Jordan's Meditation/self Inquiry Journal

[Jordan]

Hello, 

I am Jordan. I live in Vancouver Canada. I have watched Leo's meditation and enlightenment videos and have not done much other research on the topic. I have decided on fallowing his plan from one of his videos to meditate daily doing:

30 days of being aware of your thoughts and not try to do anything with them.
30 days of being aware of your thoughts and letting them go.
30 days of being aware of how aware you are.

I plan to do this every day for 1 hour

I also plan on doing self inquiry work every day for 1 hour and will write here what my current beliefs are and update with new insights.

I welcome any suggestions, encouragement or info that you might find useful for me.

I stated March 2, 2016 meditating everyday so today is my 4th day of meditation and self inquiry for an hour each day.

 

 

Insights for Day 4 March 5, 2016:

I meditated first in the morning. I started focusing more on my emotions than my thoughts although this wasn't the instructions. I tried not to move but I ended up checking the time with about 5 min left, cracking my wrists and adjusting my sitting position a few times. My awareness of my thoughts and emotions are noticeably higher than when I started. Today I felt pretty calm for the first 45 min or so then got agitated and wanted it to end feeling much better when I saw there was 5 min left.

I walked around a park by my house when doing my self inquiry work. I am going to list my current believes as they come to me. This is mostly for me to be able to look back on so it might be in a jumble. My current believe is that I have no control over my thoughts , emotions or movements and what I am is an idea created by my mind that there is an entity aware of my senses, emotions and thoughts. From what I understand from my own observations, my emotions affect my thoughts and my thoughts affect my emotions and they both have their own intellect and analyse my senses and each other and produce content that I can perceive. All i can do is be aware and the mind and emotions decide in my subconscious how to move and act . The mind may be able to learn to control itself better though meditation. emotions have a bigger influence on thoughts than thoughts on emotions. If my emotions and thoughts come to the same decision on what to do, I feel more at peace and when they conflict I feel more resistance which is i think how my emotional system tries to influence my mind. Since the mind is less powerful and more adaptable I think it is super important to increase my awareness so my mind can make better decisions to create an environment where I feel motivated, at peace and content. This could be through dropping thoughts realizing they are not an accurate perception of reality and acting more though instinct while remaining aware of my thoughts and emotions so my mind can work well together. There are probably more senses than I am aware of that are inputs into mind and emotional system such as memories, beliefs, instincts and maybe things like light on my skin and magnetic fields or other things I am unaware of. I am not sure how to test this theory though.

 

-Jordan-

 

 

 

[Irina Irina]

that 30 days plan is quite awesome. @Jordan

[Jordan]

I just finished my meditation for today. I left my phone on because I was expecting someone to come over and do some work for me and didn't want to just not respond to him for an hour. The first 25 min went well then i got some texts. I went back to meditating and the frequency of thoughts increased but it wasn't too bad.

I came up with some insights. I heard Leo speak about controlling the interpretation of a situation to be able to control your emotions. When my butt started to hurt from sitting for a long time I remembered that suffering = pain * resistance. At first I tried to just accept the pain but it didn't do much. Then what I did was think about how low the pain is compared to some pain I have had before and in comparison it feels pretty good. That made me feel much better. I think this is why some people put a lot of importance on being grateful because interpretations of good and bad are just relative to what you are comparing something to. If I start to feel like I don't want to work today I will think to myself how much i enjoy working compared to being laughed at for being lazy. I will see if this helps my motivation.

[Jordan]

Day 6, March 7, 2016

I meditated today after taking a shower and drinking some water. My mind was thinking about what reality really is and how far off memory is from actually observing it. I noticed that when I put my focus on my thoughts looking for what their content is and not accepting it as the truth my thoughts stop mid thought. After 40 min I got restless and looked at the timer. it took about 10 min to calm down again. I think my mind's ability to focus on being aware gets depleted and it is easier to get lost in thought which is why I get so restless at around the 40-45 min mark. It could also be because I know I should be pretty close to finishing.  

Some insights from my self inquiry yesterday were that my memories are really far off from reality but I still believe emotionally they are true especially when I am not aware I am lost in thought. When I realize that my thoughts are not the same they lose a lot of their emotional influence. For example I looked at my fridge, looking away while still having the memory of the fridge in my mind feeling I know exactly where it is in space and what it looks like then look at the fridge realizing there are many details of it that were not part of my memory of it. Also i traced back some of my insecurities such as fear of talking to strangers and not working hard when getting work done to a belief that I am not good enough. I believe that this belief is not benefiting me as much as it limits me so I will find ways to prove to myself that I really am good enough such as finding examples of how I am and reframing the examples I have supporting it.

Edited March 7, 2016 by Jordan

[Jordan]

Day 7 March 8, 2016

I just finished my meditation for today. I was able to stay almost completely still for the whole hour. One of my eyes flickered open for a split second and I started to lean to the right once but then stopped myself. I didn't swallow or check my timer or crack my wrists like I have done previously. I discovered that the reason I couldn't help but move before was because I was feeling an emotion and I wanted to distract myself from it by moving and finding something else to put my attention on. Today I focused very intensely on how I was feeling and didn't move because I realized it was in my best interest not to distract my focus. Also maybe 6 times i felt like I was being jolted awake after starting to drift into thought. This might be because I didn't get as much sleep last night as I usually do.  

[Jordan]

Day 8, March 9, 2016

I just finished my meditation. I had a big misunderstanding with my girlfriend and we are going to meet up for lunch tomorrow to talk about it. This is where my mind was the whole meditation. What basically happened is she asked me for a large sum of money over text to help pay off a debt of hers she needed to pay off by the end of the month and I didn't like how she asked this over text and not in person so I could better understand the situation and come to a solution that hopefully doesn't include me handing over a bunch of money. She took this as meaning I didn't trust that she would pay me back. When I look at how I feel I realized I literally feel like I would die of be an unforgivable person if I ran out of money and her asking for so much would put me at risk of this. It seems silly thinking about it logically but I still have that fear. 

I cried more than I ever have at one time during this meditation. I started to think how much pain she must have been in when she came to the conclusion that I didn't trust her even though she trusted me so much and she couldn't count on me like she thought. 

So I learned about my unhealthy belief that I will die or at least be an unforgivable person if I run out of money. This is probably is part of the reason I carry a lot of stress and negative judgments of myself and others and have emotional triggers when it comes to spending money. I am going to work on this and find a way to prove to myself that running out of money is something I can handle without being a bad person or it killing me and that maybe it is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Jordan]

Day 9, March 10, 2016

I meditated later in the day today. I am going to do some self inquiry before bed. I had my phone charged but it kept switching between charging and coming unplugged until I eventually got annoyed and unplugged it. I noticed that I keep tension in my gut pretty much whenever i have checked for it. I realize this is unhealthy so I am working on being mindful of it and taking slow deep breaths and consciously relaxing throughout the day.

 

 

[Jordan]

Day 10, March 11, 2016

I went out to the club at 11:30pm without meditating yet so I meditated for 20 min on the train and 40 min when I got home at 3:30am

Day 11, March 12, 2016

I meditated in the morning after getting little sleep from clubbing last night. It was really hard to focus and I kept drifting off, moving and feeling bored/frustrated. 

[Jordan]

Day 16 March 17, 2016

I meditated today and the previous days. I just didn't get around to posting about them. I tried my best to not move today except for swallowing and breathing. I did fine for the first half or so but then my butt felt like it was heating up like I was sitting on a stove and getting burnt slowly. I started sweating drops down my back and could smell my sweat. I ended up keeping my arms and legs still but I did tense up my legs at one point to take some pressure off my butt. There were a lot of images coming up in my mind. I didn't really make much sense of them and just tried to be aware that they were thoughts. It felt pretty intense it seemed much longer than 1 hour.

[Jordan]

Day 22 March 23, 2016

wow I didn't realized I haven't posted in so many days. I am a little surprised I haven't missed a day yet. I have still been keeping consistent an hour a day but a few days I have tried breaking it up. I set my timer for an hour then get up and take a break if i feel like it usually around 40-45 min in. I figured this might help me focus for the last bit of time when i feel tired and seem to get lost in thought more. It seems to help a bit and feels much easier. I learned to sit further back in my chair to be more comfortable. I have also started putting a pillow in my lap so they can support my arms better. I feel a little more aware than when I started. It seems like a slow but consistent process meditating every day to increase awareness.

I haven't been doing my self inquiry like I planned to when I started. I am going to just stick with recording my meditation for now. I do some self inquiry when writing my journal in the morning and when i am waiting in a line or on the toilet so it isn't like I completely stopped it.

My top 10 values are: honesty, drive, ease, playfulness, independence, gratefulness, acceptance, awareness, open mindedness, adventure

[Jordan]

Day 28 March 29, 2016

The last few days I have had a really hard time focusing when meditating. I have been drifting off much more than usual and haven't been able to sit still. I have been meditating before bed and haven't been updating this because my computer has been put away already. I will try meditating earlier on in the day so I can update this, make sure I don't miss a day without realizing it and have more energy.

[Jordan]

Day 29, March 30, 2016

Today I meditated before bed again. I was able to focus much more and was able to sit still for the whole hour.  It seemed shorter than some sessions. I did drift off several times but not nearly as long as the last three sessions. I sat with my legs farther apart than usual which seemed to give me more stability. I noticed tension in my shoulders at one point and it felt like they dropped over an inch when I relaxed them. 

[Jordan]

Day 32 April 2, 2016

The day before yesterday I moved but yesterday I didn't. I have added a new rule that if I move my arms or legs or open my eyes I have to add time to my timer equal to half of the time I have done so far. I moved with 3 min left today so I put the timer back to 32 min giving me 30 seconds to put my phone down turn off the lights and find a comfortable position.

For days 30-60 I am supposed to be aware of my thoughts let them go. I find it hard when I have a song in my head. I have found it helps when I put all my effort on focusing on my breath and my shoulders being relaxed and my posture.

[Jordan]

Day 34 April 4, 2016

Yesterday I meditated before bed after putting away my computer. I didn't move fore the whole 60 min :). 

I read something about posing in a power poses increasing testosterone and decreasing cortisol. Today I decided to do my first 10 min of meditation standing up head high chest spread with my arms on my hips and alternating between that and having my arms up and face tilted back like I am celebrating. I did feel good when doing that. The rest of the meditation whet ok. I felt itchy at many points in my body throughout. I decided to do a 3 day fast so right now I am 48 hours in so that might have caused me to feel itchy for some reason.