[praxisMember]

Thanks again Kurt, it’s good to speak to someone who has been through something similar to me. That is a good idea I think trying to learn to recognize when these stressful feelings are occurring and learning to pull myself away from them and back to whatever I am doing whether it is work, meditation or whatever I am focused on at that time. It is similar to when meditating to recognize when you are going to be distracted and refocusing on the breath. One thing I thought of which is somewhat related to your first point in this topic as well is perhaps applying the mindfulness practice from appendix E to these “unwholesome,” thoughts that may be leading to my stress so that I can better recognize those thoughts when they come and bring myself back to the task at hand. I would be interested in hearing how you saw first hand how meditation isn’t always relaxing, as I think I understand how meditation could help me but think it would be interesting to hear about someone who also had to struggle.

Thanks Matt. I have looked at guided meditation before (Headspace) and have found it can relax me as I am doing it but seems to wear off pretty quickly afterwards. I also think I understand somewhat how non-guided meditation may be able to help me long term with my anxiety, but from what I have read about guided (which is admittedly limited) it doesn’t really seem to be as long term. Also does guided meditation fit anywhere into the framework of the book or is it just an extra tool you were suggesting. That may be a good idea as well reducing the length of my sessions, as I do find at the 15 minute mark is when I start to get restless.

Thanks once again to everyone for your help.

[praxisMember]

Thanks Ivan and Kurt, I will probably have to read all your comments more than once to fully appreciate them, but ultimately will have to work at being less attached to my goals in the way both of you have suggested, so thanks for your help.

Matt, My personal motivation for meditating in the first place is to help me deal with anxiety. I am generally a very anxious person and over the years have tried a number of different things which have helped to varying degrees, but it is still there and affecting me and after reading about the benefits of meditation I have been trying it on and off for a while now. I usually meditate for half an hour each day, setting an alarm at the beginning with a calming sound that goes off after half an hour.

[praxisMember]

Thanks Ivan, Thinking about what you have said one idea I have had is to focus on the feeling of each breath as much as I can and trying to make my focus better than the last one, like a game finding positiveness when it is improved.

One of the things I liked about “The Mind Illuminated,” was the structure and gradually introducing techniques with sort of goals for each stage. Now I don’t mean this as a criticism I generally want to understand why it is the case, but I find it confusing (maybe due to my strong western mindset) that you should meditate with no goals in mind. As pretty much everything we do in life has an underlying goal whether it is to achieve something or feel something pretty much every action you take has an outcome in mind. furthermore generally I think I learn a skill better by having an outcome in mind for that skill and adjusting my technique until I achieve that outcome consistently. So I find it confusing why someone would want to sit down and not do anything with no outcome in mind.

I will definitely try to look into “The Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind”

Thanks Kurt, that’s an interesting idea I will have to investigate how to observe thoughts without engaging with them do you have any recommendations?

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