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My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

danlawton.substack.com

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Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#191

Post by Decabytes »

From what I have read, negative experiences from mindfulness practice have more to do with the fast food way of approaching it that we go about it in the west.

It requires a much slower progression that is usually done with a more experienced mentor, who will guide you through the process and help you when you encounter these issues.

These techniques are powerful and helpful and can definitely help alleviate stress and anxiety, but like in the Nietzsche quote

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you”

The way we teach it in the west does not equip us for when the abyss gazes back

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#192

Post by whitepaint »

jeremyt wrote: post #131

I have quite a lot of experience with meditation. I've done thousands of hours, including more than ten retreats that involved sitting for as many as 18 hours per day. I've also done many healing modalities, including somatic experiencing. From my perspective, we have taken "Buddhism" and "meditation" and we have done what us Westerners almost always do: we boil it down into "stuff that does stuff" and "everything el…

Very beautifully put. I completely relate with the last 2 sentences. Do you have recommendations for books?

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#194

Post by coffeebeqn »

CitizenKane wrote: post #52

I’m an autistic person and it sounds like in some way this person achieved exactly the point of certain forms of meditation like this which is to open up awareness. And I think as many autistic folks will tell you, being very aware is extremely difficult and is mentally and physically taxing. If you aren’t prepared for it I could indeed see it being extremely disturbing. Being exposed to all your inner workings and t…

How common is something like a retreat there for a median Buddhist?

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#195

Post by cal85 »

waboremo wrote: post #147
cutler wrote: post #114

I can't help thinking that most of these examples of negative side effects are related to intensives rather than meditation/mindfulness itself. There's a world of difference between 20 minutes a day and 10 days in a retreat looking inward. Maybe it's just better for you in short bursts, not long marathons. I once experienced negative effects after joining a Buddhist meditation group while at university. Every time I…

Not entirely sure if any study demonstrating the benefits of meditation or mindfulness considers counting 9 to 1 repeatedly an act of either. That aligns much more closely with the advice given to those with panic disorders in how to ride out their panic attacks or prevent them when they feel coming on.

The comment didn’t claim it was an act of either, either.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#196

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

cutler wrote: post #114

I can't help thinking that most of these examples of negative side effects are related to intensives rather than meditation/mindfulness itself. There's a world of difference between 20 minutes a day and 10 days in a retreat looking inward. Maybe it's just better for you in short bursts, not long marathons. I once experienced negative effects after joining a Buddhist meditation group while at university. Every time I…

Meditation is a dose-dependent drug.

Most people will reap most of the health benefits that meditation has to offer by sitting for 20 minutes a couple times a day.

You can go much deeper, of course, but that's a philosophical / spiritual quest to gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you - it's not a health pursuit. A multi-day meditation retreat is in many ways like running an ultramarathon: it's not really a healthy undertaking, per se, but you might learn something about yourself by doing it, and the way to do it responsibly is by working your way up to it over months and years of practice.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#197

Post by [deleted] »

detourdog wrote: post #171
kayodelycaon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had two psychotic breaks, I do not recommend the experience. The last one caused something like hardware-level damage that took years for my brain to recover from.

No doubt they are serious. After I made my comment I thought about editing it provide nuance. My problem is more about language and giving names to things and society adherence to the mean. As children we experience many psychotic breaks as we adjust to the world. It could be that as we mature the frequency is reduced but that doesn't mean the episodes are inherently bad. They could be a normal part of a consciousnes…

[deleted]

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#198

Post by kfajdsl »

haswell wrote: post #163
tuyiown wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I experienced a deep realisation that our thoughts manifest from nowhere and not from ourselves (words fail me here) and that the construct of 'me' was completely false and was just a reverberation of my environment. I understood there was no me. This was really nice for about two weeks and then my ego (I expect) just kicked my arse and brought me back down to earth with a crash (maybe its a safety system) Just for…

> * the «from nowhere» really just might be the unconscious brain* The trouble is that once you start to consider the nature of the unconscious brain, such consideration leads to the same conclusion. If the unconscious brain somehow has “control”, from where does it derive this control? Unless you then accept some kind of metaphysical explanation, it’s centerlessness all the way down.

Is being centerless really such a bad thing?

Then again, I really haven't experienced the concept at a fundamental, spiritual level, only intellectually; I don't really meditate. Maybe there's something deep in our wiring (probably in our unconscious mind, which really pulls most of the strings) that has difficulty grappling with the loss of the idea of "self".

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#199

Post by kayodelycaon »

detourdog wrote: post #171
kayodelycaon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having had two psychotic breaks, I do not recommend the experience. The last one caused something like hardware-level damage that took years for my brain to recover from.

No doubt they are serious. After I made my comment I thought about editing it provide nuance. My problem is more about language and giving names to things and society adherence to the mean. As children we experience many psychotic breaks as we adjust to the world. It could be that as we mature the frequency is reduced but that doesn't mean the episodes are inherently bad. They could be a normal part of a consciousnes…

> As children we experience many psychotic breaks as we adjust to the world.

Neat, I didn’t know this. Where could I read about it? :)

Most of the google results I’m getting talk about childhood schizophrenia. (Which is a thing and quite serious.)

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#200

Post by realce »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #174
DontchaKnowit wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly you describe the shattering of your delusion as the return of your ego - I think it is the opposite. I think you invited an inflated ego into your life through your meditation : "I should become a guru and help humanity" <-- that is ego speaking. The shattering of this idea is is not ego but humility, to my way of thinking.

you have a point

It's also just a mind that might be desperate for a core identity after having its last one logically dissolved through introspection.

While ego can hijack identity for it's own mad desires, an identity is required for the actuation of relational actions on a basic level. With no "center" from which to make decisions, the functions of your mind tasked with making choices will panic - this is a foundation of brainwashing/psychological manipulation. Very similar things happen to people who have a TBI, where they become stressed when forced to make choices that seem to have zero baring on "their" lives.

So dissolved identity > Panic attacks when choice-satisfaction plummets > subconscious suggests all kinds of cartoonist extremes for an easy and powerful identity > Conscious mind agrees to play along, uses this character to make decisions about > Choice-satisfaction rises.

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