Meditation - Do you use it, how has it improved your life?

I have been doing mindfulness meditation for a couple of years. I started it to help deal with anxiety, depression and rage issues, and it has been a fucking miracle. I continue to practice almost every day -- generally 20-30 minutes a day -- and it absolutely is going to be a major weapon in my war against PMO.

I could recommend some good books if you're looking to get started, or there's a bunch of decent information online. (There are LOTS of kinds of meditation out there. Mindfulness is the best, in my humble opinion. It's not about some mystical journey to some magical place, it's about finding a way to be fully present in your life every moment.)

 

I use the Jesus Prayer, where you say "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God," when you inhale and "have mercy on me, a sinner," when you exhale. I find it strengthens my resolve and makes me more aware during the day so I have an easier time dealing with my urges.

 

Good for you getting started on it. Best way to get better at it is to do it. Aim for 20 minutes a day, minimum.

And you hang in there, too. We can do this.

 

Meditation is great. It's one of the first things I stop before all hell (internally) breaks lose, and my outward actions then reflect the internal madness.

Meditation is a personal journey, and I know everyone here is just trying to help.. However, start with whatever YOU can do. If it's one minute great. What is most important is you are in the process of starting a meditation journey / routine/ practice.

There is tons of ways to meditate. Find one that works for you. Improvise. The idea of it is to clear out your mind, and tap into the inner resources deep within (your spirit)

I was shown a method almost a decade ago, which is simple, and effective. I've recently adapted a little different strategy.. However this one is simple, It's 3 steps.

Get comfortable. Take some deep breaths.

1. Drop into the body (ie. focus on a part of your body. perhaps your belly, as it goes up and down on each breath) Drop into the body, any energy in your mind, drop it onto a specific part of your body and keep the focus there. When your brain starts going again (ie. this is stupid. whats for dinner. that girl was hot at the grocery store) When your brain starts going again, drop in the body. Keep doing this step.

2. Stay in the moment. (ie. dropping into the body will pretty much by default keep you in the moment. when the mind goes to take you out of the moment, go to step 1, drop into the body)

3. Accept everything as it is (ie. anything that happens outwardly or internally, just accept, let it be, and stay in the moment.

Practice these 3 steps, a minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. Anything. Do it every day. Remember stay comfortable. And breathe.


Anyhow I learned that above and it catapulted me into meditation, and the benefits of it. Recently I've adapted a sort of yoga/meditation deal. More like yoga / stretching prior to the above steps. I do stretching for 20 minutes give or take, then it follows by a 15-20 minutes of the above, for a total of 40-45 minutes of mind body and spirit meditation.

Thats just me though, the benefits are unreal. So unreal I always question why I stop

Anyhow, hope this helps!

 

I think the most important thing is to do what you can do. If practice is a burden or an inconvenience, then it won't do you very much good. If you can do 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes later in the day, then that's what you should do. If you can find time here or there for a longer session -- I rarely have time for more than 30 minutes, but will sneak in an hour every once in awhile -- that's great.

It's really about training your brain, developing the ability to separate yourself from whatever might be taking you away from the present moment -- anger, sadness, anxiety, temptation, stress -- and help you return to the present moment. The more you practice, the easier it will be to return to your breath when you're grappling with something during the rest of your day.

 

Yup, what The Eleven said ^^ Practice. And just do it. I used to not be able to sit with myself AT ALL. I'm beginning to see NoFap is more than just not fapping. It's creating new habits to replace the old negative ones. I have re-dedicated myself to meditation due to no fapping, thank God, because it took the back burner over the past year.

I got to sit in meditation before for about 20 minutes, the day before, 15. The focusing your energies on the body is the most effective way I have found to date to meditate, clear the mind, and tap into my spirit. Meditation, with practice and time will continually evolve. Thats why I said just do it even if you can only sit for a minute.

 

I think you should meditate for 11 minutes straight, once a day.
11 minutes is the point where you have the most changes to brain function.

I've meditated for a long time, but only recently have gotten to the point where it makes a HUGE impact on my day to day. The main difference was the intention, energy and thought are all about setting the proper intentions.

 

Thanatos - i agree about proper intentions although not sure bout the 11 mins thing. personally i found that it simply increased with time without any specific attmpets on my behalf (have been doing daily for about 1 year now and on/off for 2 ). i med around 20-30 mins in morning and same at night too. may sound excessive but when you compare it with A. the amount of time one specnds PMOing (literally hours) B. time spent thinking bout needless things it a VERY small amount of time.

 

I've been meditating for a few months now and will alternate with different types of meditation depending on my mood, time available and intention or goal for that day or week.

Meditation is like anything else, and they say it takes around 10,000 hours to become an expert in it. The important thing is to understand it takes time, patience and persistence through difficulty (yes, meditation can be hard some days). But don't let that deter you, a little bit each day even for around two weeks seems to have an effect on the brain according to some studies.

I think setting a really basic intention for your meditation every day is a good idea, and as some of the others have said there are a heap of different types of meditation you can practice on your journey. If you suffer from anxiety, intrusive thoughts or depression then mindfulness meditation can really help but it always depends on you. Sometimes I like to even just put on a long CD and zone out with my eyes closed whilst letting my brain wander without any judgement and this can really do the trick.

I would also say that I am experimenting with exploring my sexuality through meditation to see if I can reduce my anxiety so that my sexual urges don't control me. It's hard to explain but for a small portion of the meditation session I will try to focus on feelings of freedom, release and bliss around what I'd consider my more "normal" sexual tastes. This really helps me let go and I feel as though is a way to prevent me from repressing my sexual identity without indulging in some of my more "out there" sexual fantasies.

I've been doing nofap since November last year (got to day 107 before I MOed) and am now reset back on day 3.

Good luck!

 

Agree 100% with all who have mentioned the need for intention. The point of mindfulness meditation is not simply to sit and let your mind wander. Don't get me wrong, your mind definitely WILL wander. That's what minds do. The practice is all about noticing when the mind has wandered, and the gently releasing whatever thoughts had cropped up and returning the attention to the breath. Don't be mad at yourself or judge yourself when your mind drifts. It's natural. Just let the thoughts go and return gently to the breath. That is your intention. Some days it will be easy. Some days it will be impossible. But the process is training your brain either way.

At times, more significant things will come to mind. Perhaps things that you need to explore more deeply, like anxiety or depression or rage. Mindfulness meditation is a great opportunity to sit with those kinds of emotions, to accept that they are part of you but to realize that they are not YOU. That you can delve into them and understand them, and then you can let them go and no longer allow them to rule you. They may still be with you, but they will not be you. You will be in control, not your thoughts or emotions.

And sometimes you may want to set your intention to a specific thing that you want to work on -- anxiety, depression, temptation. As you sit with that issue and learn to let it go, you are practicing taking control of yourself and refusing to let that issue control you.

 

I always considered simply paying attention to the breath to be samadhi, and mindfulness to be a state where we are aware of the things happens to us and around us. For example, samadhi practice just focuses the attention on the breath, while mindfulness would pay attention to how long the breath was, when it started, when it stopped, how much time there was before you started another breath, etc.

 

I've only studied mindfulness, so I can't really speak to the distinction between it and samadhi. Certainly, in mindfulness one is aware of ones body and certain aspects of one's surroundings. But the focus (at least according to those I have studied - mainly Jon Kabat-Zinn and Thich Nhat Hanh) is the breath in particular. But I'm not sure it really matters. You can make the breath the focus or you can pick something else -- your entire body, your surroundings, a meditation object, whatever. As long as you are practicing bringing your wandering mind back to your point of focus, it's pretty much all the same I think.

 

Here's a good dharma talk on samadhi and its difference from mindfulness:

http://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/5100.html

Samadhi and mindfulness are used for different things, and dharma teachers differ as to which one someone should start with. Samadhi is useful in exploring the jhanic factors and creating single-pointed concentration. It is just a tool, like a microscope. Mindfulness is the analytical part. Through mindfulness were are just aware of what is happening. To reach enlightenment you need both, samadhi to look deeply into yourself and mindfulness to see what is happening there.

But unless you have your own dharma practice, this distinction probably isn't very useful to nofappers. Because mindfulness and samadhi are both great techniques to beat PMO addiction. Mindfulness is useful because you can recognize your triggers and the emotional and mental states that lie behind those triggers. Samadhi is useful because it is a way to take refuge from P imagery and sexual thoughts. So, yeah, I guess it doesn't matter. Both are useful for nofappers.

 

Thanks a lot for the precious information contained in this thread! (Especially for Jay2jay for the explanation on how to do it).

You said the "change is huge", "the benefits are unreal", but how does it affect your behavior? How does it improve your life?

I'll give a try today and hopefully manage to take this new habit!