Awareness of 'different' selves

[Sally2012]

Hello everyone,

I'm only a couple of weeks into mindfulness meditation and am finding it very helpful for controlling anxiety. But there's one aspect of it that I'm finding a bit spooky.

So the idea of mindfulness meditation is that 'I' start to notice that 'I' am not my thoughts or my emotions. I have actually managed to achieve this state for a few fleeting minutes in my meditation and I can only describe it as a deeply 'spiritual' experience. It's like I've found my 'soul'. But I'm not *at all* a religious person! I'm really struggling to articulate my thoughts and feelings because of the need to use pronouns! "My" soul? "I" am not "my" thoughts. So what am "I" then? Certainly those few moments in meditation show me that there is 'something else' in here. I understand the idea that there might be 'different selves' within one body but I find the notion quite scary to be honest. Gosh, this all sounds so garbled!

Thanks for reading,
Sally

[Gareth]

Hi Sally, and welcome to the forum, please stick around and make some posts! You're topic makes me happy, because it is exactly the kind of thing that I dreamt this forum up for.

There is a special place you get to in a meditation sometimes, when everything else seems to fade away, and you are left staring at some profound truth that you never knew existed before. You've done really well to get there in a couple of week; I think it took me a lot longer than that. This is nothing mystical in my opinion. I am the most unreligious man that you could wish to meet, but it doesn't matter whether you are religious or not. In my view this is something to do with the way the brain works. Your thoughts are just a small part of you, but they tend to dominate everything, moving into the consciousness and obliterating everything else. Just become aware of them and don't let them control you. Thoughts can be wonderful things, but they can also be nasty good-for-nothing things that ought to be ignored.

I like to advertise these topics on Twitter, to see if we can get some more response. Do you have a Twitter handle so that I can credit you?

Gareth

[rara]

Hi Sally,

Wow. Just wow! As Gareth said, you've done well to get to this so soon...I'll admit, as soon as I started to piece things together like this, I was actually in tears at one point. I actually felt more lost than I did before I began meditating...wishing I could throw it all away and just be "blind to it all and normal again"

All I can say is yes, do share Twitters/emails etc because sometimes a forum is good for general support, but you may need more 1-1 help with people more experienced at some point. I have people over in the east, sort of older and more experienced that help me with any deep questions I have now, and they urge me to pay forward what I've learnt. My angle is more spiritual, but also relate that to a non-spiritual, pragmatic approach as it takes years of research to really try and see any correlation between mind and spirit, so no worries there!

All I can say is don't worry...because how can you really worry when there is no "I" in the first place? That's a good lesson for you to take away and build on.

This may take some getting use to, and you may need to explore a bit more to fully understand that it's more beneficial than spooky...it just takes some readjusting for you.

Welcome to reality my twitter is @rarafeed , or you can PM any of us on here.

Dave

[larorra]

Hi Sally, I'm learning too and would love to hear more from you on Twitter and mine is @larorra08

[Sally2012]

Hello everyone,
Thanks for your replies. I've taken a little while to respond because one of my 'habit breakers' last week was to not log on to my computer over Christmas - a behaviour I've acquired over the last 10+ years!

You know, these spiritual, for want of a better word, experiences were very fleeting but deeply moving. Interestingly, I don't have them when I'm doing the body scan meditation, only the 'body and breath' ones. Don't know why but when I do the body scan I sometimes get intense itching in the region of the body I'm *not* attending to. So for example, if I'm focusing my attention of my feet I sometimes start to get an itch on my scalp; or if I'm focusing on my hands my shins will need scratching!

But the body and breath meditations are much 'easier' for me. My mind still gallops around the place but I do manage to find moments where 'I' feel 'disolved'. It's like time stops. I don't know. It has such implications if you think about it. But then 'thinking about things' is half my problem I guess!

@Gareth Thanks, yes, I'm definitely one of these people who is almost totally dominated by 'thinking'; not helped by a demanding job requiring problem-solving from dawn to dusk, surrounded by highly competitive work colleagues who are about as supportive as a pit of vipers! It would be good to see the topic more widely discussed with others - I've set up a twitter account: @SallyS2012

@Dave - Thanks: it certainly feels like an altered state of consciousness, however fleeting. Though it doesn't take me long to slip back into my usual 'doing' 'thinking' mode of existence, it must be said! But when I reflect back on those moments I do feel like there was 'something' inside me which was calling a halt to all my assumptions and perceptions of the way the world is - it's so difficult to articulate ...

@Larorra - Hi, thanks, have set up a twitter account and will follow you all.

Happy New Year everyone

[rara]

Something somebody said to me once..."imprints on the brain"...an experience we have that leaves a little reminder with our subconscience of what is the real truth.

Sounds to me like you're consciously becoming more compassionate, so now when you're in the zone, your subconscience has been trained to override your ego...?

[amb3542]

Hi everyone. This is my first post, but I was pretty excited when I seen what this topic was about. I have experienced that feeling too, but I thought it might have been just in my head or something my mind made up because of a preconceived notion that meditation equals peace and tranquility. I'm very happy it is normal though. Is that what I will always feel like in everyday life after practicing over a long period of time? If so it will definitely give me even more motivation to stick with my practice plan.

[FeeHutch]

Welcome to our community Amb3542
I am glad you have already found a post that you find useful and look forward to getting to know you better.
Fiona

[Steve]

It's fascinating to hear how others describe their experiences: I share the feeling "it''s like time stops". My take on this is that if you are in the present moment, time is no longer relevant (and may no longer exist). Time is only relevant when considering the past or the future. This feels good to me. I don't pretend to understand but maybe this is a glimpse of what others refer to as 'oneness', being part of everything, experiencing what is real rather than just the existence conjured up by our thinking.

I too have an intellectually demanding job and work with some very clever people(although my present colleagues are fortunately not 'vipers') - whilst this is great, this can make it more challenging to cut down the constant thinking of the mind, or at least to be able to step back from it and not get caught up in it. I don't always succeed but that's what practice is all about.

Amb3452: is great that your practice has made you feel good. Every practice is different and sometimes you'll feel the same and other times you won't - this doesn't matter. Accept what happens just as you can learn to accept the weather - some days are sunny and warm, some are wet and cold - you have to accept it as it comes and choose your own response to it rather than let your mood be dictated by things outside your control.

Steve

[JonW]

Well said, Steve.
One of the things I love about doing a mindfulness course (I just did my fourth session of nine today) is hearing about how others are taking to mindfulness. In my group there's eight of us and we all came to mindfulness for different reasons and we all seem to have a slightly different take on it.
Today's meditation was tough initially because I'm more stressed out than usual. I felt quite a lot of physical pain which is unusual for me. But I kept breathing through the areas of discomfort and then found a truly blissful sense of peace. I'm learning not to be in competition with myself though, comparing today's meditation to yesterday's. What's happening today is what I'm feeling today.