Meditation

I've never tried!

 

This got me addicted to meditation: Headspace

Could not recommended it highly enough. It's not overly religious or spiritual, it takes you through techniques, it's got enough free content to get you started (read: hooked) but the paid content is well worth it IMHO.

Edit: I started using this while in a relationship and found it taught me how to stay calm and present. The most obvious benefits were present during sex. I meditated daily for the best part of a year. Then I started looking into emotional management and found meditation was in conflict with what I was learning there*. I now use meditation to maintain mental clarity and presence, which benefits accessing my emotions and acting on them appropriately.

*Meditation teaches you to let emotions pass and that some emotions are bad. For example, jealousy is bad and you should put yourself in the place of the person you're jealous of so you can feel empathy and appreciation instead of envy. However the emotional stuff I'm learning would say that a feeling of jealousy is a healthy indication that you need to try harder/smarter to achieve what it is you want in your own life, so figure out what you need to do and go do it.

 

I will check it out this weekend coming up when I have time.

 

Yeah headspace is a good app for meditation.

 

I'm not a fan of "passive" meditation myself. Even when we are asleep we are not completely thoughtless. In fact, our brain processes a lot of information when in dream state. So if brain isn't completely devoid of thoughts when it rests why should we force ourselves into thoughtless state? It doesn't seem natural to me.


For me true meditation is not being thoughtless or emotionless. Quite contrary, best meditation is a complete 100% focus on one thing, one emotion or action or subject, experiencing the moment in time to the fullest. I meditate when I pray because I am completely focused on praying. I meditate when I practice Martial Arts because I am focused on performing moves and techniques as best as I can. I meditate when I read a book because I focus fully on what I'm reading. I meditate when I play guitar because I'm focused on the music only, and nothing else.

Even if that "cosmic energy" is a real thing then it affects us the same all the time, no matter if we are thoughtless or not.


Passive meditation ("observing") turns your focus inward. Not sure if it's good idea seeing how PMO addiction is about being self-centric.
We should rather keep our focus outward, on the world we live in, on people around us. We shouldn't just observe, we should make a positive change. Be active, not passive. Waste not a single second of our life.



That's my opinion on the matter though, I'm not saying it's the only correct way. Just wanted to throw some food for your thought

 

+1 Shakti .. powerful stuff.

 

Headspace is brilliant

 

Thanks Rewired, Kingp1n,

Just gave headspace a go. I agree this can be really addicting, but in a good way. I can see myself subscribing after my free trial is up. And I've only done the 1 session.

I've dabbled with meditation in the past. Never stuck with it though. Maybe I wasn't ready. Or maybe heasdspace was the push I needed to stick with it. Let you know after my 10 days are up.

Namaste,

Geyser

 

I started the headspace 10 day trial as well, it looks promising. My previous attempts at meditation were not very successful. =(