Should I meditate when depressed?

[lmfao]

So I've been meditating for 2 weeks now for about 20 minutes every day, and I did 1 hour yesterday. I'm trying to address my internet addiction through being more mindful to cut down the amount of hours I'm using it (although I have a porn addiction which has possibly gotten worse recently).

At the start of today I was feeling relatively normal. I have depression, but the extremely painful aspects of it have been negated through medication.  After going on Netflix for an hour when I woke up, I stopped myself from using and I then meditated for 20 minutes. After meditating however, I was suddenly swept over with my depression with full force. I felt a perception shift (not in a good way). Articulating and verbalizing exactly what I'm feeling is very hard. I feel very unresponsive to my environment, and my mood is very low. I've had a lot of problems around in my mind which have only been growing whilst I distracted my mind with the internet, and they're starting to all surface and hit me hard. 

 After that depressing feeling swept over, I've spent hours and hours on the internet . I went on an intense porn binge, and the aftermath has left me feeling much, much worse. When I want to direct my attention to my feelings and sensations, I cant focus and my mind just resists because paying attention to the feelings inside me would be very painful. 

 

When I'm feeling depressed like this, should I meditate? Even if it is extremely painful, and I can't focus well when I start my session, will pushing through be of any benefit in the short term and long term? 

Edited December 31, 2017 by lmfao

[Shin]

Everytime you start the question "Should I meditate", meditate.

Your mind is very clever, it's been two weeks you started the habit that will make it clear to the real you that the mind is just a tool, a servant.

So what does it do to bullshit himself (right now you think you're the mind), he finds clever argument to not meditate.

[LaucherJunge]

@lmfao
You are just fooling youself. Do you think your life will be less painful when you run away from the pain? It will be more painful, it will stay hell if you keep resisting it. Pain is only the compass to find your true self, it shows you that you are doing something wrong, that you are out of alignment. Pain is not bad, it is the best pointer you could have ever wished for.
Feel the pain and I would recommed you to do the do nothing meditation on top of that, just let the monkey mind roam free do whatever it wants even morally bad stuff just stay aware while doing it and don't lose yourself into those thought stories.
Feel the pain, talk to the pain, as if it would be another you inside of your body. Be loving, ask it why it hurts and just be a friend to it, encourage it to take the steps that are neccessary.
Whatever is inside of you will always stay there when you keep resisting or ignoring it, it will stay in your subconscious taking control over your life.
Unless of course you finally embrace that part of yourself as mentioned above. 
It may be a long process but your life will turn from hell to heaven instead of staying hell forever.

[jse]

15 hours ago, lmfao said:

Should I meditate when depressed?

Best to wait until your meditation comes down, before resuming depression.

[Faceless]

Is this meditation intended to be a coping device? 

[EthanTrammell]

Meditation can help you, but firstly try to deviate yourself from siting in front of the internet and indulge yourself in some creative work.

[solr]

On 31.12.2017 at 7:38 AM, Shin said:

Everytime you start the question "Should I meditate", meditate.

This.

[nick96]

@lmfao

you can meditate if you want to. If the sensations in your body are too painful for you to focus on, you can choose other healthy things to do.

I have been addicted to internet and porn and video games, lately only to porn.i have meditated a lot in the last year and now what is working mostly for me now to deal with this addiction are physical exercises to release repressed emotions .

You have the urge to watch porn and check the internet because being in reality is too painful because there is too much stuck emotional energy in your body.

meditation is only one of the ways you can start facing the repressed emotional pain. Other techniques you can try are :

• bioenergetics
• yoga
• Trauma release exercise (TRE)
• osho dynamic meditation 
• osho kundalini meditation 

And more powerful ones : ( don’t do them alone) 

• Holotropic breathwork 
• Rebirthing breathwork 

But don’t stop meditating ! Meditation is a great basis, what I posted here is for give you some greater help like I was given when I posted on this forum not many months ago. 

 

[star ark]

Do you stay in bed when you wake up?

If so immediately jump out of bed and get moving, lying there not moving is the wrong way to start the day. Introduce every sensible dietary advice one at a time, you know dairy free, gluten free, caffeine free, refined carbs free, fish oil, vitamin bs and ds, probiotic gut health. Every time it looks sunny and nice outside walk if you have free time, make at least 45 mins and I bet you find all your thoughts fade away and you will be very peaceful, you will sleep like a rock and slowly all of these things will compound, you may find one particular vitamin or supplement made a HUGE difference and learn all this important stuff about yourself and what you need to do in the future to retain a calm peaceful mind.

I think most people can beat depression this way. I beat my depression this way, took a couple of years but every week i was a little bit better. 

[krish]

@lmfao can you tell me what is your daily routine? I have a suggestion but before I give one I need to know your routine 

Edited January 8, 2018 by krish

[jse]

I wonder... Is it possible to feel true love and depression at the same time?  If not, why is this so?

[ReinaEddie]

Hi there, I think when a man is depressed the best thing to avoid depression is to make yourself busy at work which you loves to do. Most of them suggest to eat a balanced diet and daily workout. Meditation is an another good way to reduce stress. I have also heard about professions like catherineduxi, martine-voyance and sabine-gorge who are expert in providing you the guidance to make your mind stress free and to provide a positive way to move forward in your life.

[Gabriel Antonio]

Very good question!

i’d say probably it is a better idea to not meditate. Why? Because if you do, you might start seeing meditation as a grim duty, a chore, an activity you do cause you force tourself to do it.

I used to stop myself from doing shit, like you are doing, and I would neuroically sit upright, put the timer on, and start torturing myself (it was really a torture).

You see, many people (including Leo) advocate this rigid approach to meditation, but the game completely changes when you are under depressive phases. Repressing the depression will actually make it stronger in the future. Maybe you have noticed that. You stop yourself from watching porn, then... 2 days later, you are watching the worst type of porn (which you don’t even like that hardcore...) but, well, that’s how the mind works, mi amigo!

My counterintuitive advice would be to allow yourself to make mistakes, to be a bad self-development student. Eat as much as you can allow yourself, watch as many porn as you want, sleep as much as you want... Remember: awareness alone os curative. 

 

Awareness = Observation

 

So if you can simply watch yourself doing the negative shit, this will be enough for the behavior to autocorrect sooner r later. 

 

Leo has a whole episode on this. One of his best ones: Awareness Alone is Curative. I also recommend How To Stop Backsliding. 

 

Always remember that brute force will only get you as far as you have gone. If you are anything like me, you have overused will-power to the point that it goes full-circle, and you become highly demotivated and without “horniness” for Life. In the African religions, there are entities that are depicted with the penis erect. So basically we need to light up your inner fire, that thing that turns you on. And this has a name, my friend: life-fucking-purpose.

Hope to hear it back from you! 

All advice telling to you to “just fucking do iti” is a complete garbage, BTW. You should probably seek real friends that are also on this path. Unfortunately this is kinda hard to find, especially in the standard of Actualized.org (which is really high in comparison to mainstream self-help people). 

But you can find one. The Buddha used to call that a sangha. 

So, three things:

1- Allow yourself to feel depressed (so do not force “healthy” behaviors) 

2- Fully engage in the bad habit, and observe yourself doing the bad behavior.

3- Find a sangha.

 

Again, I hope to hear t back from you!

 

Greetings from Brazil ?

[Privet]