I have recently started, tried before and gave up, trying again now and it is helping.
My sponsor meditates and i really want to do it as i know it helps her and i want it to help me.
It has been helping recently find a connection to i guess my HP. my sponsor says prayer is talking to HP and meditation is listening.
I dont often hear people in the rooms talk about meditation, i hear a lot about prayer and praying but not meditation. I might have to go to some meditation meetings and be around more people who do it.
Also people have told me that their meditation is listening to visualation CDs, or sitting in the morning with a coffee and a smoke and thinking. Others might be different but i have found those things havent really helped me too much. I'm not sure of the different types of meditation but i dont think visualisations are really the same are they? Ive done a tonne of visualisations for a long time before and it was nice but not that helpful really to quieten my mind.
I m still a newbie at mediation and dont know much about it. I have been to a class and tried and that week was the only week i could lay my head on the pillow and my mind was quiet! no chatter no commitee going on. it was great. then i stopped after about 2 weeks only.
I am concerned i will stop again, i guess its progress not perfection though. I am praying for the willingness to meditate. I see the benefits it does for others and i want that.
Also i read regular meditation can help heal the brain from PTSD, it can reset and help heal parts of the brain apparently after a long while of it. And it has good effect on the mind. (I read that a while back but cant remeber where i read it)
Do you meditate? What kind of meditation do you do?
I have been mostly trying to do meditation focusing on the breathe. I dont know much about mindfulness but have tried that a little, trying to be in the now. But im pretty ignorant about it all. Got a good book on it, a few actually and oneis really good explaining stuff. I would like to go to a meditation thing at the buddhist centre, where i went for classes before, but its like one hour meditation at a time. It seems a bit scary lol. I guess i can try it and see. For now i have been trying only 10-15 minutes a day. for the first time yesteray actually looked forward to it and found it really relaxing and nice. So hopefully it will get easier to make myself do.
-- Edited by slugcat on Monday 17th of May 2010 10:52:13 AM
After many tries and attempts this is what I found works for me, This was a professor at Harvard who did a medical study of the effects of meditation and the results were nothing less then astounding
We all seem to know what stress is. Some have defined it as "the demands of life" - but these demands of life are actually stressors. Stress is the effect that these demands have on our mind/body.
Acute stress affects the autonomic nervous system. Heart rate increases, pupils dilate, blood rushes toward large muscles and away from the fingers and toes. Muscles can tighten and adrenaline and cortisol are released into the blood stream. These reactions are all part of the "fight-or-flight" response. Our bodies are becoming prepared to fight or to run.
What happens though is we neither fight nor flee and we store that stress, and the effect is like that putting a little bit of air in a tire every day until it "blows", our blood pressure goes up, our heart rate remains elevated and in many studies is proven to cause a host of maladies from heart disease to cancer.
Meditation is like letting a little bit of air out every day, our blood pressure goes down, our heart rate is lower, and we release the poisons stored up in our body from the autonomous nervous system firing off all the time, even driving sets this off, and from the practice of meditation we learn how to allow our thoughts to go by without attaching, more akin to watching the new york stock exchange rather then being blown to and fro by every wind that blows through our mind.
the Relaxation Response.
Herbert Bensen, M.D. coined the phrase after studying people who practiced Transcendental Meditation (TM). TM has been shown to help people reduce the activity of their autonomic nervous systems. Bensen took the principles of TM and removed them from their Eastern religious context in order to make them more accessible for westerners.
The Relaxation Response:
Sit comfortably with your eyes closed.
Pay attention to your breathing, and repeat a word or phrase or prayer silently to yourself as you exhale.
When you notice your mind wandering (It will) just notice it and passively bring your attention back to your breathing.
Practice for approximately 20 minutes every day (or at least 3-4 times per week). Don't set an alarm, but sit with a clock in view if necessary.
I added 2 things to this from my reading, one is I concentrate on a space 1 inch beyond my nose, or I stare at a candle, I say one word when I breathe in "Taaaoooooo" and I pull that word up inside my head to the roof of my skull and then I exhale "Teeechiiiiinnnnngggggg" following the breath from the top of my head out my nose taking all the negative energy with it (Tao Te Ching) means the virtue of how things are, I will also use Carpe Diem, for me 3 syllables seems to work.
The relaxation response represents a form of meditation which has been practiced for many years. The technique can be found in every major religious tradition. It is a simple technique, but it is not easy to practice or to incorporate into your life. You will find your mind wandering, and you will probably find it difficult to set aside the time to practice. It feels like setting aside 20 minutes a day to sit and do nothing.
If you do incorporate this or any relaxation technique into your life you may notice at least the following four benefits:
You will gain increased awareness of whether you are tense or relaxed. You will be more "in touch with your body."
You will be better able to relax when you become stressed-out.
You may even reduce the resting level of your autonomic nervous system - walking around more relaxed all the time.
Your concentration may improve. By repeatedly bringing yourself back to the meditation you are strengthening the part of your mind that decides what to think about.
__________________
Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Aloha Slugcat...The process for me (guided) started a long time ago with a definition of meditation which was to focus on some spiritual truth and let it become a fixation for a period of time where nothing else was allowed to interrupt. Then I started my drinking career and I could get a lot non-interrupted "plowed" time but I don't think I had any spiritual truth fixated. Then I got into program and the drinking part of my life ceased completely and the fixation became who I would choke or kill next because I was doing life without anesthesia and crazier than a coot. The definition came back to me when I started to work with a good sponsor and we went into practice with keeping it simple because he made an absolutely ludicrous remark being "If you do it right, you should be able to meditate 24/7 without stopping living. There went the cross legged position in a temple atop some Asian alp covered with snow.
Doing it right became my search and his doing it right meant "keeping it simple" so I was sent off to find the most simplest spiritual truth I knew that I could focus on and remain in focus 24/7. Like the grasshopper I wondered around the rooms of my employment, my house, my yard my meetings, the market and streets of Central Valley searching and I found it. After I found it I sat with my sponsor and he asked me...."so what is this simple spiritual truth that you have discovered that you can focus on 24/7 regardless of what ever else is going on in life?" That was approximately 20 some years ago and I have never found a spiritual truth more simple or profound.
"God is" is my meditation focus...I'm doing it now. It doesn't stop. It in fact really has been doing me for a long time than me doing it. "God is..." Might help.
Meditation and relaxation is something I learned a long time ago, but never really used it on a regular basis until about a year ago. For me, it starts with lying quietly and focusing on my breathing. I will sometimes turn on some white noise, very softly, to help me focus my mind. I always try to breath from the "inside out", if that makes any sense at all. Like I'm trying to breath out all emotion and feeling, and breath in "nothingness". Probably doesn't make much sense, but it's how I was taught, and I adapted it in ways to better work for me. I usually do it while lying down with closed eyes in bed in the mornings before I get up for the day. I can definitely tell when I don't do it, because my day always feel "off". This is the best way I know to stay spiritually connected to God, and when my mind is quieted I can better hear what he has to say to me.
