12-24-2015, 10:48 AM
(12-23-2015, 02:35 PM)essy Wrote: 8 minutes of daily meditation grounded me through vulnerable times. Glad you found it.
Yeah I've been off and on with meditation through the years. It wasn't until recently that I really started to get it. Prior to this I always found it stressful.
Anyway, that brings me to my next breakthrough I had. I've always made the mistake of trying to quiet my mind or stop thinking. I now know it's impossible to stop thoughts through sheer force of will. This also means I can't force relaxation or a peaceful mindset. That's a mistake I often made. Trying to force myself into a state of peace. But peace is always with you, it's just covered up by the excessive mental chatter. Same goes for anxiety or depression. Now I just watch those thoughts and emotions without trying to control them or force myself to be happy or content, just letting them pass and I find that a state of peace washes over me when my mind settles down. I don't have to do anything.
The thoughts and emotions are there, whether I realize it or not. So I'm better off bringing them to conscious awareness and letting them pass without reacting to them than trying to force them away or stop thinking them. The most difficult time I have dealing with this is with anger. I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to accepting the emotion of anger. Not necessarily the outward actions of it, just the emotion. Learning that anger doesn't make me a bad person, it's just another type of emotion.
