TheSophie

It's not so much "no partying, no socialising"... it's more that if you are truly content in life then you simply don't NEED stuff like that. Not needing it doesn't mean that you can't do it, just that your happiness is no longer dependent on it. Person a) HAS to go out partying three times a week to avoid feeling bored, Person b) Is content without the partying but CHOOSES to party three times a week. Same result, same amount of parting, two very different people inside. Just my thoughts. ps. Ohhh, to be 16 again...

Depends entirely on what kind of state you are in. I took up mindfulness to counter chronic anxiety attacks, and when I first started (a couple of years ago) I was amazed and delighted that I could find two or three seconds of peace (literally). Even that was a ray of light. And I could only practice it for 2 minutes or so. Stick with it. Relish the small moments. I can now sit for almost as long as I want in complete mental peace. Remember, there's a reason they call it a 'practice'. Imagine learning to juggle or any other mildly complex activity. It will not be easy, you will drop the balls, you will struggle to juggle two let alone three or four, you will feel like you are making no progress. But keep at it, juggle when you sit on the loo, juggle on the way to work. Try different techniques. Try labelling more, try labelling less, try not labelling, try counting breaths, try labelling parts of breaths (start,in,stop,hold,start,out,stop,hold), try holding the out-breath until your mind it momentarily clear, try smiling each time a bad thought comes up, try different lengths of sitting (when my mind is stressed it can take 15 mins before it starts to get super calm.)

Cool - worth keeping in mind, thanks. I'm aware that I should probably do some longer stints of a single kind of meditation rather than 20 of this then 20 of that. I guess I find it hard to jump straight into a 'who am i' style thing from dealing with the kids bedtimes etc. I need to ease in a little.

I would advise that it can be hard to distinguish between real 'no nothing' and consciously choosing what you think about, so watch that. You mentioned the word 'want' a few times and 'I just imagine random things'... I guess what I'm trying to say is that finding yourself thinking about 'A' is quite distinct from realising you can think about 'A' and then choosing to think about it. Did that make any sense? And also it seems important (at least to me) to not just apply do nothing to the initial thoughts. For example if the thought of having sex pops into your head then it's not 'job done' now I get to fantasise about sex all I like. I've had sessions when almost thing popped into my head and it was very tempting to 'force things along' a little bit - the part of my mind that was doing the exercise was kind of like 'aw, come on, you could be thinking about ANYTHING, no rules, no guilt, go crazy!' but my mind was just 'nah, I'm cool, [silence....]'

Hi people, Do any of you have any tips on techniques to where to take my meditation next? As some background, I started out meditation to get a handle on anxiety issues I was having. After a few years of slight interest and six months of serious practice I am now able to calm my mind down really well, and when anxiety attacks happen I can now get myself back to a relaxed state pretty quickly and reliably. When I am meditating without the anxiety I can get very calm and content. All of this has left me interested in doing more self-inquiry... most days I can get pretty calm after 20 minutes or so and it would be nice to have techniques that let me dig a little deeper after that point. I am currently using the following in order of "depth" of meditation: Simple breath awareness Normal mindfulness Do nothing Strong determination sitting Neti-neti style negation "Who am I" style questioning I kind of see how I feel before I start and then do 5 mins of breath awareness, 20 mins of do nothing, then 20 mins of 'who am i' questioning. ie. I kind of ramp things up slowly. Could anyone suggest other techniques that have worked well for them? Or is it more a case of working with what I have for longer periods perhaps? Or, do any of you have any nice combinations? For example, I find that 20 mins of neti neti followed by 20 mins of 'who am i' questioning can work really well. The neti neti kind of gets my head primed for the 'who am i' in a way that really opens things up.

I've only tried it a few times, so not quite what you are after, but here is what I found. (Previous to this I've been concentrating on calming my mind down as I had anxiety / intrusive thought issues I was working through. So trying 'Do Nothing' was a bit of a gamble for me.) It felt strange and took some getting used to. It's actually very hard to do - you keep wanting to influence things, stop things, think about specific things. It's hard to watch your thoughts whilst staying completely detached from them. The first time I did it my thoughts turned a bit, er, naughty, but in an amusing way... I was watching them and thinking 'oh come on now, that's enough of that... again?' but you just have to let things play out. It was exactly like watching a monkey go wild in a beautiful house - subsequent times have been much much calmer, to the extent that the last time I did it almost NO thoughts even came up, it was incredibly calm with NO effort. The first time I did it I found myself giggling involuntarily - the whole experience was such a joyous freedom, like being locked in a room for years and then being allowed out, you'd just kind of run around and laugh and hug people. I had a silly smile on my face for hours afterwards. I'll definitely be doing more of it. Luckily I've had no bad experiences so far... maybe when I have a bad session I'll change my tune. Then again, hopefully with enough other work there may not be too many bad ones.

Or......... If I was better at the whole meditation thing I would dissolve my ego and none of this would even be a problem any more

I guess in self development terms: Is my 'suffering' caused by not accepting that I'm male and being content with that, or Is my 'suffering' caused by not accepting that my gender identity is non-binary and being content with that

Hi people, I'll try to keep this simple. I'm male, early forties and in a long term happy relationship - two kids, all nice. My partner knows I cross dress privately, I have skirts and tops in my clothes drawer along with normal male clothes. It's just a personal thing that relaxes me sometime. It's been part of me since my teens. I have no problem or issues with it - it doesn't eat me up inside etc. I've been doing a lot of meditation work over the last year or so for anxiety, getting good results. I guess my question is how to apply this work to my dressing and my thinking about dressing. On one side, by becoming more content with myself and able to not be so tied into thoughts and reactions and worries I could move myself away from that area of my life. On the other hand, by accepting myself and wanting to find the true me, I could be more open and talkative about that side of me with others. I have no personal problem with others knowing, it's more a concern for how people would then view my kids and partner. Clearly repressing everything seems a little on the unhealthy side, yet also I'm not going to put my kids in a position of getting bullied at school because their dad is weird. Any thoughts? Any meditations good for thinking about this kind of stuff? If I was talking about sexuality I think most people would say 'be true to yourself'... is this any different? I am perfectly happy for this to remain a private thing, there is no desire to dress out in public (ok, maybe a little, but a LONG way from home where no one knows me) etc. or 'become a woman'. Should I "let go" of it? "Embrace" it? Or is a middle way perfectly sensible and compatible with continuing self development work? Does this even have to be any part of my self development work if it doesn't cause me any stress?