TBnRB's Meditation POWWOW

[TB]

This is a place for all levels of meditators to come in and share their experiences! This is also a place you could get help if you have questions. It should be noted that all information should be taken with a grain of salt if not provided by a practicing professional. 

 

You all can share techniques, what positions you use, what your goals in meditation are, or just about anything! 

 

 

I'll start my thread describing a metta meditation, also known as a loving kindness meditation. It has been the primarily way I have forced Rena as of late. 

 

I spent the first 5 minutes getting relaxed, focusing on the breath.

 

After that is complete, you want to start generating positive feelings inside of you anyway you can. Through positive images, like puppies, those always work for me. Then I'll say a mantra. "May I be free from suffering. May I be free from all forms of suffering, physical and mental. May I be free from the hindrances of Desire and Averserion. May I be free from the hindrances of Laziness, Lethargy, and Doubt. May I be free from the hindrances of Worry and Remorse." Just imagine a reality like that, where all that is the case. Eventually you will develop a positive feeling. It takes practice though. It is slower for some than others. You want to focus on and hold it when you do get it, though without grasping.. 

 

From there, the next mantra is "May I be free from ill will. May I be at peace with everyone and everything, including myself." And try to imagine what it would be like to have no grudges and how good that feels. 

 

Beyond that, now we are asking, "May I be filled with loving kindness, overflowing even", and do whatever you can to feel these emotions, whether it is through memory or some scenario you make up in your mind. 

 

Finally, you go to yourself. "May I be fully and truly happy independent of conditions, not needing or wanting anything." 

 

After you go through that, you do the same thing, but you imagine a close friend. In my case, I imagine my tulpa, Rena, and you want to send the feelings you generated to them. It makes her feel very good. I think sending to a tulpa is legit. After that though, you have to sent it to others. Acquaintances or neutral people, like the cashier at the store. Then after that, people you don't get along with well or feel ill will towards. This increases the challenge, and it might be harder to hold the metta for the later categories of people, but this training will help you do that in time.

 

You don't have to believe you have magical psychic energy that is actually doing anything, but it helps if you do. Either way, the primary result of this meditation does involve the ability to be able generate these feelings easier and easier, and makes dealing with hard people much easier, and beautiful people just seem so much more so. 

 

Also how could I forget. After you do this for yourself and people personal to you, you send the metta energy out in all 6 directions, sending metta to all sentient beings in the whole universe/all realms if you believe in those. Then you finally take some time to send metta to yourself too again, to cultivate self love.

 

Whether or not you believe in the mystical side of its power, it does have a verifiable improvement on the mental health of people who do it.

 

So sorry for my poor writing! It seems  bit a mess, but I hope this works out well!

 

Edit: I think I fixed the writing, over 3 years later. If it is still messed up, then fml

Edited December 26, 2023 by TB

[SheShe]

[SheShe] This is really good! Bear has been doing similar 'self-love' practices this whole year, but before then we have always been his source of love and kindness. There hasn't been drama from any of us in who knows how long. 

 

[Bear] I consider myself extrodinarily lucky to have such a beautiful and positive system to support me. They really taught me self-love, they brought back my self-confidence and self-esteem, and they turned the hell I walked into my heaven. I don't need to die to experience unconditional love, kindness, and forgiveness; they're all here.

 

[SheShe] The kind of meditation you describe should help a lot for anyone. 

[TB]

That' great! I am lucky too to have such a positive girl to support me. Though it hasn't healed all my other issues yet, it is the goal to eventually be mentally free.

 

And I'm glad you feel that way. Unconditional love, kindness, and forgiveness come from within.

 

And oh I'd be so happy if it helps out someone else.

[GrayTheCat]

I think your method is interesting, but I don't think it's the best fit for me. When I meditate, I usually do mantra with counting just to enter a trance state and occupy myself when I'm really bored. I also have the unusual problem of being anxious about breathing while meditating, so I steer clear form breathing meditations even though those are some of the better ones.

 

I don't use mantra for speaking with my headmates. Instead, I just go strait to talking to them and usually that by itself is enough to make me forget I'm sitting in my bed. When I'm having a hard time focusing though, I usually practice wonderland immersion which seems to share some things in common with mindfulness meditations.

 

[Ranger] Have you ever felt anxiety around finding the time and space to meditate? Cat has a lot of trouble with this and I'm wondering if there's a few things we can try. We don't have a consistent schedule, but we end up watching hours fly by and missed opportunities...

[Luminesce]

So the only kind of "meditation" I do could be stated as simply as "Going over/dealing with the thoughts that've been on your mind recently". And I think it's by far the most productive type of meditation for the largest number of people.

 

I have friends and family who are literally afraid to sit down and be alone with their own thoughts doing such a thing, which is astounding to me. You know that same brain has to live out your entire life, right? How long do you expect to keep on living like that? You think it's going to just sort itself out? That is literally what "you" are for, the conscious part of the brain exists to handle exactly such things. It makes you a lot more productive and makes your life a lot easier, if you can just bother.

 

While by all means you can sit down in a quiet place and "meditate" to do this, people frequently do it (probably sometimes without even realizing it) while going on walks, driving (I won't recommend this directly, but my friend says he does it), or typical turn-your-brain-off activities like cleaning et cetera. (I do it while showering, but I take pretty long showers) Consider keeping your brain on, though.

 

I don't know/remember the name of this activity and I'm sure it formally exists, but I believe the gist is you sit down and empty your mind..... except instead of trying to shut out all the random thoughts that come up, dealing with them is actually the goal. Consider a thought that comes to mind, for example something simple like having thought recently "I should add some kind of fruit to my diet". Maybe go over what types of fruits whatever store(s) you shop at have and what you'd be willing to eat, or maybe decide you'll look up what health benefits different fruits have the next time you're at your computer (or just your phone, really). 

 

Then when that's about played out, move on to the next thought that comes up. It's best to have a little self control here and not just let your mind completely drift between fluff topics, but I guess you could if you wanted. It's more productive to actively be trying to think about aspects/events/problems of your life warranting your attention, though. Next thought might be that you've been meaning to pick up some kind of exercise, not a full on gym membership (but hey if you want to that works too) but something easy to just do. Again, you should probably set aside time to go look up {exercises that meet your criteria}, I recommend jumping jacks personally lol. You could use this time to decide what to actually do after looking them up though.

 

Basically, you just do this for as long as you feel like. Basically all of my diet changes and a lot of decisions on activities to do (an activity to do related to my tulpas; looking up advice on lucid/vivid dreaming; starting a new exercise habit, etc.) have come from the times I've spent doing this. And while I'm glad I do it by default in my long showers, that's really not all the time it deserves. When I've taken time aside to do this in the past just sitting in my bed (Tewi has done it 3 times as many times as me, though) I've always ended with one or more things to put into action soon after that improve my life in some way or are just good to do. Remembering to check up on such-and-such things is pretty common too, and who knows what else.

 

Funnily enough, a lot of people really do do this exact thing naturally, normally during consistent downtimes they have in their lives like walks or such. Those people would probably be pretty surprised to know just how common it is to not do anything like that either, though. Really makes you wonder how those people get along in life lol, but I guess the brain is just good at avoiding thinking about stuff.

 

And uh.. I'm not a professional, I really don't have an answer for what exactly you should do if when you try to do this you just have trauma-related/invasive negative thoughts. I know that that's an even worse sign than just having a disorganized mind though, and that you should probably see a therapist or other professional, because that's even less of an okay way to live. While it's harder to deal with, same thing I said before - that's the same brain that has to live your entire life, how long do you expect to keep living like that? It's not going to sort itself out. But in this case you probably want some help sorting it out, too.

 

 

TL;DR Just take some time now and then to focus on thoughts, problems, and things-you-meant-to-do in your life. I assure you the time you spend "sitting there doing nothing" will be infinitely better spent than all the time you waste on say social media/browsing memes or communities/watching Youtube videos, et cetera. I promise you see actual benefits to your life from this, often immediate ones even. This should offer basically every "benefit of meditation" under the sun, except possibly visualization clarity, though for all I know that'll go up too lol.

Edited July 31, 2020 by Luminesce

[TB]

18 hours ago, Cat_ShadowGriffin said:

I think your method is interesting, but I don't think it's the best fit for me. When I meditate, I usually do mantra with counting just to enter a trance state and occupy myself when I'm really bored. I also have the unusual problem of being anxious about breathing while meditating, so I steer clear form breathing meditations even though those are some of the better ones.

 

I don't use mantra for speaking with my headmates. Instead, I just go strait to talking to them and usually that by itself is enough to make me forget I'm sitting in my bed. When I'm having a hard time focusing though, I usually practice wonderland immersion which seems to share some things in common with mindfulness meditations.

 

[Ranger] Have you ever felt anxiety around finding the time and space to meditate? Cat has a lot of trouble with this and I'm wondering if there's a few things we can try. We don't have a consistent schedule, but we end up watching hours fly by and missed opportunities...

I think it is worth giving a try here and there and see what happens. It usually isn't the primary meditation in one's practice, but done supplementary, though it can be a main practice if you want it to be. Once you get use to it you can pretty much make your body buzz with subtle pleasure at will, and those much better at it than me can feel it so intensely the happiness expands from them in all directions.

 

To Ranger: My best advice is to just do it. Anytime I have resistance to meditating, it just means there is something that needs to be worked on, and I won't regret it once I sit down. Also the best time to find time to meditate is probably right after you wake up, when it is probably most quiet, and it will be a wonderful start to your day. Days I meditate are so much better than days I don't. I had a good schedule going on until I had to abruptly stop my SSRI's and I started going through terrible withdrawals that I haven't recovered from.

 

18 hours ago, Luminesce said:

So the only kind of "meditation" I do could be stated as simply as "Going over/dealing with the thoughts that've been on your mind recently". And I think it's by far the most productive type of meditation for the largest number of people.

 

I have friends and family who are literally afraid to sit down and be alone with their own thoughts doing such a thing, which is astounding to me. You know that same brain has to live out your entire life, right? How long do you expect to keep on living like that? You think it's going to just sort itself out? That is literally what "you" are for, the conscious part of the brain exists to handle exactly such things. It makes you a lot more productive and makes your life a lot easier, if you can just bother.

 

While by all means you can sit down in a quiet place and "meditate" to do this, people frequently do it (probably sometimes without even realizing it) while going on walks, driving (I won't recommend this directly, but my friend says he does it), or typical turn-your-brain-off activities like cleaning et cetera. (I do it while showering, but I take pretty long showers) Consider keeping your brain on, though.

 

I don't know/remember the name of this activity and I'm sure it formally exists, but I believe the gist is you sit down and empty your mind..... except instead of trying to shut out all the random thoughts that come up, dealing with them is actually the goal. Consider a thought that comes to mind, for example something simple like having thought recently "I should add some kind of fruit to my diet". Maybe go over what types of fruits whatever store(s) you shop at have and what you'd be willing to eat, or maybe decide you'll look up what health benefits different fruits have the next time you're at your computer (or just your phone, really). 

 

Then when that's about played out, move on to the next thought that comes up. It's best to have a little self control here and not just let your mind completely drift between fluff topics, but I guess you could if you wanted. It's more productive to actively be trying to think about aspects/events/problems of your life warranting your attention, though. Next thought might be that you've been meaning to pick up some kind of exercise, not a full on gym membership (but hey if you want to that works too) but something easy to just do. Again, you should probably set aside time to go look up {exercises that meet your criteria}, I recommend jumping jacks personally lol. You could use this time to decide what to actually do after looking them up though.

 

Basically, you just do this for as long as you feel like. Basically all of my diet changes and a lot of decisions on activities to do (an activity to do related to my tulpas; looking up advice on lucid/vivid dreaming; starting a new exercise habit, etc.) have come from the times I've spent doing this. And while I'm glad I do it by default in my long showers, that's really not all the time it deserves. When I've taken time aside to do this in the past just sitting in my bed (Tewi has done it 3 times as many times as me, though) I've always ended with one or more things to put into action soon after that improve my life in some way or are just good to do. Remembering to check up on such-and-such things is pretty common too, and who knows what else.

 

Funnily enough, a lot of people really do do this exact thing naturally, normally during consistent downtimes they have in their lives like walks or such. Those people would probably be pretty surprised to know just how common it is to not do anything like that either, though. Really makes you wonder how those people get along in life lol, but I guess the brain is just good at avoiding thinking about stuff.

 

And uh.. I'm not a professional, I really don't have an answer for what exactly you should do if when you try to do this you just have trauma-related/invasive negative thoughts. I know that that's an even worse sign than just having a disorganized mind though, and that you should probably see a therapist or other professional, because that's even less of an okay way to live. While it's harder to deal with, same thing I said before - that's the same brain that has to live your entire life, how long do you expect to keep living like that? It's not going to sort itself out. But in this case you probably want some help sorting it out, too.

 

 

TL;DR Just take some time now and then to focus on thoughts, problems, and things-you-meant-to-do in your life. I assure you the time you spend "sitting there doing nothing" will be infinitely better spent than all the time you waste on say social media/browsing memes or communities/watching Youtube videos, et cetera. I promise you see actual benefits to your life from this, often immediate ones even. This should offer basically every "benefit of meditation" under the sun, except possibly visualization clarity, though for all I know that'll go up too lol.

I agree with a lot of what you've said. What you are doing sounds similar to mindful review, which is also something I recommend doing. It is taking time out of your day to go through the day's, or previous day's events and see what happened and how you reacted etc. Goal is to see what you're doing right, but also to catch yourself when you've handled something poorly or could have handled it better. It should help improve your behavior and have a similar effect to what you prescribe does if they aren't already the same thing.

 

I wouldn't underestimate the power of just plain breath meditation either though. I think ideally it is best to do both of them. Your brain does so much work behind your back that you can't see as well, and a lot of things get automatically sorted out unconsciously if you just give it the chance to by meditating. I hope to in future posts talk more about what meditation does and how and why it is beneficial, since it is counter-intuitive and hard to imagine as having any benefit, and for those that do think it probably helps, they give it much less credit than they should. Not saying that you are doing that, but I just want as many people as possible to be aware it exists and to know how to go about it as effectively as possible (even though I'm probably not the most qualified but I'll do my best) because if I didn't discover it my life would be tremendously worse if that can be imagined, and I feel confident it will get tremendously better as more time goes by.

 

Thank you everyone who has posted in our thread! I plan to keep updating it with new topic ideas for as long as I can, and anyone can feel free to just post their own thoughts or experiences related to meditation anytime they want.

Edited July 31, 2020 by TB

[TB]

Hello everyone. Today's advice I'd like to give is very essential to a successful meditation practice. For your meditation practice to have any meaning, you must carry on your mindfulness through daily life as well. It isn't enough to just sit and meditate. Doing so is like trying to fill up a bucket that has a hole in it. This is probably one of the primary reasons some people don't see benefit from meditation, besides not doing it every day. In fact, being mindful throughout the day is perhaps just as important if not more important than the actual formal sits. There are a few ways to help do this.

 

One is to be very happy anytime you randomly awaken to the moment throughout the day. It happens at least sometimes, and being very happy about it will encourage your mind to do it more often. This is actual similar to what you do in a normal formal sitting practice too.

 

Another one is to be totally present in most or all your tasks you do throughout the day. One way to do this is to not multi-task. Put your full attention into doing whatever you are doing in the moment. Like the Taoist saying, "When the old master eats, the old master eats. When the old master sleeps, the old master sleeps."

 

More helpful things to do is to supplement your main meditation practice with practice in motion. This is meditating while moving. Examples would be walking meditation, or Qi Gong/Tai Chi.

 

Finally, probably one of the most powerful ones I've made use of, is what Shinzen Young calls "micro hits". Throughout your day whenever you get the chance and are not doing something that requires your attention, give it your all to perform whatever meditation technique you want. It can be done for as short as a burst of 30 seconds or even a few minutes. Doing this several times throughout the day will greatly benefit your practice.

 

I hope this is helpful. Have a nice day!

[Guest]

Interesting, thanks for posting this. For as much meditation I've done, I've winged it the whole time.

[TB]

1 minute ago, Bear said:

Interesting, thanks for posting this. For as much meditation I've done, I've winged it the whole time.

 

Great, I'm glad you're happy I posted it! I've been learning a lot about meditation for a while now so I hope I can help people have more structured and specific practice that yields results. I've meditated for years with no results before because I didn't know what I was doing so actually learning about it is a life saver I think.

[Adelaide✫*ﾟ]

Man, it's been hot minute since we've last meditated.  Our host has this app called Insight Timer, and the last session she logged was 2 months ago.  I pretty sure she was stressed at the time and stopped when the stress let up.  It used to be one of her and Reiji's bonding activities, though occasionally someone else would sit with her.  It'd probably be worthwhile to establish it as a habit again.  It has felt pretty nice.  Maybe we'll set a certain daily activity as a cue, since that's how a lot of our most stable habits are formed too.

 

Usually for her, she'd just focus on her breath or do guided body scans.  She was never much for mantras.  If she sets any sort of intention for herself, she immediately gets anxious about not being able to follow through.  Being intentional about things like what we do or feel is genuinely difficult for all of us.  We're more go with the flow sorts, and it we're pretty sure it's a baked-in cognitive thing that affects all of us.  She's also looked into mindfulness, and not multitasking.  Generally, though, her mind tends to wander a lot... well, not just hers, but ours too if we get going.  Same brain, after all.  Though, it does feel satisfying, like we're getting to actually process stuff, even if we aren't specifically working on problems.  We don't feel draggy and tired after that like we do after a YouTube binge or working on a project for too long.

 

On 7/30/2020 at 10:28 PM, Luminesce said:

I don't know/remember the name of this activity and I'm sure it formally exists, but I believe the gist is you sit down and empty your mind..... except instead of trying to shut out all the random thoughts that come up, dealing with them is actually the goal.

That's how we tend to deal with stuff too.  Though, we tend to work more with our emotions.  Granted, it has been a learning process, instead of getting too involved with or identifying too closely with the more troubling ones, to understand them as they are.  Warning signs.  Like physical pain, the point of emotional pain isn't to just be this random scary thing that happens, it's a way of your body letting you know something's done goofed.  A doctor isn't going to look at your broken leg and be like, "Well, sure your bones aren't where they supposed to be and all, but have you tried not feeling pain and walking it off?"  Our society is slowly getting better about actually helping people in emotional pain, but there's still echoes of the old "get over it" mindset.  That kind of mindset spreads, gets in your head, and messes with your ability to evaluate your feelings, like a disease putting the body's immune system on overdrive and causing it to attack itself.

 

Another thing we realized is that, for us, jumping to finding solutions isn't always the best first step.  Like yeah, we want to figure things out and act more effectively, sure.  And sometimes if that feeling is just something simple, like "Oh, I need to move my butt and get more shredded," then by all means, move thy butt and become shredded.  But sometimes there's something that the emotional side is locked in on that we might not be aware of.  Sure, sometimes it does come from a maladaptive mindset stemming from something that happened in the past.  And I use the word "maladaptive," and not something like "bad," "wrong," or "stupid," because my host has been dismissing her emotions by calling them things like that for YEARS and it's never, not even once, made her any happier, any more effective as a person, any more productive, or whatever metric of "this a good person" you want to judge someone on.  Emotions are supposed to be there!  They serve a purpose!  I get really angry when people act like they aren't, when people only focus on the seemingly """""irrational""""" reactions people have to their emotions, because I've watched my host internalize that and react to herself that way and I know it's ineffective, unhelpful, and straight-up wrong. 

 

And you know what?  The more my host accepts her emotions, the more she looks at her past honestly and realizes sometimes she does draw incorrect conclusions, and the more she trusts us to listen to her and hear her out, the more loving and happy she becomes.  I think that's what's at the heart of unconditional love.  Acceptance.  Love isn't a feeling itself, though there are loving feelings.  It's more like an ongoing decision, the choice to accept and trust, over and over again.  And when you learn to do that for yourself, it becomes easier to understand how to do it for everyone else.

 

Maybe that's what lies at the heart of various meditative and mindful practices: an act in which one directs love at their own self, the way another might love them.  By helping them out, listening to them, or just by sitting quietly with them and offering their presence.