Few stumbling blocks in my first 5 weeks of Meditation

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Hi everyone.

I started meditation 5 weeks ago after a period of anxiousness, being quite stressed before certain events ie a meeting & not being able to 'stop' worrying leading to sleepless nights & getting upset quite a bit too.

I have noticed already various benefits, sleep is much better I nearly always get a good night sleep now.

I'm using the Frantic world Mark Willians course and do intend to post in that forum too, just wondering if anyone has some tips on key elements of mindful ess.

1. I feel like during the meditation I can anchor myself well to the breath, however during a working day sat behind a computer screen sometimes I feel like I lose any ability to anchor myself. I use the belly and it's sensations during meditation but sometimes feel as if I cant really feel my belly rising and falling when I am doing daily tasks. Also, I've found it difficult to let the 'breath' be sometimes when meditating and find myself controlling it. I think i may have lost a bit of trust in using the breath as an anchor after I felt like I hyperventilated during a meditation where I must have been controlling the beeath too much.

2. The fundamental element of mindfulness seems to be being gentle compassionate and not judging. I feel like I'm judging myself literally 24/7, and with mindfulness feel like im judging whether im mindful or not all the time. I tend to lose focus quite a lot in general conversation with people and during work and then will kind of be judging myself for losing focus etc.

3. With thoughts, I have been much better at seeing them as thoughts and not getting trapped with them, however with feelings this tends to be harder. I.e today I felt very sad & upset, and I kept trying to think 'accept this' and treat it as a black cloud passing over, however I still just seemed to be engrossed and entangled by it rather than letting it be.

4. Being gentle & compassionate. Are there any tips for this? What does it mean to be gentle & compassionate with mindfulness. Is it being curious when exploring all sensations ie touch etc? To be honest, i am doing the befriending meditation now and only now am I treating myself with a bit more compassion. However for the first few weeks I haven't really found it possible to be compassionate to myself or 'be gentle to myself'.

5. Meditation posture... I don't really feelt too comfortable meditating and have tried a few different positions. My first 2 weeks I was lay down. Then I tried sitting on a straight back chair but saw that you shouldn't rest your back against it, so I've tried using a cushion. For me, it's not too natural keeping a straight back as i'm used to a slumped posture from being really tall growing up! Haha.

I'm sure these questions get asked quite a lot by new starters and i know theres no quick route or the tip may be just to 'let yourself be' however I sometimes find myself trying to let be myself be and that itself is a continuous thought.. I guess its hard to let yourself be when you feel so anxious or feel sad/upset.

Thanks!!

Ste

[Matt Y]

Your answers!

1. It's normal not to be able to feel the breath so much whilst engaged in activity. When you're meditating you are usually relatively quiet and still, so it's easier to pick up the breath. During daily activities / work, you can just pay attention to your movement and posture in general. And yes, many people find it almost impossible not to control the breath to some degree when focusing on it. It may be helpful to focus less directly on the breath. For example, by noting the movement of the spine or ribs (as you breathe), by imagining the breath as waves gently ebbing and flowing on the beach at sunset, or by focusing on something else entirely (sounds) and just being peripherally aware of the breath.

2. Yes. Being gentle and compassionate is much more important that whether you are focused or not. It's the nature of the mind to be unfocused much of the time. Many people think they should be mindful 24/7 or 100% of the time. This is not realistic. The fact that you are noticing how frequently you lose focus is a clear sign that you are actually much more mindful than you have been previously. When you notice that you have lost focus your job is to be kind and supportive (think of your loss of focus as an interesting phenomenon), and not to condemn yourself. (Or, if you do condemn yourself, to be kind to yourself for condemning yourself!)

3. Yes. You will continue to get engrossed and entangled in thoughts and emotions. This happens to experienced meditators too. Thoughts and emotions are like the weather: out of our control. Who knows how long the black clouds will last? Who knows when they will get caught out in the storm? Sometimes being caught out in a storm can be fun. It all depends on your attitude. Why not enjoy the rain? It might even cool you down!

4. Being gentle & compassionate. Are there any tips for this? Great question.
There's a whole chapter in Meditation Secrets for Women (also good for men) that addresses this question. The chapter is called "Be Tender With Yourself".

The opening paragraph reads as follows:

Meditation is an intimate relationship with yourself, and great tenderness is the key to success. The skills of meditation are essentially the same as those in any healthy relationship: giving attention, understanding and love. You create a space for honest communication. It is not about domination and control.

Or, in dot points:

* Don't hit yourself
* Don't make yourself wrong
* Don't shut yourself up
* Don't squeeze yourself into an ideal image
* Don't delete or condemn parts of yourself
* Do be tender with yourself

5. Meditation Posture is not as important as its sometimes made out to be in the books. You don't need to sit to attention, as though you were a soldier on the parade ground. Chairs have backrests for a reason. Feel free to use them. You do want to be comfortable, and if sitting up straight doesn't feel comfortable then find some happy compromise. I often meditate on the couch, leaning back into the thick cushions. I have some of my most delightful and luxurious meditations in that posture.

Happy Meditating!

[Happyogababe]

I'm so glad to have read this post this morning. I can relate to some of the issues and I have benefited greatly from the answers (very clear, by the way) that Matt Y has provided. Thanks to you both

[Scr_17]

Your answers!

1. It's normal not to be able to feel the breath so much whilst engaged in activity. When you're meditating you are usually relatively quiet and still, so it's easier to pick up the breath. During daily activities / work, you can just pay attention to your movement and posture in general. And yes, many people find it almost impossible not to control the breath to some degree when focusing on it. It may be helpful to focus less directly on the breath. For example, by noting the movement of the spine or ribs (as you breathe), by imagining the breath as waves gently ebbing and flowing on the beach at sunset, or by focusing on something else entirely (sounds) and just being peripherally aware of the breath.

2. Yes. Being gentle and compassionate is much more important that whether you are focused or not. It's the nature of the mind to be unfocused much of the time. Many people think they should be mindful 24/7 or 100% of the time. This is not realistic. The fact that you are noticing how frequently you lose focus is a clear sign that you are actually much more mindful than you have been previously. When you notice that you have lost focus your job is to be kind and supportive (think of your loss of focus as an interesting phenomenon), and not to condemn yourself. (Or, if you do condemn yourself, to be kind to yourself for condemning yourself!)

3. Yes. You will continue to get engrossed and entangled in thoughts and emotions. This happens to experienced meditators too. Thoughts and emotions are like the weather: out of our control. Who knows how long the black clouds will last? Who knows when they will get caught out in the storm? Sometimes being caught out in a storm can be fun. It all depends on your attitude. Why not enjoy the rain? It might even cool you down!

4. Being gentle & compassionate. Are there any tips for this? Great question.
There's a whole chapter in Meditation Secrets for Women (also good for men) that addresses this question. The chapter is called "Be Tender With Yourself".

The opening paragraph reads as follows:

Meditation is an intimate relationship with yourself, and great tenderness is the key to success. The skills of meditation are essentially the same as those in any healthy relationship: giving attention, understanding and love. You create a space for honest communication. It is not about domination and control.

Or, in dot points:

* Don't hit yourself
* Don't make yourself wrong
* Don't shut yourself up
* Don't squeeze yourself into an ideal image
* Don't delete or condemn parts of yourself
* Do be tender with yourself

5. Meditation Posture is not as important as its sometimes made out to be in the books. You don't need to sit to attention, as though you were a soldier on the parade ground. Chairs have backrests for a reason. Feel free to use them. You do want to be comfortable, and if sitting up straight doesn't feel comfortable then find some happy compromise. I often meditate on the couch, leaning back into the thick cushions. I have some of my most delightful and luxurious meditations in that posture.

Happy Meditating!

Thank you so much, those points really help questions that I've been meaning to ask someone for ages. Finding it a pity that I didn't find this forum before strting my meditation practises. The point about the breath & focussing on the ribs or spine is really going to help, already just practising 'breathing' I've seen it help loads!

There is one part of the book early on which explains individuals who aren't mindful and have their 'fight or flight' response turned on all the time. At work sometimes I feel like I have this as the smallest noises behind me can make me jump out of my skin. I have tried to accept this and when I'm fully mindful I don't feel like this occurs as much. With the 'head adrenaline' rushes, in the main i do accept them, it is hard not to be fearful or feeling like that especially if you've got a meeting coming up or even today I was talking to one of the bosses and my mind started to wander with thoughts like 'what if you get a head rush' followed by an intense sensation.

I will continue with the 8 week course and try to use these points. The curiosity 'phenomon' point is really intriguing, as i have found it hard to maintain being curious of feelings thoughts and even when being mindful.. Ihave felt kind of cold when exploring sensations or hearing/seeing etc. Without starting mindfulness though I wouldn't have realised that I have been finding it hard to be kind and compassionate to myself! Just today I realised another thing that I have been doing without knowing, when I'm feeling anxious in work the top of my legs completely tense up and my belly kind of tenses out.

Is there anything about using mindfulness when you start seeing an OCD develop - i guess it's probably the most common OCD, but starting to notice myself checking ie all doors being locked before going to bed & when I use a tap making sure its turned off & almost triple checking it.


One other thing is 'accepting feeling sick' which is a feeling i sometimes have when feeling really stressed & anxious, this feeling sick sensation sometimes progesses & i get overwhelmed and actually gag. Guess its being mindful in the stages before this kind of occurs and accepting the feeling which will help it dissolve?
Thank you so much.

[Matt Y]

Finding it a pity that I didn't find this forum before strting my meditation practises.

Actually, struggling on your own for a while may not be a bad thing. It allows you to make the mistakes necessary to learn what doesn't work! (And also allows you to empathise with other meditators going through the same process).

It does sound like you have a fairly finely calibrated 'fight or flight' response! However, as you may know, the brain can be rewired. It will take time and patience, but you should gradually find yourself feeling a little less easily triggered. Fear however, will always be there to some degree. It's an essential emotion, hard-wired. The aim is not to get rid of fear, but to understand whether its message needs to be taken seriously or not.

Just today I realised another thing that I have been doing without knowing, when I'm feeling anxious in work the top of my legs completely tense up and my belly kind of tenses out.

Great observation. You're seeing how nothing comes along in isolation. Thoughts, emotions and sensations get stirred up in a big pot and influence one another. If you're able to relax your legs and belly, you may find your thoughts and emotions are less intense as well.

Your other comments suggest that — like most people — you crave a sense of control, and don't like uncertainty. Fact is, the world is an uncertain place, and we can never control very much of it, or even ourselves. A sense of calm and security comes, counter-intuitively, not through trying to predict and control everything, but by expecting the unexpected. Of course, if everything did happen exactly as you hoped and planned, life would be very boring indeed.

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Finding it a pity that I didn't find this forum before strting my meditation practises.

Actually, struggling on your own for a while may not be a bad thing. It allows you to make the mistakes necessary to learn what doesn't work! (And also allows you to empathise with other meditators going through the same process).

It does sound like you have a fairly finely calibrated 'fight or flight' response! However, as you may know, the brain can be rewired. It will take time and patience, but you should gradually find yourself feeling a little less easily triggered. Fear however, will always be there to some degree. It's an essential emotion, hard-wired. The aim is not to get rid of fear, but to understand whether its message needs to be taken seriously or not.

Just today I realised another thing that I have been doing without knowing, when I'm feeling anxious in work the top of my legs completely tense up and my belly kind of tenses out.

Great observation. You're seeing how nothing comes along in isolation. Thoughts, emotions and sensations get stirred up in a big pot and influence one another. If you're able to relax your legs and belly, you may find your thoughts and emotions are less intense as well.

Your other comments suggest that — like most people — you crave a sense of control, and don't like uncertainty. Fact is, the world is an uncertain place, and we can never control very much of it, or even ourselves. A sense of calm and security comes, counter-intuitively, not through trying to predict and control everything, but by expecting the unexpected. Of course, if everything did happen exactly as you hoped and planned, life would be very boring indeed.

You're comments helped me a great deal. Already in the last 2 days I've felt 10x better, through turning towards difficulties. One thing I realised after reading one post (think it might have been yours) is that I have been trying so hard to be right in probably more aspects of life than I thought, transpiring from work to probably how ive been feeling & even with mindfulness thinking that theres always a right or wrong way to do it. Yesterday I started going out my way to 'practise' and meditate wrong, and seeing that it's ok, funnily enough yesterday & today ive paid less attention when turning off a tap etc and haven't been on edge with the fight or flight thing. Turning towards negative thoughts & sensations and letting them truely stay for a while seems to have helped massively, and realising that you have to 'fail' in order to learn from any mistakes in life rather than the strive to be perfect in all aspects. One quick question, In nearly all the meditations in the frantic mind i've always tried to 'not change or control' breathing when focussing on it, and with this I don't really have deep breaths during. Saw on another mindfulness resource that they say to practise your breaths being deeper & deeper but surely that is controlling the breath? Your post about seeing the thoughts & emotions as clouds and seeing that you may like them after a while really helped too!

To give you some more background, i have kind of experienced most anxiousness around most stressful events. Coming up to a deadline on a 9month + work project, so there is a sense of it's down to me type thing, and a meeting on Tuesday where worry thoughts pop up like 'what if i cry during the meeting' or feeling sick etc but I know now turning towards these thoughts & any sensations during this meeting is the way to go!

thanks!! Ste

[Matt Y]

Glad to hear that you've found some of the suggestions helpful Ste.

Regarding breathing. There are many approaches. With mindfulness, you are generally instructed not to control the breath. This however is almost impossible. As soon as you bring your attention to the breath, you tend to change it in some way, however subtly. So a useful approach then, might be to let the breath do it's own thing, to the degree possible. As you breathe out, simply let the breath fall from the body. And as you breathe in, similarly, let the breath simply fall into the body.

In other approaches, and sometimes in mindfulness, you may be instructed to breathe more deeply. Sometimes the recommendation is to really fill up the lungs. But this is more a breathing exercise that a meditation per se. Generally, a deep breath doesn't mean a really big, full breath. Rather, it means a soft gentle breath, deep down in the belly / abdomen. I recommend that you imagine the breath entering and leaving the body through the base of the spine. That way, it only has to travel and inch or two to get to the abdomen, so you can do it with very little effort. Conversely, imagining that your breath is traveling all the way down to the belly via nostrils, nasal passages, lungs and diaphragm, can seem like a long journey, and hard work (and you'll tend to hold or lengthen the breath to some degree, rather than letting it be natural).

Again, don't worry too much about whether you are doing it wrong or right. Just treat meditation as an adventure. You're exploring different ways of breathing, different ways of relating to thoughts and emotions. There's no one best way to do it. Indeed what works for one person may not work for another; so the right way for me, might be the wrong way for you (and what the book or teacher says may be good for him or her, but not so good for you).

And regarding your big deadline, so what if you cry or feel sick? In my opinion deadlines are not that important. So what if the project is a day or week or month late? The sun will still get up tomorrow. Most people / companies don't achieve their deadlines anyway!

[Scr_17]

Glad to hear that you've found some of the suggestions helpful Ste.

Regarding breathing. There are many approaches. With mindfulness, you are generally instructed not to control the breath. This however is almost impossible. As soon as you bring your attention to the breath, you tend to change it in some way, however subtly. So a useful approach then, might be to let the breath do it's own thing, to the degree possible. As you breathe out, simply let the breath fall from the body. And as you breathe in, similarly, let the breath simply fall into the body.

In other approaches, and sometimes in mindfulness, you may be instructed to breathe more deeply. Sometimes the recommendation is to really fill up the lungs. But this is more a breathing exercise that a meditation per se. Generally, a deep breath doesn't mean a really big, full breath. Rather, it means a soft gentle breath, deep down in the belly / abdomen. I recommend that you imagine the breath entering and leaving the body through the base of the spine. That way, it only has to travel and inch or two to get to the abdomen, so you can do it with very little effort. Conversely, imagining that your breath is traveling all the way down to the belly via nostrils, nasal passages, lungs and diaphragm, can seem like a long journey, and hard work (and you'll tend to hold or lengthen the breath to some degree, rather than letting it be natural).

Again, don't worry too much about whether you are doing it wrong or right. Just treat meditation as an adventure. You're exploring different ways of breathing, different ways of relating to thoughts and emotions. There's no one best way to do it. Indeed what works for one person may not work for another; so the right way for me, might be the wrong way for you (and what the book or teacher says may be good for him or her, but not so good for you).

And regarding your big deadline, so what if you cry or feel sick? In my opinion deadlines are not that important. So what if the project is a day or week or month late? The sun will still get up tomorrow. Most people / companies don't achieve their deadlines anyway!

Thank you for the quick response, the crying/feeling sick thing was purely a worry thought specifically in the meeting - but as you said it isn't even important, just a worry thought, and when I let it in it dissolves. Deep down - i've learnt recently it just comes down from always wanting perfection and even letting on to others how anxious I am at times, & wanting to be 'perfect' in the way im feeling. Learning though that its just about this moment, and how I feel know & accepting that. The whole no right or wrong with meditation is a massive lesson, through the first few weeks I did keep thinking i was doing it wrong at times and even an anxiety creeping over such as 'what if ive done it all wrong & it wont work' but now my aim goal through meditation isn't to 'help anxiety' which is why i initially bought the book, its more to just be aware and present moment by moment. Sometimes when im fully mindful i feel actually like ive got advanced senses or something, really in tune!! I am actually thankful too for any anxieties that caused me to buy the book too as ive learnt so much about myself! Thanks, Ste .

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So i've got another question. In some of the meditations and throughout the book it says to label thoughts i.e saying 'thoughts, thoughts' or 'negative thoughts' etc. Say for example a negative thought pops into my head, isn't the then labelling it negative thoughts conversing with it a bit? Or is it more to just observe that its a negative thought? At the moment i'm having some success just bringing a quick awareness to the thought trail and observing them pass by without saying to myself 'thoughts thoughts' or 'negative thoughts'. Or saying other things like 'be open to this' or 'let them stay for a while'. Is there anything in any more detail from the Frantic mind book on the labelling of thoughts in day to day life outside of the actual meditation session?

[Matt Y]

There are pros and cons to any meditation technique, including labeling thoughts.

From your comments above though, it sounds like you are doing just fine. Remember, there's no need to completely refrain from thinking. Thinking comes along in many varieties. Some thinking can be very helpful. Other trains of thought may lead into stressful territory or just be rather deluded or dysfunctional.

You may find labeling thoughts useful, however, it's you awareness of them, rather than the labeling itself, which is key — so if you feel like you don't need to label them, or that the labeling feels clunky or unnecessary, that's fine.