From Neuroticism To Serenity

[Alex K]

Hello Everybody,

I'm Alex, from Russia, 27 years old, 40 kg (90 pounds) overweight, married, no kids.

My home country is degrading with a medium pace year after year, my aim is to leave it for some better place. Is it like a rat fleeing a sinking ship?

My other aim is to get to an enlightenment.

I've always lived in my alternate reality - of computer games, of fantasy. So I'm at least a bit underdeveloped in common sense planning and executing.

This is probably due to me being a very touchy person, and I cry a lot, at least used to cry until this year. I think that I feel more pain and suffer more from the same stimuli than the most people, my nervous system is weak naturally. So I think this made me strive towards cocoo-ing myself from other people.

Last year in October I'd signed a work contract as a programmer and went to work to Munich, Germany, it was full fledged immigration attempt. 

There I worked for 1.5 month, it was very hard on my nerves.

I always lived with my parents before, never have used a washing machine or an iron. I've never had to think where would I sleep on the next night.

At work I was the weakest chain, afraid to ask for help too much, being less smart and knowing less than everybody else.

These and other things downgraded me to a state where I cried for 3-6 hours every day and wanted to kill myself tens of times, not actually injuring myself once.

I was in hysteria and I had to return back to Russia. Fortunately,  my boss took me back with pleasure. 

My mental state was terrible thou, I was not able even to watch a film or have a smaltalk. Everything gave me intense head pains. I was like a zombie, my thoughts weren't there, I would not want anything, I thought my life is over.

I visited 3 different neurologists and a psychotherapist. Finally I got a recipe for antidepressants and took them for 6-7 month. They saved my mind and probably life.

Now I'm off of them for 2-3 month. Their effects subsided, still I feel more calm than I've ever felt in my previous 20 years of conscious life.

I've been seeking for enlightenment from circa 18 years old, but my search was very slow, meditating once or twice a year.

I'm watching Leo's videos for 1.5 years now.

Last 2 month ago I've started to meditate again, gradually increasing volume. Started from 20 minutes once-twice a week.

Now I usually meditate 10-20 minutes in the morning, than I try to meditate here and there during my 2 hour work commutes, try to do more meditation on weekends.

I've developed idea to meditate in a sequence of sits. Today I've meditated 12 minutes right after morning bathroom. Then I had some morning exercise, some talking with my wife. Than 22 minutes of meditation. Than for the first time I did day 1 of the Adrienes' 30 day yoga challenge.  I finished with 26 minutes sit, bringing total to a 1 hour do nothing floored cross-legged meditation.

I had an idea of adding 20 seconds to one of my three morning sits each day, that would add up to a 10 minutes increase in a daily practice.

The problem that I have is a medium-to-little pain in my head, reminiscent of my depression episode pains. I have a plan to do meditation for 2-4 more month and if the pain would still be a problem, I'd start searching for some neurologist/psychotherapist again.

This concludes my first journal entry, ideas/thoughts are very welcommed.

[Alex K]

Today I commit to meditate no matter what every day for the rest of my life.

My current stats are 2 * 20 min sits a day.

My aim is 4 * 30 min sits a day in 1-2 years.

[Natasha]

@Alex K What part of Russia are you from? 

I'm originally from Odessa, Ukraine. My maternal grandmother came from Siberia in the early last century. She was a tough Russian lady.

That's awesome that you're getting serious about meditation routine. Meditation is not limited to just sitting, you can meditate while walking, during commuting, and even while working. I've learned to turn my thinking mind off and on at will and to go without thinking for some stretches of time. This can be done anywhere and at anytime in the day.

For headaches I would recommend to clean up your diet first. That means no processed foods/ beverages/ alcohol, avoiding gluten products, dairy, refined sugar, hydrogenated oils, etc. Consume more fresh veggies and fruit, clean water for adequate hydration, hormone-free fish/ meats.. Also natural supplements like fish oil, curcumin, vit B-12, Alpha Lipoic Acid + fat soluble form of B-1(Benfotiamine) is also a good combination for brain health. Exercise every day is a must, as well as stress busting techniques, which meditation is the main one.

Also, consider a full body detox:

http://blogs.naturalnews.com/total-body-detox-how-to-purify-your-life-mind-and-soul-2/  

 

 

[Alex K]

@Natasha Many thanks for you advice!

- I'm from Moscow and more like your average white/grey-collar office Joe

- I'm in commute 2+ hrs every week day and I always try to incorporate awareness practices into it, albeit they are not as effective as my cross-legged sit practice.

- I'm very interested in how could I incorporate meditation practices into working itself, at the moment I do not think one could be doing this and think logically hard ad the same time.

- Your advice for headache is very comprehensive, I've been battling with exclusion of processed foods from my diet for the last 10 years of my life, making commitments for dozens of times only to break them the next day or in three days. Couple of times I was able to go for a few month and loose like 15 kg, but it always come back after some serious life problem. Currently I put my highest hopes into Leo's approach from the video.

Unfortunately, I currently do not have 2-3 free hours alone in the empty room to try the principal technique from this video, so I hope that with basic meditation this would gradually come too.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I've read the journal and got some ideas and motivation from it:

 

Further, I felt like I'm able to start a full-length meditation sit right after I get up and there is no need of 10-min warm ups,

I've combined two insights and tried a 30 min sit right after waking up today morning. It was very good: legs hurt just a bit, I felt a "workload" on my head, but no headaches.

Other ideas:

- I am myopic, now trying to do the sits with my glasses on -> It's much nicer to be able to see the place I'm in and not a blur, I've started to see some effects like a small glowing around the objects in my room, falling and rising brightness, etc.

- I did third day of yoga today, I believe yoga could help me to be in shape for a longer meditation. My egotistical desire is to be able to sit in lotus posture ><.

- I recently started using apps for time measurements. I use a Time tracker and a Meditation app with 10 min intermediate gongs, which helps me not to think "When would this 30 min finally end" thoughts.

 

Edited July 7, 2016 by Alex K
grammar

[Alex K]

And now to the real "meat" of it like Leo puts it .

- I believe that awareness (2-3 points out of 10kk on 'the scale of awareness') is with me from time to time now, even sometimes in a fierce arguments with people.

- For the last 1-2 weeks I've become a much more direct and say-what-you-think person, in an aggresive-assertive way. I think that awareness lets me disable the automatic suppression of my anger and my ideas and I give them away at the moment they arise. I believe it is a part of gradual mental purification.

- Further, yesterday I've started to feel sadness again and I half-see, half-intuit that it is caused by my hatred towards my need to work at my job to get by, a connection which I believe awareness helps to witness. My Hopes are High and I'm positive I WILL break the identification with this and all the other sadness in due time.

- When I've meditated enough, I now often have dreams with concrete ideas on my mental problems. It looks like  this: I wake up and I remember dreaming of some situation from my childhood or some nearer date in connection with some 'limiting' thought pattern or some behaviour I currently have. This becomes a 'realisation' of auto complex like in psychotherapy, or I can start thinking and 'observing' on this material towards such realisation during the day. As of yet, this involve rather minor things, potentially this could grow in volume.

Journaling is good, I'd love to continue putting my ideas here.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Alex K
Wrong putting

[Alex K]

Today I've tried "walking zazen" - basically counted my breathing 1-10 while walking as normal, not slow - for about 15-20 minutes in total. I felt an onset of meditative state, so I'd continue working on that.

I've tried 30 minutes sessions yesterday and the last like 5 minutes seemed too torturous for my taste. Today I've done 3 * 20 min sessions of do-nothing and planning to do one more.

Tomorrow I will try 25 minutes sessions.

I feel like if the time when meditation would be the first thing in my life is visible near the horizon. My usual despair-filled thought patterns start fading under the concept of us being awareness.

God, I hope I would stick to it, it's so important. I should think tomorrow about how to stick to it, draw a bad-ass mindmap around it.

Created a text on my life purpose out of a hatred for my job. It's in Russian, want to translate and post here.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Alex K

[Alex K]

Saturday 1.5 hrs total, Sunday 2 hrs total practice. Feeling good.

Today before work ate at a cafe: a subway, latte, cowberry pie, np - with time everything comes, let's be patient as... something very patient.

I don't know what is it, but today on my subway to work I started breething very deep and it still felt like not deep enough.

I know what a hyperventilation is and strangely, I do not feel it coming. I feel like my brain gets oxyginated. I feel a need to breathe soo deep like never before, hope i'll survive this. Practice brings forth interesting stuff.

Edited July 11, 2016 by Alex K

[Natasha]

@Alex K Does your cafe serve fresh salads and fruit? Subway, pie, and latte are all processed stuff that doesn't give your cells the nutrients they need to thrive. Try to avoid refined sugars, grains and dairy. Good substitutes are veggies, fruit, rice, buckwheat, quinoa, nut milk (coconut, almond milk). Those will make you feel so much better by far!  

[egoeimai]

14 minutes ago, Natasha said:

@Alex K Does your cafe serve fresh salads and fruit? Subway, pie, and latte are all processed stuff that doesn't give your cells the nutrients they need to thrive. Try to avoid refined sugars, grains and dairy. Good substitutes are veggies, fruit, rice, buckwheat, quinoa, nut milk (coconut, almond milk). Those will make you feel so much better by far!  

I approve! Its great .

[Alex K]

@popi @Natasha Ofcourse, all valid points. Unfortunatelly, knowing something to be right does not automatically bring it in.

Yesterday was a lazy day - I haven't meditated and ate junk food like potato chips. Fell kinda ok with it though, everything will come.

Today have already punched in some practice time, off for some more. Namaste.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Alex K

[egoeimai]

@Alex K  yesterday i was very anxious about my blood test results and before i took the results i ate some oat biscuits and dark chocolate.

Ok ...its ok..if its rare its good. 

Once in a while it cant harm you.

Btw the results were more than fantastic!! 

[egoeimai]

Nervous not anxious!!!

Im bored with mistakes.

Ill have to buy some dvd lessons for english.hahahah

[Alex K]

@popi Happy for you . Here you can also 'Edit' your responses to fix your grammar - it's what I do.

 

Thought a bit about my lazy day and I've decided to start a 30 days 30 minutes meditation challenge, starting today.

I think I've never meditated each day in a month before.

So, day 1 of 30 -> completed .

Edited July 13, 2016 by Alex K

[Alex K]

I frequently admire and envy genius which can go as far as finding out what is enlightenment all on their own and not even being 30 y.o.

Day 2 was completed, Today is so hard it's 22:00 and still I haven't meditated. Finally I feel content and alone enough, am going to practice now.

Ate s**t like a pig, somebody stop me.

[egoeimai]

Dont worry about food. Just be aware of what you eat when u eat it.

[Alex K]

@popi Yes, that is exactly what I need!

Ended up with a 50 min sit. 27 days to go.

[egoeimai]

@Alex K  meditation is pleasure.

Its not like exercising that you are tired and sweaty.

Ugh...

[Alex K]

@popi Well for me meditation is hard work. Only if I do some guided lying down relaxing visualizations is it nice. During DoNothing I alleviate some suffering, but it takes a toll on my mind as some hard math solving would. From mindfullness practice I get obvious concentration increase but together with this breathing problems when it feels like not enough air in my lungs for long periods of time.

I've failed my quest on Saturday - Monday.

Today starting from day 1. On the positive side I had a chance to evaluate an evolution of my calm equanimity levels and evidently some base level has emerged.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Alex K

[Alex K]

Novelty in practice expired, motivation subsides. Perfectionism and fears erode at it bit by bit.

I feel that I'm at a turning point, I should go on.

Mind becomes uncertain in the purpose of it all. Why is this suffering-less life is preferable

to the usual one? Why should I self-actualise?

Straight back is not needed, sitting is not needed. One could lie down and meditate. Even if I fall asleep, I can start again once I awaken.

So hard, so backslidy, do I need any support?

My purpose it seems is to have nothing to do with maya, it is degrading to any non-grounded mind.

This feels true to me, I should explore and build on it.

Hopes are high.

Today started counting practice time in subway - day 2 is done.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Alex K

[Natasha]

@Alex K Our mind can be tricky. Read this

https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/2328-mind-attacks-after-initial-seeing/