The dark side of meditation

[blankisomeone]

I feel like crying right now out of relief. I thought something was wrong with me from getting these side effects from my meditation practices. But now I guess they're normal and are to be expected after watching Leo's video on the dark side of meditation. The ones that are in bold are the ones that I've experienced. Have you experienced any sort of bad side effects from meditation? Please share them with me so I won't feel alone in this ;P

I've been meditating for a year and a half now. (On and off, because when the these bad things happen to me, I get scared and stop meditating. But then I come back.) Of course the first months of meditating for the first time in my life, things were amazing.

I've experienced and am currently experiencing many things from the list below, but the BIG ONES for me right now are: crankiness, loneliness, weird thoughts and spiritual arrogance.

 

THE DARK SIDE OF MEDITATION taken from Leo's video (like I said, the ones in bold are the one's I've experienced):

1. Expect higher annoyance and crankiness. Hyperannoyance from little things. Actually, it's been pretty normal for as long as I can remember in my life to be more of an irritable and fearful person. I'm not gonna get into the details of why that might be because it has to do with my own life's history and maybe the depression I went through in a very young age due to drastic changes in my life. But since I started meditating, in the beginning everything was perfect but then the hyperannoyance came. People's voices started to annoy me. Flies started to annoy me more than ever before! Oh god I can't even describe to you how annoying I find insects. It's an out of this world annoyance that I can't even describe haha. Music I don't like annoy me like never before. My parents voices annoy me. Social media annoys me. Happy-go-lucky, energetic, smiling people annoy the hell out of me, even though I myself act like that sometimes... ANYWAYS, things annoy me to the extreme now after I started meditating. Even bad feelings themselves annoy me. For example, before meditating, when I felt sad, ok I just felt sad, it sucked but I felt the sadness and let it hurt. Now after meditating, whenever a feeling comes to me, like sadness, I feel irritated by the sadness, now not only am I sad but also irritated on top of that. That mainly stems from my wrong preconceived idea that since I'm meditating, theforefore I must always be at peace. I also feel irritated for feeling irritated. LOL It's just a crazy spiral of irritation and negative feelings. After I started meditating I realized I get into these weird spirals a lot. I tend to be more of a neurotic person since I can remember (the potential reasons why I tend to be this way is out of the scope of this post), but it seems to have amplified from meditation... Crazy, right?

2. Hyperjudgmentalism.

3. Wild mood swings.

4. Loneliness. Disgust. Anger. Frustration.

5. Crying. This usually comes when I feel too overwhelmed with a negative feelings, but when something clicks and I realize they're bullshit, I get such a wave of relief that is translated to crying. Or when I get a quick glimpse into the infinite love that life is, I cry. Or when I think about the bad things that happned in my past, I cry.

6. Insomnia.

7. Depression. If you meditate for longer than a year, you will be hit by serious spells of depression.

8. Meaninglessness. You will think your job is meaningless, family is meaningless, even meditation itself is meaningless.

9. Interference with work and career.

10. Interference with relationships.

11. Suicidal thoughts. Do not take them seriously. Any kind of thoughts.

12. Freak out moments. You get into arguments for no good reason.

13. Ego backlash. Turn back to old habits that you thought you had gotten over.

14. Hyper horniness.

15. Old, repressed memories start coming up.

16. Crazy monkey mind.

17. Waves of insanity and madness.

18. Self doubt.

19. Nightmares.

20. The most weird thoughts ever, like you're having sex with your mother or killing people. (I experienced having thoughts of killing people in the most brutal of ways. I was honestly so scared of those thoughts and I couldn't even believe my mind was capable of coming up with such thoughts because, hey, I'm such a good person. I thought meditation was turning me into some kind of monster. I started to hate my parents in such strong ways and my mind came up with things like "you know, you actually could just kill them..." Like, what the fuck?? Am I some killer? Lol Of course not, so these kinds of thoughts are easy for me to ignore and not give them my attention, so they fade away as quickly and as effortlessly as they come. But still, it was a quite a shock for me that meditation was making these kinds of thoughts come up. And now I realize how dangerous the mind can be when you identify with it. I realize how dangerous the mind can become. Thank God, thank my consciousness, I don't act on these thoughts and I don't identify with them in the slightest as they'd create so much unnecesary suffering and bad consequences)

"I gotta quit my job, get a divorce, drop my family and children, move to a cave in India." -> This fantasy usually will pass in a few days. I've had that kinda thought. Almost failed at university because of this. I saw no point in building a career.

21. Spiritual arrogance.  "Yeah, I've been meditating, watching Leo's videos, reading books, being productive, exercising, trying to be my best self. And look at all these other people around me, look how unconcious they are. I'm clearly superior to them and being around them is such a waste of my time and they're actually a hindrance to my development." -> Lol, look how this train of thought can actually end up with rationalizing killing people so they won't be in my way anymore. The devil is so sneaky. Or it could make you wanna go around preaching to people: "you should meditate more. You should do what I do."

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second part of the list VERY VERY WEIRD SHIT THAT HAPPENS: 

(I haven't experienced any of these but one, and to be honest with you, they scare the fuck outta me. They almost make me feel like dropping meditation altogether) :

22. Tingling. Jerking. Shaking. Pain throughout your body.

23. Seeing lights and auras.

24. Vivid sexual fantasies.

25. You might start to behave like an animal (like crawling or howling or scratching yourself like a monkey)

26. Paranormal phenomena.

27. Samadhi state (merging with objects)

28. Kundalini awakening.

29. A total blackout.

30. Ego death (I experienced this, but for a very short time. It was beautiful, but scary, so ego came back immediately after)

31. Dark night of the soul.

32. Depersonalization disorder.

 

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HOW TO GET OVER THIS STUFF:

You are not going to encounter all of these, so don't go searching for it.

Don't get triggered by them and make rationalized moves.

Do not act too quickly.

Treat these as temporary phases.

Just relax and realize it's normal.

Don't get distracted by this stuff.

Keep meditating. When you stop your meditation habits, that's when you know the ego has really won.

Real growth doesn't always feel pretty they way you imagine.

Trust your original motivations.

Treat yourself with love and kindness. Don't argue with yourself inside your head. Don't create partitions in your head: the good part and the bad part, where the good disciplines the bad and a never-ending internal dialogue is created.

Love yourself. If you really need to stop meditating for a while, make a strategic move to take a break for a short time but always with the intention of coming back.

Read spiritual books.

Don't despair. Stay on track.

 

The positive side of meditation becomes true in the long run! (Happiness, calmness, conscientiousness, fluidity, ability of long and sustained concentration)

You're not fully purified after a week of meditation. You're fully purified after a decade of meditation.