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Afraid to Meditate
I've been scared to meditate lately. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this?
I think it's that I'm afraid to let go, in general. To just sit. I have almost always enjoyed meditating and it's peaceful to let go and just sit and not have to worry about things or feel like I need to be doing something. I don't know...I just wonder if I've reached a point where I know what meditation means and at a very deep level it's bringing up fears of letting go. Because I know the more I meditate the more I'll eventually let go of. Including all the things I like to do, the people in my life, even my self.
It's like I'm clinging to my state, even though it's not pleasant. Maybe a good idea would be to tell myself, "okay, just try it for a few minutes and if you don't like it you can stop," would be a good thing to do...idk. I'm just wondering if this has come up for anyone else.
I've also been really non-stop lately, and tense. I haven't had much luck enjoying anything, and always just feel a need to get it done. But I recognize that there is no such thing as "getting it done." There's always something else. We aren't going anywhere. It's all just meaningless, and the most meaningful thing I can do is to be present and be kind. It's just like this inner battle that I'm witnessing! One side compels me to go go go and the other is watching and saying, "where are you going?" and all the while I'm just stressing myself out more and more. I just have so much fear! I'll stop talking now, lol.
I think it's that I'm afraid to let go, in general. To just sit. I have almost always enjoyed meditating and it's peaceful to let go and just sit and not have to worry about things or feel like I need to be doing something. I don't know...I just wonder if I've reached a point where I know what meditation means and at a very deep level it's bringing up fears of letting go. Because I know the more I meditate the more I'll eventually let go of. Including all the things I like to do, the people in my life, even my self.
It's like I'm clinging to my state, even though it's not pleasant. Maybe a good idea would be to tell myself, "okay, just try it for a few minutes and if you don't like it you can stop," would be a good thing to do...idk. I'm just wondering if this has come up for anyone else.
I've also been really non-stop lately, and tense. I haven't had much luck enjoying anything, and always just feel a need to get it done. But I recognize that there is no such thing as "getting it done." There's always something else. We aren't going anywhere. It's all just meaningless, and the most meaningful thing I can do is to be present and be kind. It's just like this inner battle that I'm witnessing! One side compels me to go go go and the other is watching and saying, "where are you going?" and all the while I'm just stressing myself out more and more. I just have so much fear! I'll stop talking now, lol.
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I'm scared by what I'm bringing to the cushion in my mind. I have sleep trouble, substance abuse issues and mental illness. But... I think it's gunna be OK.
Mabye try just reciting the precepts, keeping them and see where it'l take you in your mental state with tension and worry. That's my advice but I didn't put much thought into it.
Love.
I'm just scared. And I'm moving across the country in a few weeks to start my first job and live by myself in a new city. I know the best way to prepare is to meditate now, to enjoy life now, to practice fearlessness now instead of somehow pumping myself up for the transition. I just feel so messed up, like I'm a really weak person and I'll absolutely crumple into a ball and never get up again. How can I really do this. How will I ever find the courage.
EDIT: Also, at some point, you will probably want to find a meditation group to practice with in your new city. It might help alleviate some of the anxiety to have a safe, supportive environment and teacher by your side.
I can relate to this. The drive that made me work hard to provide for my family was based on clinging and fear. There is a saying in Canada about the beaver, who's teeth never stop growing..it is "Chew or die". So much of what kept me going was just that. With meditation came the possibility of letting go, and I was afraid if I did, I would dissolve into a puddle. The truth is much of the anxiety based drives do diminish, and there has to be a life change, a re-examination of motives, of why you get up in the morning. Not sure if this is the kind of thing you are talking about.
Yeah exactly! I'm watching myself go throughout my day, doing pretty much the same things I've always done, but looking at them differently. "Why do I care so much about that?" "What's that going to really get me?" I had a goal to produce my first album this summer, and I let go of that a while ago because I didn't think I had enough time, and that was okay. But I still work on songs, and I see myself doing them just to get them done and hardly enjoying the process at all. And I look back at my enormous productivity in high school, writing novels, practicing drawing for hours, and all that drive and motivation...looking back I don't remember if it was fun, or just satisfying. My dad said I'm happiest when I'm busy. That I'm a worker. I don't think that can be true anymore though. It may have been for a while, when I really thought those things were important. But now that I know they aren't, I can't be happy doing them anymore.
There really does need to be a life change. The old ways just don't do it for me anymore. I know there is no safety and happiness in finding "true love." There's no happiness in having fame on youtube. (Yes, this was a big goal of mine for a while, haha.) There's no happiness in Seattle, in my new career, in buying a house, in retiring, in making lots of money... So I can't get happiness from those things anymore. And in a way that is great. I love this quote from Ajahn Chah, "Joy at last! To know there is no happiness in the world!" It almost always causes me to relax for a moment.
And it used to depress me. It rid life of all it's meaning, and seriously I didn't know why I did anything anymore. Now my meaning is to find peace and happiness, to be kind and compassionate. To have a stable mind and an open heart. But then who am I... what am I doing here...
Haha it reminds me of all the times I used to go to parties with my friends and I had no idea why I was there. I literally was afraid someone would ask me what I was doing there because I had no idea. It just seemed like the thing to do. And I realize that so much of what I do is just "the thing to do."
So lately I've been kind of trying to let go of things that I feel I "need" to do, and only do things that I can completely acknowledge as optional, but that I will enjoy. Eh, I have varying success.
Wow this ended up being a really long post, but yeah I just wanted to say that is totally it. Or a part of it anyway. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with what's making me so scared about moving. Oh idk.
We are both in the arts (I'm a painter). Meditation laid bare the narcissistic motivation in the work, along with vain dreams of glory. It is kind of funny really, but it took the wind right out of my sails, and this is after building a career with galleries, everyone having expectations, and having financial responsibilities that depended on continuing. In the arts so much motivation comes from needing to be recognized as exceptional, praised, and raised up. Artists are indulged in this way by our culture. Once these motivations fade with Buddhist practice it is incredibly liberating, but also lonely and less exciting, because the melodrama stops. It's like being at a concert and suddenly everything is quiet except for some crickets outside. You need to find a new sober way forward that involves creativity, right livelyhood, but no glory.
Wouldn't you also describe it as freeing each brush stroke to contain a resonant joy and simplicity that the glory and expectation deluded? I've always found grandiose (attached) notions to suck the joy right out of any creation or creation process.
Cheers, Thomas
If you place great value in your sense of self, it can be a very dangerous activity!
The actual painting itself has open-up, while the career ambition has all but ceased, disappeared. More joy. less money. Also, less psychological games in business relationships. The motivator is joy of craft, having good professional relationships, making the money we need..
Well you might want to redefine meditation. It can be defined as getting familiar with something, which can be your breath or something else. It doesn't need to be an earthshaking experience.
It seems to me you have the idea that it is all about not having a link with world, because if you do, you will suffer. If you don't want anything, you don't have to suffer anymore. Ultimately if you don't exist, you won't have to suffer anymore.
People that go for that approach, in my experience, usually feel the heat on their heels and try to run from liking things. You are trying to run from suffering, in other words. That just show how attached to non-suffering you are.
There is a reason why the considerations on emptiness are an advanced topic: you just get tired of seeing people talking with their mouth full about emptiness of a self and when you read their posts all you see is repressed anger\desire.
If you really were not-attached you wouldn't be so worried about letting go of a self because it wouldn't mean jack to you. It seems to me that you are using meditation as a form of repression.
Instead of worrying about considerations on a self why don't you focus on other concepts, like generosity, ethical behavior, patience, effort, serenity meditation (just worry about calming your mind and not letting go of things), meditation on kasinas...there are so many options. They are safer approaches and you would still be shedding your detrimental world views.
Instead of 'trying' to let go, or attracting (grasping?) 'peace and happiness' perhaps you could simply watch whatever arises in mind during practice as an impartial 'observer'. Just as you might watch a tennis match played between two players.
Grasping the desirable or letting go of the undesirable are not the purpose of meditation - for either activity implies a 'me' who grasps or lets go and a preference/repulsion for certain states of mind. The purpose of meditation is to see clearly whatever happens to arise right here and now without the notion of an "I' that sees, hears, thinks etc.
As for the fear of letting go... We all let go every night when we surrender ourselves to the dark forces of sleep, or the sub-conscious impressions of dreaming. Surely the Awake and Aware have nothing to fear...
Best wishes for your practice
bringing up fears of dog
bringing up fear of being embarrassed in public
bringing up fear of a past event
the sentence "bringing up fears" is important, "of whatever" not so much.
bringing up fears and giving you the opportunity to deal with it, to let go of the fear, to come to peace with it.
(letting go means literally, you are holding on to these feelings like you would be holding on to a glass of water, letting go literally mean releasing your grip on it, so it can dissipate)
and you are doing this by looking at the fears with equanimity.
Like saying: "okay, I'm okay with that fear."
It's an opportunity to take out the trash that is accumulating inside.
Yes, that makes a lot of sense to me. By letting go, you didn't really lose anything you ultimately, actually wanted, but letting go allowed you to enjoy the truth of your reality without all the head games. Its not like you lost anything, rather, you evolved out of them so to speak.
It sounds like this is a well balanced letting go to me. You didn't fall into a sense of general nihilism, or meaninglessness, and serves as a great example (in my opinion) of the kind of experience meditation can bring to us. I could imagine how scary it might be to think that letting go means that nothing will have any meaning anymore. That is simply is not a fruit of meditation, luckily.
With warmth,
Matt
The ordinary person already does place great value in it. In fact, it is the single most valuable thing in the entire ordinary persons life. Ordinary people spend their entire lives worrying about it and "taking care of it", it is their primary purpose in life. It's more important than any other thing.
So, if one still places great value in it, and it starts to disappear with meditation practice. This is felt to be a dangerous thing because everything you thought you know and everything you think you are, is being shown to be false. So if one is still placing great value in it and it is being shown to be false, obviously this would create a problem.
Yep, it does.
I have a feeling that the big thing I'm afraid of is that I'll abandon myself if something bad happens. Last night I had an incredible experience as I was laying in bed, before I fell asleep. I had wound myself up that there was something wrong with me, why I was so tired lately and had stomach aches and my body was kinda sore (I just started doing light Yoga a few days ago, lol.) I kept getting images of collapsing and being rushed to a hospital. And then a little voice popped up and said something like, "it's okay if those things happen. I'll be here. I won't abandon you even if you're dying, if you're in the hospital, if you're afraid or weak or lonely or in great pain. I'll be right here." And I cried, sobbed even, and afterwards I felt SO peaceful and good. Even writing that right now makes me tear up. It pretty much always does. It's like I have this great fear of abandoning myself. Maybe that's why I fear feinting so much, because it's like losing control, and then who knows what will happen. But anyway yeah. I know a lot of people rely on others for this sense of security, of not being abandoned, but I let go of that ideal a long time ago after I realized it can never be enough. So now I hold myself when I'm crying, when I'm afraid, and sometimes it feels just as good as it used to when someone else would hold me.
Anyway, maybe I'm afraid to meditate because that's the ultimate test of being here for me. And so often it's easier to hold onto the hope that yeah, I'll be there, then it is to actually put it to the test. I just get so afraid. I'm so generally scared, that simply being unafraid to me is a form of bliss, even if I'm tired, or sick, doing a tedious task. I can always find ways to make things fun and light. But not when I'm afraid. Fear just controls me so much.
I decided that I'm not going to release my CD. I'm not going to post any more songs on youtube or anywhere. I'm not going to check my comments or channel or enter contests or anything. I completely get the fact that there is nothing inherently wrong with any of those actions, but I'm just so attached to them and it stresses me out and often ruins the process of making music and videos. It's like why I broke up with my boyfriend. Because I was attached to him. I guess I'm kinda slowly letting go of things until I don't feel hooked by them anymore. And then I can have them back if I want.
Oh I don't know. Maybe I will meditate and put myself to the test and see if I'm here. I guess the more often I am here for myself when I need me, the less afraid I will be that "something terrible will happen."
Thanks for all your replies. I just feel so confused and I think I was/am reaching out more in panic than anything, so maybe your advices will make more sense when I'm a little more level headed.
The thing you said about excitement really hit home with me, because I also feel that I crave this excitement in my life, yet I feel drained and anxious afterwards without exception.
There's been a lot of great advice given to you on this thread and I hope you feel more at ease during and after meditation after some time. Change is never easy and you seem to be going through some transitions in your perception of self and your world, so hang in there.
It will all be alright and you seem to be on the right track, so keep digging, keep trying to find out what's driving your fears and your attachments, and you'll eventually make them disappear.
And you have got to wonder how great things truly will be after you completely detached from your self.
Sure, from your perspective it wouldn't be a problem. But maybe young Rahula needs a father.
Cristina, I'm very impressed with your level of self-knowledge. You seem very enlightened. I believe you already know what to do. I'm a very busy minded person just like yourself... When I reach those states, when I get very quiet, I notice that I already subconsciously know what to do. The next step is just doing it.
I made that sound so simple didn't I?
ferges--that's quite a coincidence! Thanks for sharing that, it makes me feel kind of..not as alone.
Rmurray, yeah I totally agree. I fear looking at myself very often. I built up a pretty puffed up image of myself growing up, which was easy because I'm pretty darn good at most things, valedictorian, sports captain, art awards, you name it. But I now see myself as very weak. This sense of, if I cling to this ego and rely on it for getting through my life, there is no way I'm going to make it. I need to rely on a higher power, my own basic goodness, God, whatever, be still and follow the calling. But it's SO inconvenient!!
meditationman, well hey if you thought I was enlightened back then, just look at me now, haha! Maybe you're right that I already know what to do...you know what I do though? I exhaust all other possibilities before I face that. I get in to see my therapist, I post here, I call my parents, I try all kinds of things until there's really just the one thing left. And then I guess I do it. So no matter when I feel absolutely hopeless like I surely cannot go on...well it's just not quite as dark as it used to be. And you'd think that knowing that eventually I'll have to take that leap would get me to just do it, but it doesn't...so I'm kinda hanging out like, "okay Cristina, let's try this...didn't work? Okay how about this....there there, I'll entertain you as long as you need." Then eventually coming up against that fundamental no, and manning up.
If you have anxiety in connection with meditation then the best thing to do would be to find an offline meditation class. You would then have step by step guidance and an opportunity to discuss your difficulties with a meditation teacher, as well as be with a supportive group.
Lots of good wishes,
Dazzle
I think that fear is only natural on the dharma path. Because we get so much security from filling space. I think when you get glimpses of that space that are beautiful and perhaps if you read some stories or talk to some people who have discovered equanimity in that space it will build confidence to not know what the heck you are doing.
In a crushing panic I used to chant. Buddha. Buddha. Buddha. Buddha help me. It seemed to help but you haven't stated that you are breaking down and getting TERRIFIED. People in my sangha told me that I was letting go into the space of the mandala of awakening: Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It will help you from outside yourself. As it seems.