Meditation: Unburdened after 34 years of my life. |
- Unburdened after 34 years of my life.
- Why I Dumped My Meditation Timer
- Is the purpose if meditation, having zero thoughts or no thoughts?
- Meditation is like having a date with yourself
- Meditation and sleep
- DAE get flashes of random, not even necessarily important, old memories?
- Uncontrollable tears during deep meditation
- How do I know if I'm meditating?
- Can anyone relate?
- Eyes keep subtly moving when I meditate with my eyes open
- Dont know why im feeling this tension in my stomach and its making me anxious
- Know your inner child
- Is it normal to cry in the middle of meditation?
- Getting Started
- How does a 5 min meditation every morning reduce stress in a stressful day?
- You are consciousness, you are this space in which everything appears
- In search of meditation without breath focus
- Restless mind
- How can I love myself?
- On meditation positions
- How to cope with stress, anxiety, and raise low self-esteem
- Back pain - cushion, chair, any tips to help?
- How to Start Meditating for Beginners
| Unburdened after 34 years of my life. Posted: 15 Jun 2021 09:17 AM PDT I was always aware of only one thing - my thoughts. Thoughts were the only sign of life. Due to however sensitive i was - i never believed awareness can be placed on my body or emotions. Maybe i never wanted to do so. Thoughts were my everything. Whether i was in a positive mood or a negative mood depended on my the texture of my thoughts. If i needed relaxation, i had to create an entertaining thought and dwell in it. After two months of meditation, i learnt not to see my body, emotions and thoughts as one bundle. I now understand that awareness can be placed on my body and emotions too thereby relieving me from the intensity of thoughts. Right now I feel like I am LIVING UNBURDENED. The secret lies in acceptance. I never liked myself being weak or restless. I never liked myself embracing my emotions. So two things happened unknowingly - gave more power to thoughts and become less and less aware of myself. Whether or not i feel strong or weak or sad or happy, i am now placing my "complete awareness" on my emotions or body or object of focus. And i am seeing miracles. My next challenge is to take these learnings into my stressful work environment. [link] [comments] |
| Why I Dumped My Meditation Timer Posted: 15 Jun 2021 08:37 AM PDT I'm sorry, Insight Timer, but it's over. It's not you, it's me. Well, it's a little bit you. When we first got together, I really loved your streak tracker. Watching the number of days tick up by one really gave me this...rush. It made me happy. You made me happy. But then I grew to need it. I didn't really want to meditate, I just wanted to see that number change. It did help me stay on track and build my practice...but this isn't working for me anymore. I think it's time for me to move on. Okay, I'm not going to belabor the breakup metaphor any further. I think you get the point. I was very attached to my meditation timer. And that's contrary to the point of meditation practice. So, I decided to dump it. Here's how I arrived at that difficult decision. A little over a year ago, this thing happened. Not sure if you've heard of it...uh, Coronavirus? Anyway, I was stressed out. I thought it would be a great time to commit to meditating every day. I set a goal. I would meditate every day for a year. 365 days. I would sit down first thing every morning and do 20 minutes. I would track all of my sessions on Insight Timer. I was really dedicated. Maybe too dedicated. For instance, if I was in an online meditation class or out of service or my phone was dead, I would always go back later and manually log a session in the app. That way, the numbers would continue to accumulate (and I'd earn my stars). If I didn't do that, I'd get a big fat zero at the end of my next session. It felt like a punch to the gut. I can't remember missing a day. But I'm certain that if I did, I would have faked it. So, there was probably a little deception in this relationship too. The big shift came a couple of months ago. A friend turned me on to Sam Harris' meditation app, Waking Up. I got a free 30-day trial and I did the introductory course. I'm going to write an entire piece about this specifically so I won't go into detail here. But suffice it to say, it was eye-opening. Most notably, it brought into focus the unhealthy relationship I was in with my current meditation app. At this point, I now have two meditation apps on my phone. And I'm still relying on Insight Timer to keep track of my days in a row. So, each morning, I'm logging into Insight Timer, starting the clock, opening Waking Up, doing the meditation, re-opening Insight Timer, hitting the 'done' button. All of this to just get that dopamine hit when day 231 turns to day 232. Why not just track my streak in Waking Up, you ask? Well, that's because Waking Up doesn't have a day tracker. It used to. It doesn't anymore. A fact Sam (rather unceremoniously) announced one day. He outlined how streak tracking was not necessary for a healthy practice and how they made the mistake of just copying what the competition was doing without really thinking about it. And, poof, everybody's streaks were just...gone. He closed with "You're Welcome." Was this directed at me personally? My stomach literally sank and I logged into Insight Timer to make sure my numbers were still safe. Then it finally hit me: this is stupid. Why am I obsessing over this? When that day counter hits 365, then what? What do I get out of this? The best I could come up with was that I could write a blog post or show a friend screenshots of my streak and all my stats. For clout. What would that get me? What kind of lunatic am I, exactly? Who the hell would care? What kind of person flexes their meditation app profile? But, I'm ashamed to admit, I went another two weeks logging in, starting my timer, switching apps, and going back to watch the days accumulate. When the day finally came and I hit my goal, I poured over the stats. I read through all the charts. I meticulously counted my stars (47 of them). And I'm really ashamed to admit that I almost chickened out completely. See, I hit 365 early in March and so the bar graph that showed my total minutes of meditation had 11 full months and one puny, little bar for March. I seriously considered keeping the charade going just through the end of the month so that the bar graph would look more impressive. So it would be complete. And I even took the screenshots. Today, I logged into Insight Timer again. Not to meditate, but to look at my profile one last time. Where the number 365 used to be there is a dash, signifying zero days in a row. I'm still meditating every day. But I'm also grieving the breakup. [link] [comments] |
| Is the purpose if meditation, having zero thoughts or no thoughts? Posted: 15 Jun 2021 08:20 PM PDT What Is the real purpose of meditation? I want to empty my mind completely is it possible? I have been meditating for many months but I still have so many thoughts more specifically negative unnecessary Thoughts for example I was exercising last night and I was laying on the floor to do crunches and my mine started imagining unnecessary imagination that someone came into my room and accusing me of what I was doing laying on the floor and started fighting me it was so necessary thought it disturb my whole mood I mean why do I have all these unnecessary negative thoughts it is just ruins my whole mood totally unnecessary sometime my mind will just create unnecessary imagination like someone created a drama with me and fighting with me Try so hard to empty my mind but there is always something chattering in the mind just like a hive of bees What is the real purpose of meditation what is meditation? [link] [comments] |
| Meditation is like having a date with yourself Posted: 15 Jun 2021 06:12 PM PDT I've been currently in a particularly stresful time with work and having to change to a new apartment, also, quarantine it's still going on in my country. All of this and my novice experience with meditation has led me to not meditate most days because I feel it's difficult. Today I entered in a state of meditation listening to a quiet song that I could relate and I felt like I was having a real encounter with myself, like full listening and talking to me, feeling me. Recently I encountered a post saying that meditation is no about self improvement and I agree (this is just side effect that could and probably would happen). I think it'a more about creating a space to really feel what it's like to be alive [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 16 Jun 2021 01:05 AM PDT Short question: I usally meditate in the morning before breakfast but sometimes I do a session before going to sleep as well. Every time I do this though, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night at 3-4 a.m. and having trouble sleeping in after that. I usually don't wake up in the night, but it literally always happens when I meditate before going to bed. I don't want to overinterprete this but does anyone have similar experiences? [link] [comments] |
| DAE get flashes of random, not even necessarily important, old memories? Posted: 15 Jun 2021 09:46 PM PDT Stuff I totally forgot about. Moments, times, places. Hard not to focus on it. Like a miniature life review. [link] [comments] |
| Uncontrollable tears during deep meditation Posted: 15 Jun 2021 09:42 PM PDT I've been meditating for around 4 months. The other day I was practicing vipassana meditation. Open eyed looking at my house plant. Suddenly the house plant no longer seemed like it was across from me, my entire visual field lost all dimention. I was so close to everything. My jaw was on the floor. I was everything. Open eyed, tears just started streaming down my face. Not crying necessarily just endless tears. Now I had cried before while meditating but that was during my loving kindness practice, they were tears of pure joy. This was not that. They were not happy nor sad. I am slightly confused by this. Has anyone else experienced this, is this a common occurrence? [link] [comments] |
| How do I know if I'm meditating? Posted: 16 Jun 2021 02:02 AM PDT I had tried meditation few times before, like 2 months ago. I tried 5 and 10 minutes. When I was "meditating", i feel bored but of course i focused on my breathing. Not only i felt bored but I also don't feel any different after I meditate. How do I know if it's working? How do I make it work? Right now I'm considering to try meditating again. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 15 Jun 2021 05:32 PM PDT This is the first time I have actually ever posted on a reddit page instead of just watching from a distance. However....I had to tell someone this feeling. I have continuously been a very emotional person and everything got to me. Ever since I have been continuously meditating, I have become desensitized to A LOT of things. But the most important/weirdest change has been (i don't know if this has happened to anyone else) that I see my life playing out like a movie. It's so weird! Like everything that happens seems like it's been planned and is SUPPOSED to happen. I promised I'm not on drugs and I'm not saying i don't like this feeling. Just the opposite, I feel so much more in control. I just wanted to see if anyone else has experienced it. P.S. I lied, I have also regularly been taking Ashwaganda. [link] [comments] |
| Eyes keep subtly moving when I meditate with my eyes open Posted: 16 Jun 2021 01:36 AM PDT I hear that mediating with eyes open is "better" because you go through day to day life with your eyes open. But I have noticed my eyes moving with every breath, like litte movements and then I need to refocus my eyes again and again. Anyone else? [link] [comments] |
| Dont know why im feeling this tension in my stomach and its making me anxious Posted: 15 Jun 2021 10:58 PM PDT Hey guys I'm 22(M) and I've been dealing with anxiety for a while now. I had sweaty palms throughout the day, stomach tight and armpits sweating. It's been two years since I've been feeling this. I got heavy into drugs and smoking to subdue it but it always catches up. What bothers me is failing to understand what's causing this to happen. I woke up this morning feeling anxious, thoughts rushing and my stomach very tight, to the point I could see the solar plexus region trembling. I don't know why I'm feeling this and that in turn is making me think more.. Obviously, it's not a comfortable feeling and therefore there is a resistance to feeling it. I mean I feel it and try to look at it objectively but I can't help but think ' why is this happening?' Am I doing what I'm supposed to so that I can alleviate this feeling? What do I need to do now? Will I ever feel relaxed completely? I would really appreciate some words of advice from you lovely people. time and again this subreddit has helped me get answers for many of lifes questions. Thank you [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 15 Jun 2021 11:32 AM PDT We fail to understand ourselves. There is an impulse arising from within, but we do not understand what it is saying and we treat it in totally the wrong way. Let's say there is a child. And our inner impulse, the central tendency is like a little kid―it shows very little maturity. So, let's say there is a kid, and the kid is yelling. And the kid is not yet grown enough to express its needs and demands very clearly. All it does is yell. It cries, shrieks, rolls on the ground, throws about its limbs—that's what the kid does—and you are not paying attention to the kid. You are just irritated by the kid's noises. You want to just somehow silence the kid. So, instead of understanding and appreciating what the kid really needs, you just pick something up and force it down his throat. First of all, you are assuming that the kid is yelling because he is hungry. The kid is not yelling because the he is hungry for some worldly food, for some material comfort—first thing. Secondly, you have not even bothered to investigate what kind of food is good for the kid. Just because you don't like the noise, just because you feel impelled to do something about the situation, you hurriedly, very carelessly give some kind of treatment to your situation moment-after-moment. The inner kid keeps agitating, and you keep feeding it the wrong stuff; you keep treating it the wrong way. You think it is hungry for food—maybe it is hungry for love. How will you know if you are not in touch with yourself? That's what is called 'self-inquiry'. Go into yourself and ask and see what your inner kid is craving for. Once you know what your inner kid is craving for, you are in a situation to feed it the right thing. [link] [comments] |
| Is it normal to cry in the middle of meditation? Posted: 15 Jun 2021 06:42 PM PDT I feel like I am doing this practice wrong 😔 [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 15 Jun 2021 08:59 PM PDT New to meditation and have absolutely no prior experience or knowledge of it. Just felt like I should be doing it for myself. I am planning 5 mins per day to start with..just did it today. Any community or channel where I can join the group to make this a habit? Any tips/suggestions/recommendations for a beginner ? [link] [comments] |
| How does a 5 min meditation every morning reduce stress in a stressful day? Posted: 16 Jun 2021 02:20 AM PDT I want to do meditation ye reduce stress in my day to day life. I have read about mindfulness meditation and many blog authors claim that they did meditation for 30 days and their stress has gone down significantly. I am suspicious of this because my days are usually very stressful, it's very circumstantial…so I'm failing to believe that doing 5 mins of meditation in morning will keep your stress low all day? How does it work? My stress won't go up until my boss calls me with work to be finished within a deadline. How is that connected to meditation I've done sometime in the morning? What am I missing? Should I do meditation every time I get stressed? That seems less productive having to meditate at random times at random places to reduce stress. Please help me in understanding this. [link] [comments] |
| You are consciousness, you are this space in which everything appears Posted: 15 Jun 2021 06:00 AM PDT The walls of your experience are paradoxically confined to your experience but also vastly limitless. You are simply this energy that experiences the world, and will one day cease to do so. However, you are not bound to any experience! Fear, anger, sadness, and happiness are all just visitors, you need not be bound to them in a way that makes you less present. Sit on the roof of your home, or find an open street in your neighborhood, and look up. These clouds that hover over our heads just move, so slowly. Notice how beautiful they really are, how predictable they are, and how you have an sense of distance between you and it. How do you feel? Calm? Anxious? Just notice these moods like you notice the clouds, acknowledge its presence but let it float, don't jump around trying to catch them, or change their color, or mend their shape. Accept and acknowledge your experience, but don't be halted by anything. [link] [comments] |
| In search of meditation without breath focus Posted: 15 Jun 2021 08:54 PM PDT I meditate every day and have used several applications as well as doing it solo and seeing my progress my girlfriend is trying to start meditation as well. She's very excited for her own personal journey, which I fully support, but there is a hitch. Due to some trauma, she has extreme anxiety/panic attacks when she thinks about her breathing. She actually bought an oximeter (the clip for the finger) just to talk herself down when she gets upset. Initially, I thought we'll just go with chanting- but every guided exercise still has a major focus on breath work before chanting begins. I've tried to design some meditations myself that she can use, but I'm finding it difficult as well without incorporating breath focus. We've gone as far as trying repetitive exercise- handwriting as meditation is one strange example we looked at- but to no avail. Does anyone know of applications or YouTube videos that might help cater to this new need, or have any suggestions to help us out? [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 16 Jun 2021 12:11 AM PDT Hey everyone I just wanted to share my current situation, my mind never has rest other than when it's sleep and that's because I barely have alone time and I've had some issues meditating. Apart from that, a lot has been going on in my life, things that are mentally challenging. I got big decisions to make in my life in all aspects. Things are pilling up in my head, relationships, financial situations, friends, my well being. All that and more is putting a toll on me. Despite that my mind keeps working and I see myself having to mask all of that stress. I've said before how I find it really difficult to meditate and can't do it for more than 2 mins, it's just makes it worst for me it's a feeling of me exploding and getting really irritated when I meditate. I am honestly feeling like I'm going crazy and losing a lot of hope. Meditation is my only way out and that door is locked... sometimes I believe that even if I get to do it it won't change anything because I see how people still have normal lives after they do it. I want to be so free and can't. My demon is taking over me [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 15 Jun 2021 05:49 AM PDT 22M and I'm majorly depressed and I tried working out or doing the things I like but it's not working. I'm always scared and insecure and lives in a heavily restricted house rules. I always try impress others but no one respects me. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 15 Jun 2021 04:38 PM PDT Pretty much the only meditation position that I find comfortable is sitting on my bed, back to the headboard for support, right had over left, and - most importantly - feet positioned in a way where my knees are bent and my soles are touching. This is the only way I can meditate for a serious amount of time. I've tried Burmese, Half-lotus, Full Lotus(couldn't even get close) and all of them leave my feet feeling numb and tingly after a short time. Not to mention the pain. I've searched up and down the internet for tips on how to sit and no one ever mentions the soles-touching method. I know that there's no inherently wrong way to meditate, but I'm wondering, since this position is seemingly never mentioned, is there something wrong with it? [link] [comments] |
| How to cope with stress, anxiety, and raise low self-esteem Posted: 15 Jun 2021 03:53 PM PDT Everyone is talking about meditating, becoming better balanced and just ZEN-ing the hell out of reality. It seems that way anyway :) I hear that many people use Calm and Headspace to take the load off. I've tried them too and I think that those apps are really good for easy relaxation, mastering breathing techniques, and just for escaping from daily routine. But is meditation enough to deal with more serious mental discomforts like anxiety or phobias? I started thinking about this after seeing requests on my Facebook like "How do I cope with anxiety if I'm not ready to visit a therapist?" and "Any tips on raising self-esteem?" So I started looking for something more science-based than meditation. Initially, I had self-help books in mind, but how many of us have the time to read them? I am a CBT therapy adept myself. I've been seeing a therapist for more than two years, and it's done wonders for me. Anyway, I've put together a list of apps that I think are worth looking at. I really took my time and went through all of them: listened to the audio sessions, filled out tables, and even wrote in my journal. Therappy ➕ On the contrary, this one was really easy to start using. There is no authorization process, so I started right away. ➖ Therappy is still building its content and there are only three courses available at the moment. But three courses lasted me two months. More courses on panic attacks, phobias, and procrastination are coming within the next month. 💸 3-days free trial MindShift Mindshift has thorough information about the nature and signs of anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, and perfectionism. It provides theory basics for many psychological issues. All the info is available in text format, so I used this app whenever I had a lot of free time to read. ➕ Another thing that I liked is that the app helped me identify my mental discomfort at the moment. I was worrying about a public presentation I had to do, so the app helped me understand that the emotion I was experiencing was actually anxiety. This can be a pleasant way to start understanding your emotions. You tell the app your "symptoms", the app diagnoses your emotion. (Not sure how accurate the verdicts are though:) ➖ I didn't like that the app asked for so much of my personal data. Not like I'm hiding from anyone, it just seemed like it took too much time to actually start. 💸 Free Betterhelp I'm sure it's helped many people during the pandemic. It's a good match for those who prefer talking to an actual person. First I answered some onboarding questions about whether I wanted my therapist to be a woman or a man. Then I had to choose a convenient communication method (messaging, phone, or video). ➕ I bought one session just to test the service. I thought the therapist was nice, felt comfortable speaking with her. She actually helped me figure out why I'm late so often (hello, unrealistic self-perception!) ➖ No quick fix. As usual, therapy takes a lot of time. Consider Betterhep if you are experiencing serious mental discomforts because self-help might not suffice. Quirk ➕ Nice and simple interface. This app helps tracking automatic thoughts. Quirk uses the "three-column method" from CBT. It's also called "catch it, check it, change it." I think this app can be a great addition to regular therapy. 💸 7-days trial Mindset Mindset has a specialty - hypnotherapy programs. It's a psychotherapy method that helps with some mental issues. I listened to short sessions of hypnosis, which helped me focus on my thinking patterns. My goal was to let go of a thought, which annoyed me for weeks (there is this woman at work, who continually ticks me off). As a result, I felt much more relaxed but the thought was still there:) (No worries, I got rid of that thought with my therapist the next day.) ➕ I fell asleep like a baby that evening, and according to other reviews, I wasn't the only one. ➖ Like Quirk, Mindset requests a paid trial subscription. 💸 7-days trial Ladder This app might be a good idea if you are making your first steps towards therapy. It has relaxing audio-sessions and is more meant for increasing mindfulness. Ladder's got seven programs. I really liked the ones on stress management and relationship building. Each audio covers a separate subject. ➕ Daily positive affirmations ➖ Audio sessions have a poor sound recording. I felt constantly distracted by the noises in the background. 💸 [link] [comments] |
| Back pain - cushion, chair, any tips to help? Posted: 15 Jun 2021 01:44 PM PDT Today I tried meditating sitting straight and with legs crossed but after a while my back started to hurt (obviously, I have pretty bad sitting habits). I tried meditating in my gaming chair which has back support pillow (normally I don't use it, but it helped a bit) but I want to be on the ground because the chair reminds me of work and I can't really relax. Is it better to use a cushion or a meditation chair? And will the back get used to the cross legged position and the pain will go away the more I'll try (I don't want to push it, I'll slowly increase the time in this position according to the pain and feeling)? Or do you have any other tips? Thanks for help, I really want to meditate regurarly as I feel it makes me happy, but this makes it pretty tough for me. [link] [comments] |
| How to Start Meditating for Beginners Posted: 15 Jun 2021 06:45 PM PDT Have you tried to meditate and find the experience annoying? The more you try to relax your mind, the more thinking enters your head? Here are tips on what you can do instead. Hope this helps! [link] [comments] |
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