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My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

danlawton.substack.com

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Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#371

Post by t0mbstone »

stevebmark wrote: post #349

The end goal of mindfulness is to make you realize that you don't exist, and to make you realize you don't have free will, and there is no you. While it's all true, it's not a good place to leave someone without a next step. It can be useful to make people realize that their thoughts aren't their own, which can help with anxiety. Maybe it can also lead to meltdowns like the one in this article if you continue the pra…

I think you might have a misunderstanding about the end goal of mindfulness.

There is more than one way to practice mindfulness, but the goal of any mindfulness technique is to achieve a state of alert, focused relaxation by deliberately paying attention to thoughts and sensations without judgment. This allows the mind to refocus on the present moment.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#373

Post by dorchadas »

nineplay wrote: post #325
pmoriarty wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I saw a well regarded movie recently where the main characterized Buddhism as "a philosophy rather than a religion" which made it clear that no Asians had been involved in the making of that film." Asians are as capable as anyone else at secularizing Buddhism (or of doing anything else, really). Take the example of D T Suzuki[1] himself -- the man who is arguably more responsible than anyone else for bringing Buddhi…

I don't have any problem with practicing a seculars form of Buddhism. I have a problem with somehow believing that it is the only way to practice Buddhism. Suzuki removed it from its historical and cultural context, but he wouldn't have acted as though the historical and cultural context didn't exist.

> I have a problem with somehow believing that it is the only way to practice Buddhism.

Or, worse, that it's more authentic than any types of Buddhism practiced in areas that have traditional Buddhism. I saw/see this attitude a lot. It just reeks of arrogance and ignorance.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#374

Post by alex_duf »

As someone who experienced countless panic attacks, I find the description of his symptoms to be very on point with my experience.

I've hit rock bottom about 10 years ago, experiencing these about three times a week. The road to building myself back was pretty long and is still an every day effort, but nowadays I only experience these once or twice a year, if any.

If that's of any help to anyone, I've found countless of little things that put together helped a lot. They aren't ground breaking by any mean, just sharing my experience and tips:

- Therapy. yes, good old fashioned therapy. Shop around to find the right person. - Life change, I moved from one country to another. Spoiler alert, the panic attacks followed me, but it certainly gave me more confidence. - Identify your triggers. It took me years, but my trigger was a stomach inflammation that I identified as being my heart having an issue. So I changed my diet, stopped smoking too. - Exercise. Finding what you like is a long and painful process, I only found what I liked around 30. For me it was hiking, then climbing, then more recently (pandemic), yoga.

I hope that's useful for someone.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#375

Post by dragonwriter »

salemh wrote: post #231
icybox wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alan Watts used to say "When you've received the message, hang up the phone."

A former student of Alan Watts, then a Taoist monk, found Orthodox Christianity after his searching, and has become a revered Priestmonk across the Orthodox world - he offers his own journey and offers the Eastern Orthodox Christian perspective of seeking God and His revelation. https://orthochristian.com/81732.html https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/illuminedheart/father_... >The impersonal concept of deity was a…

> The western church in Rome was of the same One Mind of Christ in worship, Creed and sacrament until 1054

The political/administrative disputes of 1053-1054 that directly produced the Great Schism didn't involve theological change on either side, so this (or the inverse, painting the Orthodox as the moving party, which I’ve also seen) position is simple factional-identity reinforcing revisionism.

> and then subsequently the Protestant revolted against their dogmatic innovations

Quite a few of the things Protestants objected to in the Roman Catholic Church were features it still shared with the Eastern Orthodox Churches (and many of them, both in the shared category and not, were not issues of dogma), so no, that’s not true in much the same way as the preceding claim about 1054 wasn't, even before any debates about which issues of dogma or other doctrine may or may nor have been innovations.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#376

Post by m3kw9 »

“ In 2011, I sat my first meditation retreat in the Vipassana tradition of S.N Goenka. I spent ten days in silence, focusing on my breath and body for 10 to 12 hours a day. It was grueling, but toward the end of the retreat I had a life-changing experience.”

In hindsight sight, maybe he should have got out on top.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#377

Post by qwerty456127 »

kup0 wrote: post #322
Nursie wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to me, the semantic definition of being conscious is simply to be awake, rather than asleep, insensible, anaesthetised, blacked out or whatever else. You seem to have a slightly different definition, I think, based on these remarks - "It is important to maintain conscious" "I've heard about Buddhists who train to always stay consciousness while living, talking and whatever," "I enjoy more value out of my life i…

I feel like "awareness" might be a good term to describe what they are meaning by "conscious" I think they mean conscious as in "to be conscious of", for example: I exited my house while daydreaming/thinking about other things, so I was not "conscious of" the fact that I did not bring my keys with me aka I did not have awareness or was not operating in the moment/mindfully because my mind was elsewhere I think they'r…

Exactly. The only problem with this explanation is "daydreaming/thinking about other things" doesn't really imply "my mind was elsewhere" it often is "nowhere" in these terms. Oftentimes I'm not unaware of something just because I concentrated my full awareness on something else, I may be completely unaware of one thing (I should have been concentrated at) and just slightly aware (like of in an ordinary non-lucid dream) of the other I've been distracted to. Or this can even be just one thing I'm concentrated at (and not thinking about anything else) yet not really aware of it (this happens often when reading (it harms retaining then), writing (making stupid mistakes), speaking (making you say things and make sounds you wouldn't want to), watching TV or, if you kindly excuse, nose picking). Whenever I am doing a pleasant activity (like just doing nothing or watching a TV show) I force myself (with partial success) to be aware of every moment of it so I actually enjoy it rather than fall into a sort of a hypnotic state and "wake up" once it is over. This improved my life a lot and I would hardly learn to do so without a clue from the Buddhists.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#378

Post by hef19898 »

nineplay wrote: post #272
sjayasinghe wrote: post #242

I interpret the author’s difficulties and frustration as a byproduct of a particular misapprehension of Buddhist teachings in modern society. Many modern-day practitioners, both in the east and the west, are under the impression that simply by mechanically practicing mindfulness meditation they will eventually reach a state of enlightenment. Unfortunately, this is a misunderstanding that the Buddha himself addressed…

I've frequently seen "Buddhism" adopted by westerners from a secular or Judeo/Christian background and treated as though it's some sort of feel-good practice which lets them feel vaguely superior to other religions without any serious changes in beliefs or practices. I saw a well regarded movie recently where the main characterized Buddhism as "a philosophy rather than a religion" which made it clear that no Asians h…

Buddhism always had a lifestyle aspect to it in the West. We have benn in Ladakh once, for the monastery festival season. There we also witnessed a procession around one the holy mountains. The monastery festivals were quite touristic, especially the ones in famous locales. This procession was a purely local thing, besides my parents and myself there was another tourist couple. The people there measured, above 3,500 meter over sea level, heat and dust the distance of the route in their body length for a full day. That quashed any illusions I might have had about Buddhism being an "easy" religion.

Also the people their were just sincerely nice. I didn't want to bother them, keep a distance during their break. 20 minutes later I had lunch with them.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#379

Post by lukasb »

Sawamara wrote: post #365
littlethrowaway wrote: post #61

Ha! I thought it might have been vipassana. My own experience of this (a 10 day silent retreat, not having done meditation before) was a full blown manic-psychotic experience (never having had any such thing before, nor in family history). If you're interested, I made some audio files [0] talking about what happened. I honestly think it's _insane_ that they (vipassana) will take regular people who haven't done medita…

Yep. It makes big money, but it is literally gambling with people's sanity.

It's free.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#380

Post by hellbannedguy »

alex_duf wrote: post #374

As someone who experienced countless panic attacks, I find the description of his symptoms to be very on point with my experience. I've hit rock bottom about 10 years ago, experiencing these about three times a week. The road to building myself back was pretty long and is still an every day effort, but nowadays I only experience these once or twice a year, if any. If that's of any help to anyone, I've found countless…

I found his description of a Panic Attack well documented.

I have never convulsed though. My panic attacks were very brief compared to the authors.

"The next four hours were a hellscape of terror, panic and paranoia. There were almost no thoughts, only my body begging to escape my skin, convulsing like a fish fighting for life. The fear was a bottomless trench."

The last line hit home with me.

I've only had one bad Panic Attack. What I didn't realize is how it would affect my anxiety levels in the following years.

I'm on a long half life benzodiazepine, and a drug they give to opioid addicts, but the anxiety is still there.

I have noticed my anxiety levels impiroved a bit with age.

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