Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Hopeless and about to leave my meditation practice…again.
I've been meditating on and off for some years now, more off than on, i've suffered from social and generalized anxiety disorder for 17 years, some of them i've been severely anxious, i write because i've been really sick for the last 3 moths, doctors don't know what it is but some of them believe it could be due to the anxiety. I've had this extreme fatigue and weird sensations all day, and when i'm about to fall asleep i have this sudden tingling all over my body, experience shortness of breath and a strange sudden pain in random parts of my body that come and goes, feels like a pre-panic attack, the scariest symptom is the tiredness all day long, it gets so bad that sometimes i feel i'm going to die, i've had mri's, blood tests, you name it, and everything is ok, i'm starting to believe it may be caused by suppressing this anxious feelings with tranquilizers for so long (which i'm addicted to) i don't know exactly.
The reason i always leave meditaiton is because my increased anxiety, i know this can be a normal thing in meditation when releasing all those repressed emotions, but yesterday was really bad, i came home and was feeling very anxious, i started meditating at midnight (sometimes i like to meditate at this time because my mind somehow feels calmer) and after some time i started having anxious thoughts which made things worse for a while, i tried watching my thoughts and emotions and a few minutes later i started to relaxed and calmer, i ended up my practice 40 minutes later (i never meditate that long), everything was good, but after a while i started to freak out, and the anxiety got really bad, i was kind of trembling a little, the tingling got worse before sleep and had like this mini panic attacks, i ended up taking more tranquilizers and fell asleep at 6 am!.
My question is, how normal is this? could it be that maybe meditating 40 minutes in a row at that time can be harmful for me? sometimes i think i'm going to damage myself meditating, even when meditating 20 minutes in daytime which is my normal length, maybe 20 is still too much for me? i've learned to handle the thoughts and emotions when i'm in meditation, the problem is afterwards, anxiety almost always worsen when i have days or weeks meditating and i end up feeling hopeless because i truly believe that meditation is a permanent solution for my suffering, sometimes i feel i'm not made for it, or that maybe i have to handle my problem with a psychologist, (which never worked for me) or with more medication, but i know this is just masking the problem, or maybe i'm not ready for this yet.
i'd really appreciate any thoughts on my situation.
P.S.: I practice mindfulness meditation focusing on my breathing by the way
Fernando.
The reason i always leave meditaiton is because my increased anxiety, i know this can be a normal thing in meditation when releasing all those repressed emotions, but yesterday was really bad, i came home and was feeling very anxious, i started meditating at midnight (sometimes i like to meditate at this time because my mind somehow feels calmer) and after some time i started having anxious thoughts which made things worse for a while, i tried watching my thoughts and emotions and a few minutes later i started to relaxed and calmer, i ended up my practice 40 minutes later (i never meditate that long), everything was good, but after a while i started to freak out, and the anxiety got really bad, i was kind of trembling a little, the tingling got worse before sleep and had like this mini panic attacks, i ended up taking more tranquilizers and fell asleep at 6 am!.
My question is, how normal is this? could it be that maybe meditating 40 minutes in a row at that time can be harmful for me? sometimes i think i'm going to damage myself meditating, even when meditating 20 minutes in daytime which is my normal length, maybe 20 is still too much for me? i've learned to handle the thoughts and emotions when i'm in meditation, the problem is afterwards, anxiety almost always worsen when i have days or weeks meditating and i end up feeling hopeless because i truly believe that meditation is a permanent solution for my suffering, sometimes i feel i'm not made for it, or that maybe i have to handle my problem with a psychologist, (which never worked for me) or with more medication, but i know this is just masking the problem, or maybe i'm not ready for this yet.
i'd really appreciate any thoughts on my situation.
P.S.: I practice mindfulness meditation focusing on my breathing by the way
Fernando.
0
Comments
imho you're doing fine. i'd start writing down your anxieties and different emotions you're feeling. try to find the source and come to terms with it. you can't change your past but you can change how you relate to it.
best of luck.
Alternatively try different forms of meditating. It does not have to be all about sitting in lotus position watching the breath. Try walking meditation or using an object such as a candle to concentrate on or even a statue of the Buddha.
Metta to all sentient beings
please seek advices from a qualified teacher (preferably in person). Isn't there a temple where you live?
I'm not a doctor (I'm a nurse), but it sounds like what you're describing are pretty classic symptoms of stress disorder. The physical manifestations can be severe, but are generally pretty non-specific. If you've tried everything else, I might suggest seeing if you can find a practitioner of Chinese herbal medicine. Often times they can do things for you that western medicine with its more mechanistic approach simply can't do.
I wish you the best...
Peace
Similar to what Zidangus said, you might want to try meditating with your eyes open. You can simply have your eyes open during sitting meditation, or you can do something like walking meditation (which is good to do anyway).
Try it and see what happens.
May the merits of this sharing be dedicated to all beings
But, if meditation seems to be doing you worse....just stop with it man. Have a hot shower instead, listen to soothing music....anything that typically relaxes you. And try different doctors if these ones have no clue.
one will have many obstacles.
That doesn't mean one should stop practicing when the first problem shows up.
Most of the times the solutions will be subtle little adjustments here and there, add little things etc...
With good guidance from an expert, problems will be recognize and overcome quickly and progress will be made.
Besides, I don't have FAITH in the fruits of meditation. It should be for the meditator to judge, whether it's being good for him or not.
Yesterday i did my meditation in the afternoon (20 min), as usual thoughts from the past started to come up, at some they started to come a little more frequent and suddenly my body kind of paralyzed and had a panic attack in the middle of my meditation, i treated the attack as if it was a thought or an emotion and it quickly faded away, after that i felt good for the rest of the day, this means i'm sticking to the practice for now. I'm going to try and find a teacher with a great deal of experience anyway.
I do believe i have to try and stay meditating, i really don't see another way of ending so much suffering other than meditation,practices like Qi Gong, Tai Chi or any other form of mindfulness, i believe in coping methods like Epicurus said, they have a purpose too, but they're not permanent changes IMHO.
Knowledge is power.
When meditating and symptoms arise, like a panic attack, you can deal with it without disrupting your meditation, or even use your meditation to deal with it, as it appears that you did.
I don't believe that meditation is ever harmful, in itself, but some may be able to benefit more, or sooner, than others.
You could try analytical meditation, which is basically thinking deeply about a particular idea.
Or simply bringing care and attention to any task is a great practice too.
Some people enjoy chanting sutras, or counting mantras on prayer beads.
The best practice of all, of course, is performing wise and kind actions.
Thoughts create emotions, not the other way around. So we feel anxious when we have anxious thoughts. What you can do is pay attention when you are having a thought and then affirm to yourself that it is just a thought; it is not reality. Then give your thoughts less importance. Just because a thought appears to your conscious mind doesn't mean you have to pay attention to it. It does not appear for any meaningful reason.
The mind's job is to think. And it will do that for the rest of your life. 99.9% of our thoughts are meaningless and repetitive. If you want to be free from your anxiety stop giving importance to your anxious thoughts. Focus on the present and if you stop giving attention and energy to those thoughts they will eventually lose their hold over you.
Good luck my friend,
Dae Won
Edit: Try practicing mindfulness meditation like Vipassana rather than concentration meditation. That may help.
Thoughts trigger emotions.
emotions trigger thoughts.
Joe feel down. Just a vague feeling of sadness.
Many thoughts about this sadness come, thinking about the sad stuff that has happened in his life.
Each of the sad events he remember trigger the feeling that is conditioned with this thought.
All of theses secondary feelings bring their own sets of thoughts etc...
Now Joe feels terrible with a head full of negative thoughts.
But it doesn't really matter which came first.
Joe is watching a movie which reminds him of something sad that has happen in his life.
So the feeling come, so the thoughts relevant to this feeling come etc...
My other theory is that, "it has to get worse before it gets better", but if this is true, it's very scary, because the anxiety/depression are going to get so bad that it would be almost impossible for me to focus on something, unless i increase my dosage of tranquilizers, or try hard to not fall from the ship somehow. I remember some years ago i tried something called Neurotherapy (one of the thousands o treatments i've had), the therapists were kind of impressed of how the treatment got me so bad, in fact i think i was the first case for them like that. Antidepressants get my anxiety to the roof as well!, the only thing that works for me is klonopin, and i have a bad addiction to it. It's true, hell is just under my skull.
I think i'll try a more "open" kind of meditation like the ones you guys suggested, in fact i have a book called "The happiness Trap", which is based on the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, it's something like mindfulness for the west. It has some good exercises.
http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Trap-Struggling-Start-Living/dp/1590305841
We, who suffer with obsessive thinking, tend to obsess over our progress on the path. But this is a trap. Constantly checking how we are doing is not getting us any closer, it actually just makes us worse, because we obsess over the fact that we can't live up to our idea of enlightenment.
You are already perfect the way you are. You don't need to compare yourself to what you think the perfect human being should be like. Just don't trust anything you think. It's all you attempting to interpret reality. It's not reality. Take your thoughts less seriously and life becomes a little lighter.
When I read this, my thought was that there may be other areas of your life that need a change and meditation may be simply sounding the alarm about that as you get more in touch with yourself. I mention this because it is something that has happened to me. I have struggled with periods of high anxiety in the past myself, and sometimes meditation used to make me feel more anxious. With me, I think part of what was happening is that I was getting frustrated with not being able to find serenity and that sense of failure made me feel worse and thus destroyed the goal. I found that when I made positive changes in other areas of my life, like strengthening my relationships, learning to forgive myself and doing things just for myself, that changed my thinking and patience and it carried over into my meditation and my practice became more fruitful and useful to me. Sometimes the alarms we feel can be gifts that lead us to what changes need to be made.
It's possible that making an adjustment in other areas of your life may be what your emotions are trying to tell you to do. Be kind to yourself like you would be to a loved one who is suffering and feeling lost. Even when it is hard to find peace, you are still valuable, you are still lovable and powerful.
Thanks for the post it really opened my eyes a bit more, your intuition gave me confidence somehow.
In my experience a short period of walking meditation 5 minutes is helpful. I also found massage helpful. If you have the luxary of having a partner. But even self massage. Body scans also. If you are interested I can post my method of body scan. If you don't really feel your body it is impossible to release the tension and these are ways of becoming aware.
A final note is that it was a turning point for me to realize that I didn't have intellectual forced control over these feelings any more than willing myself asleep. Though it is proven that mindfulness (I suggest Jon Kabatt Zinn) can reduce stress still its not a matter of will, but a matter of creating the right conditions. Individually for you. With experimentation and a view on non-grasping self. But not in a abusive way so be careful with 'self'. With negativity that can additionally exacerbate. So you have to experiment.
And have faith. The additional mental tapes that 'all is wrong'. This is not true. It is just a haze or film that is covering the peaceful picture of mirror pond. (Cloud word was taken by our great mod, no I'm kidding I could have said a cloud over the sun).
I agree whole heartedly with osmosis that exercise could help. Sometimes I think having too much energy and not expending it physically will make the mind expend it by over-thinking, which can cause anxiety. Just a theory
Anyway I hope you feel better
Perhaps you could look around for a group in your area that meets based on a mutual interest. You could try meetup.com and look for a group that is based on one of your interests, sports or hobbies. They have info on groups in just about every major city. For those who may find self-initiated interaction a bit overwhelming (I have shared this feeling in some of my own experience too), scheduled meetings can provide a structure and focus that leads the interaction so that there may be less worry about what to do with yourself and what to talk about. After getting used to this, it is possible that comfort can eventually increase and initiating things yourself may come to feel a little less daunting.
Here are some things that I have found useful in uncomfortable social situations: ask the other person questions and get them talking about their opinion or about themselves. Most people love to talk about themselves and their opinions. You could even think of subjects ahead of time so that you don't panic too much in the moment trying to think of things to say. In the morning you can think of a few current events or even a strange weather pattern to ask someone about. I often bring up something in the media (Japan, for example) and get them to express their reaction to it and we can share a similar perspective or educate one another further. That makes me feel a sense of camaraderie, even if I don't know the person very well.
When I deal with people I don't know, I often look for something to compliment them on. It could be an article of clothing, their education or profession. These habits can make someone feel positive towards you and that reaction may translate into you feeling more accepted and easing fears you may have.
Don't be afraid to hug, high five, fist bump or whatever would be relevant between you and a family member/friend/acquaintance. Physical contact can make both people feel more positive about each other. I read a really interesting study about social interaction and physical contact. Participants were to make a purchase at a cash register and get change. All other factors were the same except for one difference. In one group, the cashier made sure to make hand to hand contact when giving change and the other group was not touched at all. The group that was touched was more likely to report a positive impression of the cashier and the results were statistically significant. Interesting, huh?
@fedaalis, I agree with your insight about exercise.. For most of our history, human beings evolved to be very physically active. Society today allows us to be very inactive. Sitting at computers, sitting in cars, sitting at work, sitting in class. Trying to fix the effects of inactivity with more sitting and thinking can cause confusion. Everything has to be balanced. If a need is neglected, we have to find it. Maybe we can think of it like a car. So many problems can be fixed under the hood, but if we have a flat tire, it doesn't necessarily help us to continue to stare at the engine. It is possible to eventually realize what the problem is while you're looking at the engine, but it might be faster to just look all around the car and check everywhere.
Tom
Best of luck to you.
I have had some pretty serious anxiety attacks in my past, enough to land me in ER a couple times, and at one time I attempted medicating it away, as well. To meditate or not and even how to meditate is, probably one of those choice you simply have to make yourself.
Besides mediation I would set aside some time to discover myself too, figure out what deep inside is creating these feelings. (I am new to Buddhism so maybe all that I have to say is within the teachings and there is a type of mediation that teaches this, there probably is I just don't know it yet)
First: In letting go you have got to know what you are letting go of. When anxiety is as deep as you are experience, it may not be what you consciously think it is, but rather your consciousness suppressing something you think it too difficult to know and handle. Often it is the complexity of many things creating this overwhelmed feeling and physical manifestation. It may take some deep inner searching to really understand where it's coming from. Also breaking it down into smaller pieces was helpful for me, instead of trying to deal with all the things at once. Pick one thing, the one that seems the easiest, and work on it first, things can be pretty entwined so this may not be the easiest of things either. If after sometime passes you find the one you have chosen to hard to deal with and so nothing is happening, switch to a different one. There is no quick path to reach the healing part, only temporary relief that often complicates it even further.
Second: Face, validate, accept, and be okay with feeling it, they are feeling, your feelings, and feelings are neither right or wrong, they just are, they are good, they are what makes us human. Understanding, acceptance and being okay can go a long way to relieving deep anxiety, and in my experience was the most difficult part, sometimes took me years to get there.
Third: Once you completely understand and accept them, then ponder how you might be able to approach them and examine them take the apart, consider different aspects on how to view the causes (sometimes it help to be able to see it through someone else's eyes that have experienced something similar, also great source for help on this are therapists, psychologists, support groups, and such).
Once you truly get through all 3 steps, you will feel lighter, but know that at times they can still come back, and when they do then go back through the steps.
Also looking in the mirror regularly, or at the end of a mediation, but at least once a day say to yourself, "what ever I experience, and feel is okay, good, and a part of what makes me, me!, I am a good person, and happy with all those things, otherwise I wouldn't be who I am".
I sincerely hope you find peace.