Meditation experience and letting go
Refugee
San Francisco Explorer
I'm a novice meditator. I've completed perhaps 30-40 sessions in total, and I vary my practice and experiment with different kinds of focus. Despite my somewhat chaotic experimentation, I've noticed that it's getting easier to sit and be still for lengthier periods of time without feeling agitated, and I typically feel more at peace afterward. While I believe the benefits are real, sometimes I am confused about what it is that I'm experiencing during the sessions and afterward.
My goal with meditation is, to put it bluntly, be a better person. I routinely experience relentlessly negative thoughts and feelings. These perceptions are mostly about myself, and they impair my ability to form intimate relationships with people and thereby externalize the love that I feel, which is repressed and nearly impossible to demonstrate. In their worst manifestations, these perceptions take the form of fantastical death-wishes, fleeting thoughts suggesting that change is impossible, existence is meaningless, and that I might as well shoot myself in the head.
Meditation and mindfulness are two of the tools I'm using to try to change myself, along with therapy, abstinence from substance abuse, and cultivation of positive relationships. What I'm attempting to do with meditation and mindfulness is to stop identifying with the thoughts that arise, to treat them as phenomena outside my control and not me. I don't know if this is the right way to approach things, but that's the understanding I've gotten so far in my reading and contemplation.
Shoshin posted this, which resonated with me:
"All that a thought wants is to be acknowledge (given free undisturbed entry ), after which it will dissipate (exit) !"...
"If you give the thought the right of way, it will pass on through ...no need to stay....
but try to block it, it will attack, by pushing it away it will come right back !"
This makes total sense. I often find that I am physically unable to cry when I am sad or grieving. If I notice the emotion, then I repress it as soon as it appears, and it disappears like mice scurrying for the exits when you enter a dark kitchen and turn on the light. I am constantly controlling my emotions and thoughts. There is often a physical feeling of tension in my head in the forebrain when the emotion is particularly strong.
How do you stop this? How can you allow the feeling or thought to arise and be with them? Is it merely a matter of more practice, or is there a particular technique that can be helpful? My practice is just to sit and concentrate on my breathing, sometimes with the aid of binaural beats, sometimes not.
In the binaural beat sessions, when my thoughts are still, I sometimes begin to experience music that seems to be coming from me, synthesized melodies and rhythms I don't remember hearing anywhere. I don't know if that's normal.
Comments
I would give it time. A matter of practice for sure. And learning what it feels like a little at a time to just be and let something sit with you until it's done. It doesn't happen overnight after a lifetime of doing otherwise. Be a little careful of assuming meditation is nothing but peace and positivity. It will bring that to you, for sure. But sometimes (often) we have stuff to work through before we come out the other side, and the only way to that joy, is through the crappy stuff. Many people find meditation brings up a lot of what they view as negativity. Old memories, bottled up emotions. It is normal, and all stuff that needs to be dealt with. Meditation isn't really a happy pill that will help you forget the bad stuff and focus on the good. It is more a way to truly understand that none of that stuff is either good or bad, and regardless of whether we experience pleasure or something else, all of it has to be let go of. We can't hold pleasure any more than we can hold something else.
In the US at least, we are kind of drowned by a message that if you do these 10 things, you can have MORE happiness! There is always a message of if you just do something else, or do something different, you will have more warm fuzzies. But it's not true. Life happens to all of us no matter which 10 things we do or don't do, and the happiness lies in accepting everything that comes as valid.
Sometimes I actually remind myself that "i'm feeling irritated today, but that's ok. It'll pass." when you give yourself permission to let that senstation be, it passes much faster than if you grip it and run with it "I'm feeling irritated!! Why does everyone have to be in my way, today of all days? Of course this person is driving slow. And of course the milk I bought was rotten! Because everything is just going to be that way today!" Of course if that is what you think, then that is what you will experience because you are choosing to carry that with you instead of just...letting it be. I wish i could explain better, but it is something, I think, you will find along the way that happens gradually. That natural urge to suppress and push things down will lighten and things will come up. When I first started yoga and meditation, I was always crying. I had a lot to get rid of. I'd be in some random yoga pose and tears would just start pouring out. So weird. But healing
Sometimes it still happens. I still am not good at talking about my feelings. But at least now I can just let myself feel and identify them and not let them control and consume me.
Who isn't ...
Your goal to be a better person is worthwhile. This is meditation as polishing AND that is fine.
@karasti and @Shoshin inspire us. I value their input and everyones genuine intention and sharing. Ultimately we find our way.
Meditation is not the only requirement. We have to change our behavour loops. That takes sila, focus and continual effort.
As for normal? That is just a red herring. Everything we experience is normal for us. We are heading towards a new normal ...
What can be helpful is recognising that feelings and thoughts are transient, and that they rise and fall in dependence on conditions. You can watch them come and go, like waves breaking on the shore.
Another option is reframing how you view thoughts and feelings, making them less personal, eg "thoughts" rather than "my thoughts".
So it sounds like you might have a problem with your self-image. These things are built up below the conscious, and forcing a breakthrough there with meditation so that you can start an argument with yourself "no I'm not such-and-such!" Is actually quite dangerous. There are checks and balances on how it operates and digging in is often counter productive after meditation has brought something to the surface.
Accept your thoughts about yourself, embrace them, and assure them that they and their source too are allowed to exist. Then perhaps you can find some affirmations on a YouTube video or such which obliquely support your self image - so not necessarily directly contradicting the negative thoughts, but coming at it from another angle.
So if you have negative thoughts about being a bad father or son, then you could find something spiritual to listen to which reinforces your innate goodness. I quite like these for example...
@Refugee. Forget about letting go and being with. When you are observing the mental flow be like a scientist. Dispassionately observe and identify. If you do then eventually you won't can caught up in subtle discursiveness. Which the untrained mind uses to escape being trained. By our own efforts through countless lives we have become enslaved. By our own efforts we will become free.
@Refugee
"This" short youtube clip may provide some food for thought to chew over
Thank you all for these extremely helpful and valuable insights. As I continue to practice, I will keep in mind what I have read (and watched!) here.