These are all pretty common points of contention for beginners.
Barring extreme cases, like people with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, I believe meditation is beneficial, and not harmful, for virtually everyone.
I’m certain you’ve experienced a state of flow before and found equanimity in the process.
Meditation at its core is being able to drop back into that experience at your own convenience.
You’ve set yourself a goal, which is antithetical to the nature of meditation.
The goal (which is besides the point) you’ve set is totally unrealistic. For a beginner to sit and let their mind become empty is the equivalent of an average person waking up tomorrow and deciding to run a double marathon.
One reason meditation is helpful is that we become more efficient at letting go of unhelpful thoughts. Your reason for not wanting to do meditation, is the reason you should do meditation. It’s a catch 22.
If you ever decide to try again, it might be helpful to set some realistic goals, temporarily.
See if you can let your mind become as empty as you can, for a whole second. If that’s easy, try two seconds (this is harder than it sounds, but definitely within the capacity of beginners).
Other goals might be to not hold on to any thought for longer than ten seconds before returning to the breath for the duration of the practice.
If you practice enough, you’ll intuitively understand the goals aren’t important and are just more unhelpful thoughts.
Zozano@lemy.lol 5 weeks ago
I’m an experienced meditator. Are you able to articulate why meditation doesn’t work for you?
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 5 weeks ago
I’m on meds now, and that helped a lot, but I had several issues:
I felt unable to control my thoughts; I realize you’re supposed to just observe them, but they felt too close and overwhelming
I felt trapped with my thoughts
It didn’t deal with the underlying problem; even if I was able to observe the issues just came back when I stopped
Zozano@lemy.lol 5 weeks ago
These are all pretty common points of contention for beginners.
Barring extreme cases, like people with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, I believe meditation is beneficial, and not harmful, for virtually everyone.
I’m certain you’ve experienced a state of flow before and found equanimity in the process.
Meditation at its core is being able to drop back into that experience at your own convenience.
Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 5 weeks ago
I’m glad that meditation works for you, and that you’re a proponent of it, trying to get others onboard.
I have experienced flow states, but even those were anxious (loss of control feeling is yuck, not freeing)
I had success with guided meditation, but primarily around sleep, which helped mood.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
It can be demoralizing to try to sit quietly while your brain assaults you with all its shit. Makes practice no fun
Zozano@lemy.lol 5 weeks ago
This is a very common perspective for beginners.
There are a few things worth unpacking here.
You’ve set yourself a goal, which is antithetical to the nature of meditation.
The goal (which is besides the point) you’ve set is totally unrealistic. For a beginner to sit and let their mind become empty is the equivalent of an average person waking up tomorrow and deciding to run a double marathon.
One reason meditation is helpful is that we become more efficient at letting go of unhelpful thoughts. Your reason for not wanting to do meditation, is the reason you should do meditation. It’s a catch 22.
If you ever decide to try again, it might be helpful to set some realistic goals, temporarily.
See if you can let your mind become as empty as you can, for a whole second. If that’s easy, try two seconds (this is harder than it sounds, but definitely within the capacity of beginners).
Other goals might be to not hold on to any thought for longer than ten seconds before returning to the breath for the duration of the practice.
If you practice enough, you’ll intuitively understand the goals aren’t important and are just more unhelpful thoughts.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
I meditate frequently, but that was my experience at the beginning