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Member
Posts: 26
| My largest obstacle when meditating is that I allways feel a demand of doing the technique exactly the way "it's supposed to be done".
Right now I'm doing an exercise where I'm supposed to get more insight in my thoughts, and the process of thinking. When a group of thoughts enter my mind I deliberately "label" them with a thought. For example; if my mind starts thinking about when I spilled a cup of tea yesterday, I think "memory". This is to get to the core of my thoughts, get understanding of where and why they was created, and find patterns in my thinking habits. Also this breaks the chain of thoughts, which brings me more peace of mind.
Back to my problem. When doing the above exercise I feel a demand to put this label on every thought. This makes me tense, and so that my exercise almost make the meditation session work less than it would have without it. And this is absolutley not the purpose of the exercise!
When thinking about it now, it's quite clear that I should stick to the greater picture, and perform the exercise in a sufficient way. But it is very hard for me in practise.
This is acctually a problem for me in my every day life also. My thought is that if I learn this for my meditation sessions, it could help me to ease the problem in my every day life as well.
How do I stop forcing my meditation, and ease the demands on my self during my practice? I guess the only real answer is to have patience and keep practicing, but maybe you have tips that will help me on my way?
All the best! |
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| It's common to get caught up in technique. I've heard self-proclaimed experts define meditation as stillness, silencing your thoughts. It's not, the traditional technique - sitting for 20 minutes - is perhaps about physical stillness, but meditation is ultimately about the mind, which rarely seems to be still! My definition of meditation is this: Awareness. Awareness is not about stillness or technique, it's about attitude. Patience, kindness, love and compassion for yourself and your mind - whatever it throws at you, just observe it. Does something seem to force itself on you, perhaps it's a response to an ad you saw, perhaps it's something someone once said to you, perhaps a conditioned response of impatience to your practice. In any case, so what? No need to trace every thought or try to control it.
Try anchoring your awareness to your breath, and gently let go of thoughts as you gently let go of your breath. When you're training yourself on letting go, you become much more dynamic in your mindset and you learn much more about your awareness because you allow yourself to observe many fragments/thoughts coming and going.
Insight doesn't come so much from labelling, because your labels are your interpretations, which are based on other people's interpretations (words/concepts already invented by others). It's more useful in my opinion to ''surf'' on top of emotions, sensations, thoughts etc. than getting immersed and bogged down in analysis and biased/wrongful interpretations. I hope this made some sense... :-)
I've written more about ''surfing on change'' (mindfulness) here:
http://www.meditation-techniques-for-happiness.com/mindfulness.html |
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Member
Posts: 26
| It made alot of sense 
I'm starting to discover this through my meditation also. In the last weeks I have been less strict during my practice. I have experimented more. Instead of directly being attentive to my breath, or doing a certain exercise, I've just been aware of everything, and have watched without comment. Much like "jimg" is writing about in his post in this thread: http://www.yoga.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=28336&posts=3&start=1 ("sitting meditation"). Even during the first meditation I discovered a great difference! I was more relaxed, and I was more meditating than worrying.
If you feel tense during your meditation, or you are loosing your passion for the practice, and you do not look forward to meditate as much as you should, a tip is to experiment. For example; meditate outside, or where you never have meditated before. I did meditate at a town square, while people, and cars were passing by. Though, I sat in a normal way on a bench with my eyes open. Noone noticed me meditating. I just observed everythig that was going on, without judgement and comment. It was refreshing! I have discovered that I don't have to sit down, in a room, with my eyes closed to meditate. |
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Great demands during meditation
