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comment by rezzeJ
rezzeJ  ·  2290 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: December 20, 2017

I'm half-way to completing my goal of meditating every day for a year. Speaking of which, Frankie Boyle had a funny bit about meditation in his latest stand-up:

    I think meditation is just something we came up with to get rid of people that are annoying us:

    "I'm having all these terrible problems with my thoughts."

    "Yeah, what you need to do is go and sit over there and be very, very quiet for an incredibly long period of time. It takes a really long time to get this right. Concentrate on your breath, rather than your talking... In fact... GO TO CHINA, SIT OUT ON A MOUNTAIN, AND SHUT THE FUCK UP OVER THERE!

I've also been getting Piano lessons which i'm enjoying. That's about it in terms of updates. Life continues on a steady path.





weewooweewoo  ·  2290 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I keep expecting something from meditation, which keeps me from doing it regularly. Can I ask if anything has changed for you after half a year?

rezzeJ  ·  2289 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My first experience with meditation was around 3 years ago. At that time I was dealing with a lot of anxiety. During one session, after around 5 months, I had an 'epiphany' which did a lot to help me deal with those thoughts and feelings. That's the sort of thing you can point to and say: "meditation was a catalyst for a significant change in my life."

I hadn't practiced for a year or more before starting this goal. There's been no changes quite so radical this time around. I attribute this to me being a more adjusted person overall than last time. Having said that, there are a few things I've noticed over the last 6 months:

1 - I'm better at letting go of things and changing frames of mind quickly. For example, say I was doing focused work or getting worked up whilst playing game. If I then suddenly had to go out or change activity for whatever reason, I can now do that without much bother. Whereas before, mindsets and emotions would've often carried over. Like a flick of a switch, you could say.

2 - I can more easily handle distractions whilst working. It's easier to catch myself before I carried away from whatever I want to focus on.

3 - I'm much more content with act of meditating itself. I still have 'good' and 'bad' days, days where the mind is restless or where I just don't feel like doing it. But once I actually start, I can sit there contently without much resistance to the practice itself.

I didn't expect any of this though. I did the practice for its own sake, because I enjoy it and appreciate how I feel afterwards. Ideally, you shouldn't expect anything from mindfulness meditation. The goal is to sit there and observer your thoughts and feelings as they unfold, without judgement. There's nothing else to it than that. Having an expectation obstructs this process because you start reacting to the things you experience or the practice itself, rather than just sitting and observing. Mindfulness Meditation is intended to be for its own sake and any changes you experience are a natural result of that approach.

I'll quote a Headspace blog here:

    Any attempt to analyze the perceived progress of meditation is really the beginning of the end. All we are doing is turning up each day to watch the mind. All we can really say is that we are more attentive and more aware or less attentive and less aware. The only problem is that the mind doing the judging and analysis is the same mind which is being judged and analysed—which gets a bit tricky. We also have the problem that the mind analyzing the mind now, is a different mind than the one which analyzed the mind previously—in so much as our perception is always changing. These two factors alone make any analysis impossible.

    Instead, next time you sit, simply notice whether you feel different in any way at all when you finish your meditation than when you first sat down. I am not talking about lightening bolts of insight or anything like that, but perhaps just feeling a little less tense, perhaps a little calmer, slightly more aware of how you are feeling and a little softer around the edges. If you begin your meditation free from any expectation and with the motivation to quietly benefit others, then more often than not you will experience these benefits.

At the end of the day, If I compare my current self to myself 6 months in the past I wouldn't be like: "OMG you've got to meditate it's life changing!!". I don't think it's a necessary thing for everyone to do or a required activity to become a better person. There's no shame in not meditating if you don't enjoy it or derive anything from it. I have however enjoyed my practice over the past 6 months and have appreciated the smaller changes I listed above.

Having said that, I always recommend it to people who are experiencing anxiety or panic due to the significant positive changes it helped instigate for me on that account.