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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)

#241

Post by starkd »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #224
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…

I think stories like this relate to misunderstanding the point of meditation practice, the practice. The time spent may be helpful in of itself but really you're meant to do the practice and learn more about how your mind works and be able to have better control of your emotional states. Not retreat into meditating whenever you fell something other than contentment. Disappointing that you apparently didn't learn this…

I think the ones that "go deeper" are doing so because they don't know what else to do, what the next step is. But they have achieved some "success", so they keep doing it. It also feeds the rise of new gurus that think they are helping by spreading the message, but they are merely feeding a new ego. There are so many teachers and online gurus hoping to turn it into a vocation.

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

#242

Post by m3kw9 »

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…

Maybe the brain is smart, once you know meditation works, it then anticipates it to work. The expectation of it working interferes with the actual mindfulness and you take longer and longer.

Is a law of diminishing utility thing and also a basic instinct for people to get used to stuff the more they are exposed

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

#243

Post by [deleted] »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #157
sclarisse wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was going to post this. There are reasons we have brains with selective attention instead of constant mindfulness, and a whole spectrum of disorders that arises when that sort of a filter breaks down. (I am lucky. I don’t have it bad.) Unfiltered mindfulness of this sort sounds like basically the same thing.

Pretty much. I’m bipolar and every moment I need to have some awareness of where my mood is and do course corrections to head off episodes or emotional overreactions. I quite literally can’t trust how I feel from minute to minute. Knowing my logical analysis of situations can also be compromised causes me to run deeper mental self-tests several times per day. I’m used to this but it’s a constant low-grade drain on my…

[deleted]

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

#244

Post by arbitrage »

detourdog wrote: post #209
kayodelycaon wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

Sorry I'm winging it based on experience:) That just happens to be my observation and why I spoke up.

so what you mean to say is that you're just making things up as you go? neat.

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

#245

Post by starkd »

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…

So, could this meditation craze actually be making people autistic?

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

#246

Post by pushrax »

janeerie wrote: post #208
jossclimb wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect there will be higher cases of psychosis happening on intense retreats, but as anecdotal as this, I had it happen to me (albeit not as extreme as OP) after meditating for much shorter periods (approx 10 minutes up to an hour). I really did not see it coming. For some context, I don't know of any deep seated trauma that I have and I liked to think of myself as someone robust mentally. I experienced a deep real…

A couple of years ago, I started a light meditation practice (10-20 minutes) and did it for about a month with good results. At that point, I read this article (on Hacker News) and spent the next two years terrified this would happen to me. I had struggled with panic disorder in the past, but CBT pretty much fixed it for me. This article triggered my first panic attacks in years and led to a constant sense of dread a…

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6612475/ is a review of Britton's research discussed in the article. It presents several points of evidence with a coherent argument for why meditation brings benefits while an excessive level of meditation may cause adverse effects.

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

#247

Post by weregiraffe »

naasking wrote: post #139
bpodgursky wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be blunt about it, people lie about the state of their mind all the time. People make stuff up for attention, to fit in, or just for fun.

Sure, and people lie on surveys used in studies too. Only some percentage lie like this though.

Yes, and you can never know which percentage, so surveys in general only teach you about how people answer surveys.

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

#248

Post by starkd »

yakubin wrote: post #111
denton-scratch wrote: post #77

I have been told that Trungpa said "they always run". The context was people on retreats jumping up from their meditation cushion and running away as fast as they can, not to reach some destination, but just to escape. I've never witnessed this, but I never did many retreats. The practice wasn't the jhanas, it was meditation on emptiness. The idea is that when you achieve a certain level of realisation into emptiness…

Mindfulness is the new agile. Every criticism is deflected with “you’re not doing it right”.

There is something very cultish about it. An indication of it being a cult is the tendency to get caught up in definitions of new words. It is easy to think that once you learn the vocabulary (like "vipassana", "sati", or whatever), you are have achieved something, when all you are doing is reciting new words but the thinking is done for you.

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

#249

Post by weregiraffe »

theonemind wrote: post #206

The dark-night-of-the-soul phenomenon is associated with vipassana meditation. In the Platform Sutra dating from perhaps around 700 AD, Huineng (ostensible author) talks about people going insane from ill-advised meditation methods of suppressing body and mind. It seems like these early 'mystical' offshoots around meditation-heavy religion typically don't typically involve or speak well of a lot of meditation, truthf…

>the eye never sees itself.

A mirror: allow me to introduce myself.

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

#250

Post by starkd »

dayvid wrote: post #113

Doing intensive meditation retreats is a Navy Seal hell-week for your mind. If people took that into consideration, they would be better prepared for the results. It's much better to start with a simple meditation practice or go on a shorter retreat (1-3 days), build up a base and periodically dip your feet in deep waters. There are too many people in the west who treat it like an extreme sport and get burned out in…

Never understood the need for meditation retreats. The only purpose of gathering would be to meet and converse with other people. Not to sit and listen to them breathe.
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