Jordan's Meditation Journal

[Jordan]

Hello, I started a new years resolution of meditating 2 hours every day. It is January 9th today and I have been sticking with it every day. I set the rules of getting an average of 2 hours per day so I could do more or less on some days and just keep track of how many hours I am up or down for the day. I typically do 1 hour starting at midnight then 1 hour in the morning after taking a shower.

I started out doing the do nothing technique but recently have just been doing mantra meditation. I basically sit up straight, say "Baba nam kevalam" in my head over and over and focus on the sound my mind is making.

So far I noticed I am in a better mood during the day. I have been remembering my dreams as I wake up a bit more but didn't write them down and forget most of them now.

I will stick with this technique for a month or so then switch to mindfulness meditation with labeling probably. I will update this whenever I feel like it. 

[Jordan]

I was watching some clips of Krishnamurti speaking. He claims in those videos that mantra meditation and all systematic meditation is not really meditation because it becomes a mechanical process repeating the same thing over and over. He says your mind becomes dull. I guess he is talking about it becoming automatically done instead of done consciously. He says that it should be more about observing thoughts and other sensations without trying to influence them. He gave an example, and I am paraphrasing: If you are feeling envious you should be able to feel that without suffering from it or trying to suppress it or distract yourself from it. Your observation should not contain anything from the past and done as if the first time you have ever observed something.

So this makes sense to me so I will switch to doing something like what is shown in Leo's video titled something like "a guided exercise for realizing you are god."

I also kind of want to stop masturbating so much which has been more frequent since my girlfriend has been in china for the last 2 months. My plan is just to add an hour to my required meditation for the day every time I get myself off. I might just end up having to do 3 hours of meditation per day instead of 2 haha. At least I will do something somewhat productive to balance it out.  

[Jordan]

I watched that guided exercise for realizing you are god video a few times this weekend. I was too tired on Sunday night to meditate so I did 2 hours this morning. It went well.

I have just been spending around 15 minutes or so going over all the stories I have in the background such as being on the planet earth, being inside a house, there being other people, there being a tomorrow and yesterday, cells, blood flow, gravity, time etc. I just pretend I never heard about those stories and that they don't matter. Then I basically do the mindfulness technique with labeling. I label once or 2x every breath. Then when I get into it I only label when I change the object of my focus or stop labeling. When images and concepts come up I take a look at what they are then I forget about them, don't take any interest in them and continue.

Time seems to go by really slowly and sometimes it feels really good just to feel my heart beating or breathing or staring at a light switch nice and relaxed.

[Jordan]

I went to Victoria January 11-14th and on the last day we did a Nordic spa where you go in the sauna and then go into a cold plunge alternating for a couple hours. stayed in the cold for more than all my friends put together I am pretty sure 15 minutes in total over 2 hours. I have been doing cold showers on most days sometimes up to 3 per day starting out hot then finishing for 60-90 seconds on as cold as possible. I don't know if it is that or the meditation or both but my sex drive is up like 2x as much. I did add an hour to my meditation quota as I mentioned 2 posts ago after getting myself off. I have been averaging 1x per day but I don't feel drained at all, I could go for more so I guess it isn't the end of the world.

Today at work I could feel my heart beating as I was working on the computer and it felt like it was orgasming with each beat. I sometimes feel this way during meditation so I guess this is a nice side effect. My meditation was a bit unfocused the last day or 2. Sometimes I get up to go to the bathroom or check something on my phone then go back into it. I will just keep an eye on this unfocused meditation. I think I don't need to make any changes right now. I should get better taking it more seriously over time. I have been keeping up 2 and usually 3 hours per day. Sometimes more on the weekends.

[Jordan]

I have been falling behind in my meditation. I lost track of how many hours behind I am now. Maybe I should have made a spreadsheet or something. I have been a bit busy at work, working 1-3 hours extra most days. It is a bit hard to meditate as much with less time outside work. I found that I seem to find more benefit with concentration type meditation rather than do nothing type of meditation. I have been focusing on my heart beat and breath a lot. Once I did that meditation where you focus on a light then close your eyes and focus on the afterimage. I forget what that one is called. Occasionally mantra meditation but not that often. I did have a dream on Monday that one of my stocks dropped. The market was closed on Monday but on Tuesday it dropped. I knew I should have sold it right as it opened haha. I slept in instead though and lost $$$. 

I miss my girlfriend a lot. It feels like my body is being ripped in two. It is pretty uncomfortable to say the least. It seems other people don't feel like this. I thought she would come back late this month but she will still be another 2 or 2.5  months.  I know some guys from work that haven't had a girlfriend in years. I think they are built different or something. That would be the only thing I would be interested in getting if I didn't have one. 

[Jordan]

I stopped meditating as consistently for a while doing 15 minutes here and there. Last weekend I started meditating a lot more. I did around 5 hours on Sunday. Today I sat for around 50 minutes in the morning and I had a strange experience. I think I dropped the concept of being separate from everything and it felt like I turned into a liquid and starting spinning counterclockwise in a spiral. It felt quite nice. I have changed up my meditation a lot. I watched a bunch of videos from TheHealthyGamerGG where he has sort of therapy sessions with popular streamers and does a meditation at the end. Recently I have been following these instructions:

Sit straight and relax the body. Imagine you are on the top of a mountain. Nobody around. clear blue skies. Ocean all around you reaching to the horizon. Take 10 breaths internally saying inhale when inhaling and exhale when exhaling. Do several breaths moving through 6 of the chakras from top to bottom on the inhale then back up along the spine stopping at the chakra levels. Then I use the baba nam kevalam mantra with different breathing patterns. Whatever pattern I feel like. Then I will usually end with mindfulness meditation and possibly contemplate what I am.

This video helped me conceptualize meditation in a different way.