Too asleep in meditation practice

[Ima Freeman]

I meditate daily for ~2 years now. Before I meditated consistently for months, then had pauses of some months. Tried standard mindfulness meditation, krya yoga and currently noting using labels.

I know that meditation is an skill which must be cultivated for a very long time, but I see only very, very little progress.

My biggest hurdle is, that I seem to have too little wakefulness, like my awareness is underpowered. My "brain-power" really is a bottleneck. 
I am a very restless person, so fatigue is most often not a problem.
But staying at a mindful state of consciousness for more than 20-30 seconds seems impossible, except by having some mystical breakthrough experience.

Noting with labels definitely is helping, because it forces part of my mind to actively look at what is happening.
What other things can I do to get more wakeful? What did work for you? 
Thanks in advance
 

[Sugarcoat]

10 hours ago, Ima Freeman said:

I know that meditation is an skill which must be cultivated for a very long time

Sounds like a limiting belief to me

 

Idk but I stopped meditation several years ago and I lost nothing . Maybe try something else? 

Edited August 6, 2023 by Sugarcoat

[Ima Freeman]

3 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Sounds like a limiting belief to me

It sure can be, but from what I heard from multiple sides, it is.
And also it is in my experience, since I only made very little progress so far.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Ima Freeman

[Sugarcoat]

2 minutes ago, Ima Freeman said:

It sure can be, but from what I heard from multiple sides, it is.
And also it is in my experience, since I only made very little progress.

Yea I see your point 

 

I mean more if it doesn’t work for you then maybe you don’t have to continue at all with it instead of trying to improve it because I feel some people get stuck in beliefs that they neeeeed to do certain spiritual practices to get somewhere because it’s preached everywhere 

Edited August 6, 2023 by Sugarcoat

[Ima Freeman]

12 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Yea I see your point 

 

I mean more if it doesn’t work for you then maybe you don’t have to continue at all with it instead of trying to improve it because I feel some people get stuck in beliefs that they neeeeed to do certain spiritual practices to get somewhere because it’s preached everywhere 

But I really love to get into states of higher consciousness.
I spontaneously started meditating years ago before learning about actualized.org. 

[Sugarcoat]

1 hour ago, Ima Freeman said:

But I really love to get into states of higher consciousness.
I spontaneously started meditating years ago before learning about actualized.org. 

Ok I see

 

My journey unfolded very differently and meditation stopped being a part of it several years ago that’s why I said it just in case to open other possibilities but if it seems right for u then that’s great??

[Ima Freeman]

52 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Ok I see

 

My journey unfolded very differently and meditation stopped being a part of it several years ago that’s why I said it just in case to open other possibilities but if it seems right for u then that’s great??

What practices do you use now? 
I'm not against ditching meditation if I find better ways.
It's just meditation practices are free and can be done almost everywhere, in the flat, while traveling, etc.

 

[Sugarcoat]

6 hours ago, Ima Freeman said:

What practices do you use now? 
I'm not against ditching meditation if I find better ways.
It's just meditation practices are free and can be done almost everywhere, in the flat, while traveling, etc.

 

Mm I agree there that’s definitely something that’s great about it. It doesn’t even have to be a specific set time, I see meditation as always accessible in a way you can just take some deep breaths here and there and just feel into your body wherever you are 
 

 Now I don’t follow any specific practices like a set routine it’s very intuitive and spontaneous, like you said yourself how you started to meditate spontaneously, but for example for some reason I have this impulse to visualize so that I’ve done a lot especially recently which has affected my default state positively. And I tend to contemplate quite a bit but that too is usually very spontaneous . 

 

now that I read your post again it reminded me of myself if I’m not wrong here. I also had this period of maybe 2 year daily meditation and I also didn’t really experience much progress and it seemed like the force of my thoughts were just too strong for me to stay in that wakefulness for long. It was more a temporary effect it seemed. 
 

 The way I see it is that this loud mind isn’t just neurotic nonsense it reflects things like problems you have and desires , the state of health of your system etc. Essentially the mind isn’t purely this detached thing it reflects something deeper.  So for me during the time I had a bit of this social anxiety that felt like my biggest problem. So that was contributing to this strong noisy mind, and yes meditation can help with that. But for me it was like it didn’t feel like the most ~direct~ method. So I stopped the practices and focused more directly on what I felt was my problems in life, and took action there and contemplated that etc and kept doing that. Always sensing in myself , what is my main problem/desire now, and giving it my all. Some people call it “burning through karma” or maybe “exhausting lower desires “ etc but for me I don’t really see it like that. Because it sounds like it is detached from the spiritual process like first you do the ~lower~ stuff then you get to the deeper but for me that is all part of the spiritual process and my mind has just gotten more and more clear and meditative since then, and my life more spiritual, consciousness “higher” even more than when I used to meditate. 

This last thing is a bit of speculation but I also see it as if you have a loud mind, depending on the content, it can be a sign that your mind is still connected to the world and need things from the world to maybe fulfill desires or resolve problems . So this meditation is trying to shut this mind in isolation but it can be almost like suppression. Instead I worked very intimately with my mind. Like a person screaming at you to do something, and they won’t shut up until you do. Kind of, so seeing your mind as your friend as it reflects something in you,  so the end result is the same, higher consciousness more stillness of mind but it’s different approaches. 

 

Ok this got kinda long I got a bit carried away but I hope you gain something from  it somehow

Edited August 6, 2023 by Sugarcoat

[Ima Freeman]

@Sugarcoat

Interesting

I already noticed that some of my thoughts showed me unmet desires.
I have a lot of deficits and unmet needs, especially in the social domain.

[Salvijus]

On 2023-08-05 at 11:32 PM, Ima Freeman said:

What did work for you? 

Watch the doer instead. I used this practice for many years. It's impossible to not be mindful while doing it. It's brutal for the ego. And it's 100x times more faster growth then labeling.

[Leo Gura]

Kriya yoga is designed to help with this as it slowly rewires the nervous system.

Traditional meditation is very weak unless you do it in hardcore retreat settings for dozens of hours at a stretch.

If you only have 1-2hrs per day for practice, yoga is gonna be your best chance for results.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Sugarcoat]

13 hours ago, Ima Freeman said:

@Sugarcoat

Interesting

I already noticed that some of my thoughts showed me unmet desires.
I have a lot of deficits and unmet needs, especially in the social domain.

That’s great I noticed. 
 

I also have some of that so I can understand wish u best regarding working w it

[Sugarcoat]

3 hours ago, Salvijus said:

Watch the doer instead. I used this practice for many years. It's impossible to not be mindful while doing it. It's brutal for the ego. And it's 100x times more faster growth then labeling.

I can imagine. I tried labeling a short while and it was the least grounding technique ???didn’t get me deep into relaxation at all.  just mind moving around 

[BlurryBoi]

@Ima Freeman dude im in a very similar place in my life !

Meditation is basically the best thing i discovered for my mental health, wisdom, lucidity and happiness.

But Ego struggles haaard, i have so much irrational resistance to it (check "the war of art" by s.pressfield).

And with chronic burnout im always self-deceived in random daydreams and subtle-bullshit expectations.

 

Something that can help you for this is to :

Intimately Reflect on your uniquely different and Legitimate past experience, with full Authority and independance from other's "ways/howto".

So that you can re-CLARIFY the WHY(s) you are doing Meditation for.

And then looking back, intuitively WHAT type of meditation has been actually Resonating The Most With YOU for this purpose. 

And figure out HOW to maximize this specific thing/way (in the meditative process, but also around it in how you setup your daily life).

And Focus ONLY on your top 1 (for rigid mastery) or top 3 (for flexible pertinence). (check "elastic habits" by s.guise)

 

As an example for me :

i clarified what is (and isn't) Most Pertinent, For My Unique Situation nowadays :

its Not to meditate for concentration or lucidity/awakening, and not even for wisdom insights. 

Its to meditate for deep Rest and to cultivate Equanimity (so that i can basically train myself every day to let go and Accept Unconditionally whatever happens during Psychedelic trips)

So i ditched 99.9% of the guided meditations i've been collecting for a while and distracting myself with. And i've designed what process works best for me in actuality. 

I also have been designing my Routine and Priorities so that (in a Flexible but Structured way), i reserve enough Space/Time/Attention to really meditate.

And i have a little bit of THC on the side, so that mutliple times a week when i feel like it i can gently familiarize myself with the psychedelic world, undistracted.

Edited August 7, 2023 by BlurryBoi

[Salvijus]

@Sugarcoat 

I wish there was an emoji like this.

[Salvijus]

Then I could spam it to people ?

[Sugarcoat]

31 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

@Sugarcoat 

I wish there was an emoji like this.

e- mooji?

[Salvijus]

21 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

e- mooji?

that's so good.

[Loving Radiance]

@Ima Freeman Do longer hardcore meditation sessions. Like SDS. Or go to a retreat like vipassana.

[Ima Freeman]

Thank you all for your recommendations