 PM PDT I want to practice meditation, specifically mindfulness meditation, but am a tad concerned about whether it may be safe to do so whilst suffering from anxiety and depression. When I try to meditate, after a few minutes into meditation I find that I am able to reach a point where I'm successful in significantly stopping my thoughts from wandering and am successful in focusing on how my body feels and hearing my surroundings with a lot less mind wandering. I then come to a point where the onset of a panic attack is starting and I usually stop meditating. Should I continue to let these feelings come and go? I have a phobia of becoming psychotic which I really have under control in comparison to a few years ago, but if I practice slowly and over time will I be able to eventually use meditation to overcome this fear? If I have no predisposition to psychotic disorders and practice meditation slowly/not rush into the practice (eg. longer sessions overtime), what are some people's thoughts on whether psychosis may occur? (Asking redditors of this sub regardless of whether this is something I should be talking to a professional about so it'd be good if no one comments this) Am I doing this stuff right? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 06:40 PM PDT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQqluxCeJLE I watched this video about a month ago, tried his technique and I transcendenced pretty much effortlessly and I bet you can to. There is absolutely no mantra required, in fact using a specific mantra is the exact opposite of what you should do. I've tested it out, if I use any mantra I have already created a set expectation in the back of my mind of what the mantra is meant to accomplish and it prevents me from letting go. Skip to 29:15 Here's what I've been doing and it's pretty much fail proof if you do it right:
I've done this probably 20-40 times and it has yet to fail me. It get's easier the more you do it. The farthest I've transcended is to the point where I had an out of body experience and I could feel my conscious join with the conscious of the universe. It felt like I met god, and It freaked me out to the point where I opened my eyes, sat up and went "woah dude" for the next 5 minutes. As I'm reading this over I hope some of you guys give it a try and let me know how it goes. I'm interested to see if my instructions can lead to any kind of result! [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 10:25 PM PDT I read once that meditation is like sitting next to a pond whose surface I'm rippling, and gradually letting go of the mental activities that are causing that water to ripple, but when I try to meditate ... the best analogy I can make is that I'm sitting next to the pond, and the water's gone calm, but there's some other body of water nearby that has a literal babbling brook of flowing water. There's a disembodied voice that seems outside of myself. It just keeps on babbling, paying me no mind whatsoever. It's almost like it's talking to itself, not me. It's just an endless stream of, "I need to check the mail next time I go out and when I go to the store I need to get milk and then stop by the post office and get gas and have to remember to call my son while I'm driving and then I need to call my dad and I need to schedule that certification test and I need to study I should buy some study materials and I need to reinstall that program and I need to make time to work on that song and publish that interview and upload those audio files and ..." I don't feel like I have any control over it, it feels like an almost exterior process. I've tried (mentally) talking to it - as that's helped me in other situations - but it seems like it's not aware of me at all. I've tried looking up advice/articles but nothing seems to apply to my situation. Maybe I need to search for some specific keywords, but if so I don't know which keywords to use. If anyone can point me in the right direction that would be great. (Incidentally, this is also what happens if I try to go to sleep without taking my sleep meds. I have to be SUPER exhausted, just completely drained, and then I can fall into a deep sleep. But unless I'm that tired or I take my meds, I just end up lying there listening to that voice. If I'm in a room with other people they'll say I was asleep, but it doesn't feel like it to me at all.) [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 19 Jun 2021 02:05 AM PDT We react to the uneasiness experienced due to confusion, fear, uncertainty or try to gloss over it. Unless we feel comfortable whatever be the situation, except when in immediate physical danger, any action is reaction. Do not escape even any minor psychological discomfort, irritation. Just be with it as it arises. Dissolution happens. Just be present to what you experience – discomfort, pleasure, sadness, confusion. Do not shy away from any feeling. The secret is unveiled. Original energy takes over. Any action or no action is relaxed, conscious. [link] [comments] |
| If you're struggling with mindfulness of nostrils - try expanding your area of focus Posted: 18 Jun 2021 07:54 PM PDT I often struggle with focusing on such a small point like my nostrils. Yes sometimes the focus comes easily and naturally but often it's difficult and annoying to get my mind to stay there. On the days when it's hard, I like to expand my area of focus - I focus on the full breath as it goes from entry all the way down to my stomach, makes my stomach rise and fall gently. Sometimes the rising is in my chest area, not the stomach. Whatever, I gently focus on that. Often it's easier and more enjoyable than focusing on a small area. So give it a try next time you find meditation to be like a chore or frustratingly difficult. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 09:38 PM PDT |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 08:38 PM PDT How do you guys practice patience? Are there any tips you suggest to help me out? I can meditate for up to 30 minutes but id like to feel patient during my day . Focusing on breath helps like when I do it before sleep . But then wake up impatient. [link] [comments] |
| Energy stuck in head and tension issues Posted: 18 Jun 2021 11:58 PM PDT When I meditate, and in most times during my day off the cushion - I feel like all of my energy is stuck in my head. It makes it hard to focus on much else. Is this something that can be worked with during meditation, and if so which techniques? Again, the same issue goes for body tension. Are there any techniques that can help me relax? Today I just sat with the intention of noticing bodily tension and relaxing it into the environment around me. Both of these issues rob me of energy during the day, make it hard to focus and relax into/enjoy life. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2021 07:52 PM PDT I have pretty bad sciatic pain and it was brought to my attention by a doctor that most of my pain is likely mental rather than a physical response to anything (comparing the pain I was describing to my MRI). I also have pretty bad anxiety so I recently decided to start meditating for that but I also thought about how I could use it for pain—I have a theory that a lot of responses the mind has are influenced by past responses, basically that if the brain keeps responding to something in some way it'll be more and more inclined to respond in the same way, so I thought if I put in enough time I could teach my brain to shift its focus (that feeling where you start thinking about how one area of your body feels and you just somehow forget the rest of it exists) from one area of the body (my leg) to another area. Essentially what I do is sit and imagine a ball rolling around inside a hollow version of my body, and wherever the ball goes, that area is brought to the center of my attention. Going off my theory (which could definitely be wrong, idk), after enough time I should be able to willfully shift my focus away from my leg to another area of my body and this should hopefully reduce pain. I know there's a lot of meditation techniques and I don't know if this falls into any of the categories or even counts as meditation, but I feel like the concept makes sense so I was wondering if something similar anyone could attest to? [link] [comments] |
| Meditations that don't introspect? Posted: 18 Jun 2021 05:17 PM PDT Hi there, There was a thread here recently where people debated whether meditation could help the op of the that post as he said meditation made him more depressed. Some folks were suggesting that he use other types of meditation besides mindfulness. I was listening to Whitney Cumming's interview of Andrew Huberman and he backed this theory up, saying not everyone benefits from meditation because instropective meditations for people who are in their heads too much can be unhelpful. This kind of resonated with me because I had an event that ratcheted up my anxiety 2 months ago and I've been very tender since, the first month was rough because the event was traumatic for me. During the early days meditation did not help and I would become more agitated. I've slowly been able to begin again but have not kept a consistant routine. I would like the purpose of my medidations right now ro be grounding myself and offering myself compassion and love, but I don't want to 'release' anything because I can't handle it right now. I am starting EDMR therapy and want to keep myself as stable as possible during that time. Should I meditate? If so what type of meditation? Any meditations available on the internet that you recommend? [link] [comments] |
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