Meditation

Ah, thanks pal!

1/24/16 8:25pm 20 min sit Motionlessness

Quite still. Marble. I found a balanced pose before I hit the timer. Once I hit it I didn't move – I was already settled. I didn't try to stretch or strengthen my back. I didn't worry about it. I let my mind do what my mind wanted to do. I let my breath be. I just sat. It was beautiful. Now imagine the ability to sit for 40 minutes or an hour or more!

1/25/16 10:10pm 20 minute sit - Motionlessness

I'm getting pretty good at sitting still. I cannot wait to see what I'm like when I'm 20 lbs lighter.

Daaaaaamn! PUMP IT UP

Today I felt 0.001% mindful...

Woke up so late, we literally had only enough time to think of what was immediately in front of us as we rushed out the door and it was kind of that way most of the day (7:15-6:00). I felt really tired, so that didn't help.

Observations:

-my reactions (which were, at least at first, very reactionary rather than receptive and adaptive) to the things/events/people/feelings/thoughts I encountered were reflexive rather than reflective; much of the first half of the day was marked by an astounding feeling of partial consciousness - like I was really only partly awake, but not in a sleepy way; in a mindless way, but persistent for many hours

-I don't think I closed my eyes for longer than a second or two with the two exceptions of times I went to sit on the toilet (both times, admittedly, solely for the purpose of closing my eyes in a room by my self); that felt like i had missed a meal or like i was ill; that was cool to notice that I missed it (or more specifically, that I noticed its absence) so much

by about 5:15, when I am usually at my most exhausted..., I was at my most exhausted, but there was something different. I felt emotions and automatic reactions being automatically checked; anger towards a student, feelings of vocal fatigue (one of the MAIN reasons I am changing careers), overwhelming events (kids fighting, crying, bleeding, being a defiant ass, etc)... these were tempered or redirected or set on an alternate path or something very many more times than is my typical experience. my hope is that I am changing my baseline level of mindfulness toward the life i lead

So, all in all, a really hard and tiring day that might have normally discouraged me. But, by the end of it (I got home about 30 minutes ago), I feel like a did something good; like, "joke's on you, 'bad day'! I won!"; like this "Henry" has learned some things; like whoever's operating the "henry machine" has actually gone back and read some of the manual..

I plan on making a better effort to get enough sleep and wake up in time and fit it in any other way so I can keep studying my manual.

"Know thyself."
-Plato (supposedly)

"Who looks without, dreams. Who looks within, awakens."
-Jung

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
-Luke 12:34

6pm 10 minutes image concentration
Found it impossible to hold the shape in my conscious mind. My saving grace and hope is that subconsciously I registered it because I kept coming back to it consciously like it never disappeared, trying to hold on to it.

Interesting morning for me. Here goes:

5:30am 30 min sit
This began as a 'timer free just felt like sitting and not sleeping sit'. My experience was astounding. I've found that if I scoot forward on my cushion so my tailbones are off the front of the mat this really maximizes posture, hip flexibility, and breath potential. I went through this cycle of settling posture, focusing on breath, I'd lose focus on breath and I'd be back on posture. This happened for the first 20 minutes. My concentration stability wasn't that great obviously but I had no goals. I then figured out that I could take my whole mind as an object. So then I'd cycle up from breath to mind, then back down, and up. This was a very gratifying insight. I felt very open and I could feel my aura which was blissful and inspiring. I jotted down many notes as I was sitting. In concentration practice this would be a distraction, I'd just like to point that out. I wonder if concentration then could be an object as well. I think yes that is so, but if my understanding of the practice is correct I have to keep 'concentration' on the 'object' (posture, breath, mind, mantra, visualization, etc). So it's like a split attention to make sure they are both there. It's very early in this practice so I just gotta keep on trying. --- Weird thought, if I concentrate on concentration...wtf!?

So this next part is the best! It has therapeutic applications as well (perhaps you could fill me in on some of this stuff or provide insight). Okay, so I was sitting well and progressed from posture to breath to mind. I held an image of my brain as an object in my mind. I was watching it, holding it. I then gave it, what I called, a psychic massage. I visualized hands massaging my brain and I could feel this correspondingly on my physical brain. It was amazing. It was really nice and felt good. I touched every major part of my brain.

Here's where it gets therapeutic. I was watching the Dr. John Daily video yesterday and he talked about the left eye corresponding to the right occipital lobe which develops trust and bonding between infant and caregiver or patient and therapist or whomever. He said that the underpinning of addiction was stress and the underpinning of stress was relationships. So then, after my brain massage I focused on this part of my brain and correspondingly my left eye felt like it was being tightened like a muscle. So then, I had the idea that I was going to self-sooth. I had no idea how long I had been sitting at this point (30 mins). I got up and went and curled up on the couch under some covers. I was safe, I was free from stress, I was okay. I fell asleep for another 30 minutes, no timer. Woke up and said to myself, I'm going to do something gratifying. So I made a cup of tea, sat on the couch under some covers, and checked my email. I felt self sufficient, I felt free of the fight or flight tendency, I felt more whole.

It really was a beautiful experience. Also, the icing on the cake was I told Kathleen about all of this and didn't shy away from one single detail. I let her be her with her comments and I just continued on my story. A lot of that video had some major points about mentalization (where we have ideas of others in our minds when they're not around vs when they're gone they're gone. He related this to child being dropped off at daycare- separation anxiety would be if a kid hadn't mentalized his parents so they thought they were really gone.) and some other things that I really related to and were not doing, ie mentalization. I had a mini freak out yesterday and I was like oh my god I've got this condition I've got that condition I'm Borderline Personality Disorder I'm blah blah blah. I stopped and sat still and calmed myself down and said, if you do have symptoms of it you're showing them, stay with the plan and it will get better (meditation, diet, exercise, etc). I then was okay with who I was, even if I had just checked off a bunch of the items of the DSM Borderline PD list. You're the expert, not me. I'm just saying I had a 'WebMD I'm dying when it's really a cold moment'.

Great morning! The boys and I shared our night's dreams with each other over breakfast. Very satisfying. No fight, no yelling, etc. Smooth.

I said that:
It wasn't the occipital lobe it was the something something prefrontal cortex behind the right eye. He didn't mention anything about the left eye corresponding to it. I guess that was a strange coincidence that eye felt like it was flexing. Perhaps you know more about those correlations than I do.


MFT exam? Mo' Friggin' Therapy exam? Anyway, good luck!