Amphibios’ concentration log

Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 5/25/22 4:42 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log George S 5/25/22 9:13 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 5/26/22 2:03 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log George S 5/26/22 3:43 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Niels Lyngsø 5/26/22 2:43 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 5/26/22 2:49 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 5/30/22 3:48 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 5/31/22 4:20 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 6/2/22 6:59 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log George S 6/2/22 9:20 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 6/2/22 4:16 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 6/4/22 5:17 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 6/18/22 5:49 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 6/22/22 4:35 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 6/25/22 11:06 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 6/29/22 5:56 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 6/30/22 7:01 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/1/22 1:35 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log George S 7/1/22 8:23 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/1/22 1:19 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Chris M 7/1/22 3:38 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/2/22 9:58 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/2/22 5:28 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/5/22 2:19 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/5/22 5:29 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/5/22 4:08 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/5/22 5:16 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/10/22 7:55 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/10/22 10:59 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log George S 7/10/22 1:11 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Martin 7/10/22 1:37 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/10/22 3:52 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/11/22 6:20 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/22 6:56 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/11/22 1:42 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö 7/11/22 2:18 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/11/22 11:04 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/18/22 3:28 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/18/22 10:56 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Chris M 7/18/22 12:59 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 7/26/22 2:45 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log George S 7/26/22 1:30 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 9/6/22 6:59 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 9/6/22 7:07 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 9/7/22 5:23 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log J W 9/7/22 12:35 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 9/7/22 5:04 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log J W 9/8/22 10:51 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 9/25/22 4:30 PM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Chris M 9/26/22 8:42 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 9/29/22 7:16 AM
RE: Amphibios’ concentration log Tara ☔️ 10/2/22 11:28 AM
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 5/25/22 4:42 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 5/25/22 4:42 PM

Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I have been casually meditating over the last few years. My practice has not been consistent or particularly deep. I started to meditate to combat overwhelming anxiety. 

Turns out the anxiety was PTSD from a difficult childhood. I learnt this from therapy over the last year. I decompensated earlier this year - turns out I also have ADHD. 

Childhood Trauma splits you up. I dissociate - my experiences over the last year have taught me as much as I can take about nondualism. When I looked for the watcher while dissociated my consciousness expanded and I got mind like sky although I couldn't hold it. Not difficult when you can't feel your body, there is no self in the way and nothing rises in the field. 

I want to go the other way, I want to regain what I have lost. 

I have started fire Kasina practice - it helps to concentrate on something external. I want to stay outside of my mind. 

For various reasons I currently have little emotion - although I can feel in the moment. The core part of me is still a child (as are we all) but I am not well connected. I can feel my core emotions in the moment - because children are timeless. My core is timeless, I have felt it. 

I am living in black and white, my core emotions are Technicolor, but I'm far from my core. I tried doing the washing up but paying attention to everything I did. I used all the senses I could - sound, touch, sight, smell to keep myself in the present, it felt incredible, I kept getting shivers. I felt alive. But my vision changed, I could see everything in the centre clearly but I couldn't see anything out of the circle clearly. I am inattentive, hypervigilance gives me the ability to pay attention to more. But there is a cost, and I'm sick of paying. 

I am unable to pay attention to myself, to my emotions. It's how I survived. 

I can't touch the child part of me, the happy part that was always with me. When I concentrate at work now, I start talking describing what I'm doing, time slows down. I'm trying to use a different path. 

What I used to use is fight, anxiety and emotion - salience. But that is how a child concentrates, I can't use this path because I end up being driven by my triggers. 

I can't trust anything, not that I did much anyway. My memories, emotions, what I thought I was, nothing is mine. 

I want to be whole. 
George S, modified 1 Year ago at 5/25/22 9:13 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 5/25/22 9:13 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Hi Tara,

I'm sorry to hear about your difficulties. I think something like inner child work or Internal Family Systems, with a trauma sensitive therapist/guide and somatic practices, might be helpful for you, in conjunction with meditation. Mediation or self-enquiry without the trauma work or grounding in the body can sometimes lead to more intense dissociative states.

Best wishes
George
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 5/26/22 2:03 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 5/26/22 2:03 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Thanks George. 

I'm doing psychodynamic therapy still - concentration practice will be adjunct. This included trauma therapy. 

The psychiatrist who diagnosed me with ADHD advised me to strengthen my meditative practice. 
As far as I can work out, the PTSD stress response is why I was not exhibiting serious ADHD symptoms. Although I have had executive function difficulties all my life. 

The trauma therapy basically just made me more hyperactive and impulsive. I felt amazing but I had little connection to my body so I couldn't tell if I was tired. I couldn't get in touch with my core feelings but I didn't realise this. 

Flashbacks feel like ghostly emotions and I would easily tune out of them if I started doing things. Sometimes I would only realise they were happening because I was doing a body scan and would 'find them'. 

fight or flight reactions make me feel like I'd been given the power of 10 tigers that my brain is expecting me to unleash on someone. I never have, because I simply don't want to hurt people. I think the 'thinking' part of my brain does not go down because I have adhd. 

I want to stop doing these boom bust cycles, I want to get in touch with the feelings I do have. 

When I think I'm feeling something but can't bring it up, I stare into a flame. My thinking part pays attention to the flame and then I can feel what is hidden. 

There might be more appropriate concentration practices, I am not looking for insight. I just need to do something else, there are no shortcuts for me. 
George S, modified 1 Year ago at 5/26/22 3:43 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 5/26/22 3:43 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
I've tried a little kasina practice and was surprised by how quicly
strong emotions could be released. My guess is that it's because the thinking mind is "distracted" from the body. Personally I prefer meditating on the breath at the belly, because I find it more easy to stay grounded while experiencing strong emotions in the body. But the thinking mind does have a tendency to get involved and disrupt the flow (thinking it knows
what should happen and effectively resisting what needs to happen for healing). Maybe some combination of both would be beneficial.
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Niels Lyngsø, modified 1 Year ago at 5/26/22 2:43 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 5/26/22 2:43 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 413 Join Date: 11/15/19 Recent Posts
Hello Tara,

Thank you for sharing your story. I recommend the book Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness by David A. Treleaven. It contains lots of good info on how you can have a meditation practice without re-traumatizing yourself.

Best wishes,
Niels
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 5/26/22 2:49 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 5/26/22 2:49 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Thanks Niels, I will check it out. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 5/30/22 3:48 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 5/30/22 3:44 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I have a superficial understanding of Buddhism, meditation practice does not require a deep understanding to follow meditation instructions. 


When I first realised I dissociated I did not have the word to describe the state that I was in. I realised that I was calmer than I usually was but I was unsure why.

Eventually I realised that I wasn’t feeling emotions in my body, only in my mind. It’s like your mind and your body are a guitar, the mind plucks the note but it is heard in your body. I could not hold emotion, no residue was left after feeling something. I tried bringing to mind a memory of feeling something strongly, but I couldn’t do it. Instead the attempt left me feeling woozy and foggy.

I tried clearing my head by rubbing my clavicles hard, pushing against the supraorbital notch. I couldn’t bring my emotions back through my body or by using memory. The only thing that works is feeling strong emotion in the moment, evoking it anyway you can. 

I kept reading but I couldn’t find anything that described me. I didn’t feel flashbacks strongly and I felt no fear when I was able to tap into the emotions. I didn’t act on my fight or flight reactions because I was aware that’s what they were. I was aware I sometimes did automatic things - but I didn’t know where I had learnt them. 


In therapy I would lose my sense of self, it didn’t frighten me, I just realised I was trying to find something in my head. The ‘watcher’ was gone - but I was still there. It disturbed me, but I understood meditation to be a practice that showed you the self was illusory. Did it really matter? 


Meditation and body scans were the only way I could tap into what would happen to me. Buddhism has been one of the few places I have been able to find words for some of the states I have found myself. I have lost the ‘watcher’, no emotion ‘rises’ when I look inside my mind. It has helped me to not feel so strange. 


I have been reading ‘the path to Nibbana’ because I read it had a good path to feeling metta if you have difficulties doing so. I am also trying to read more because it helps me practice holding my attention. “In the brahmajala Sutta, No.1 of the Digha Nikaya, the Buddha describes there are 62 views of self! There is self watching self, “not self” observing self, the self observing a bit self and on and on. There is only one ‘you’ but which one is it? 


In therapy I have been core self with me sitting next to myself, my eyes covered. This is what the memory tells me when I have my ‘self’ back. I have been behind myself, watching myself talk out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes I’m outside of myself, watching myself talk to something on the laptop screen. This is what the memories show but in my therapy sessions I always feel I am ‘me’ with differing amounts of emotion and access to memories. 


The last time I realised that I had been dissociated for 2 weeks I tried to bring back my emotion by crying. I lay in bed in the dark, trying to remember what emotion was lost. What was the hurt? what had happened to me? I remember crying, but then it felt like someone else was crying. I couldn’t comfort them until I realised it was me, I was outside myself. It was so painful to feel myself like that and I kept telling myself it would be ok, then the flashback of doing and being like this as a child. Too late I realised that crying for myself meant go back to self. But which self did I go back to? 


All pointless questions? others have been where I am now. I keep trying to look outside to find what I am but doing this is what has made me not know myself.
It has caused me pain to compare myself and feel I am defective. But I have also felt comfort to know that my experiences are within the realms of being human, and that I’m ordinary. 


I want to know what is here. 

So far I know I can feel towards other but not myself. 

Which might mean I don’t have a self currently, I may have been avoiding realising this. 

This is supported by no emotion rising, so I’m not feeling emotion in response to thoughts. 

I’m only reacting with emotion to immediate occurrences in meat space. Even that is weaker than normal. 

Expanding my attention in the moment allows me to feel more (washing up experience). 

If I imagine scenarios in my mind - that does cause emotion. 

I can concentrate, but I feel no great satisfaction in completing something. 

If I dissociate now, I won’t concentrate because I become detached. What does that mean? I think I am left with cognitive emotions. This is where I go when I dissociate. It is harder to get out of because I feel so little emotion already. (Current)

The first time I dissociated when I was here - I was so low in dopamine that I couldn’t reset after sleeping. I was talking slower at work, finding it difficult to recall things. Time was slower. I felt like a part of my brain was asleep. But I was able to laugh and feel more. This was before the Atomoxetine kicked in. 

I think dissociation flips me from one type of attention system to the other, which one am I using now? 

​​​​​​​The more I am here, the more I forget being any other way. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 5/31/22 4:20 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 5/31/22 4:20 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
What is here? What am I? 

I tried to meditate on anger today. I wanted to feel it, try to push through my lack of emotion and see what happens. 

I keep doing fight or flight reactions when I get triggered. Instead of doing that, what if I give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar? I'm reacting against situations and feelings caused by my parents. I am unable to feel anger when I think about how they treated me. 

I thought about how safety, protection, attunement, comfort, delight in who I was, support and encouragement were all denied to me. I really tried to get angry on my behalf and I could feel energy forming in my chest. 

I concentrated on the edges I could feel in my body and they dissipated to love, contentment, understanding, patience and amusement at myself. 

I had my eyes closed and I thought that the candle had put something on fire because I could see golden light. But that hadn't happened it was in my mind. 

I'm the best parts of myself, it isn't my nature to get angry it's painful to me. I'm the part that holds against that terrible anger I hold. I also protect the vulnerable hurt part of myself. These other parts bubble up inside of me and spill into my consciousness. 

if I look at myself I'm not those things - not in response to others. I can't get at my anger through what I am. I protect others but I haven't protected myself against my anger. I have also not paid attention to when I have been hurt or vulnerable. I am making amends towards myself on that front. 

I remember my mum used to say to me as a child: 
May you be of good karma 
May you be patient 
May you be a mercy on the world. 

At the time I worried that these were such huge responsibilities to take on. But I did, and I am those things. In spite of them, not because. 

I need to figure out another route to get to those core parts. 

​​​​​​​I feel really content - like I've been doing metta. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 6/2/22 6:59 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 6/2/22 6:59 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I am trying to do metta - wishing myself well and trying to feel happiness in my body. 

I used to be able to do metta easily towards other people and then I would use the energy on myself. I'd be like a carebear. 

My emotions are restricted so it doesn't work as well or I don't feel it well in my body. Sometimes I can generate energy in my body - not so much a particular emotion like happy or joy. 

I still eventually end up finding myself in an almost sleep like state, watching colours shift on the inside of my eyelids. Sometimes the colours bring peace that spreads out into my body. Rolling grey, changing into different colours. 

I'm not really aware if I'm getting caught up in thoughts or sensations because it's difficult to know if I'm constantly thinking or not at all and just experiencing, 

Meditation used to be a 'cleaner' experience. It might just be that I'm tired because I'm not sleeping very well at the moment. 

I hear the tinnitus all the time - I know that other part of my brain is blocked but grumbling. Flashback? Or just little emotion? 
George S, modified 1 Year ago at 6/2/22 9:20 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 6/2/22 9:20 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Maybe try to wake your inner carebear. It must be in there somewhere, sleeping emoticon
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 6/2/22 4:16 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 6/2/22 4:16 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
3rd time lucky - hopefully this will post. 

I have an appointment to see the psychiatrist next week. Will ask if I can be out on a DNRI if appropriate. That should help the anhedonia. 

Alternatively I need to feel sufficiently in danger or trapped that I have a flight/fight reaction. This will push me up and bust open my emotion. 

Hoping I'll get back to my carebear ways and resume laughing at my own jokes soon. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 6/4/22 5:17 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 6/4/22 5:17 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Went over to a friends yesterday and stayed the night. I couldn't sleep during the night. I had noticed how she was treating her boyfriend (also my friend) and all I could feel was that I needed to get out of there. 

Made an excuse and left in the morning - I probably dissociated the day before so could only feel my feelings once I was alone. I cried on the train back to London. The heavy feeling of betrayal and trapped when you're being mistreated by a partner. I know I'm projecting a lot, but I can also see how punitive and contemptous she's being towards him. 

In the pub the day before she told me that she thought she had BPD. Having come across people with personality disorders, I told her that you don't behave badly just against your SO it's a consistent pattern towards everyone. So she wouldn't have backed off when she's done something to annoy me - she would have no insight. 
She told me that she had to have BPD, or else she had to accept she was a terrible person. It reminded me of something the last psychiatrist wrote

" No one ever asks me, ever, "I think I'm a narcissist, and I'm worried I'm hurting my family." No one ever asks me, "I think I'm too controlling, I'm trying to subtly manipulate my girlfriend not to notice other people's qualities." No one ever, ever, ever asks me, "I am often consumed by irrational rage, I am unable to feel guilt, only shame, and when I am caught, found out, exposed, I try to break down those around me so they feel worse than I do, so they are too miserable to look down on me."

If that was what they asked, I would tell them them change is within grasp. But."

https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/08/just_because_you_see_it_doesnt.html

I often get a rush of feelings once I leave a situation like that. I'm working on trying to feel emotion in therapy, I can feel stuff when I'm on my own but not always when I'm around people. I meditated to get back into my body, so that I could feel. I started feeling nausea, payed attention to it and it went. But I've been feeling it all evening. 

Nausea = vulnerability, I feel it when I feel unsafe. These feelings have been hiding, now that I can't feel my 'happy' feelings they can be felt because they're not covered by happiness, excitement and laughter.

A shot of anxiety makes me start smiling. Fear feels like excitement, relief from a bullet dodged is happiness. My wiring is a panacea so that I don't ever have to feel, I just dissociate. 

I don't know who is friend or foe, so I just keep everyone at arms length. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 6/18/22 5:49 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 6/18/22 5:49 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Lot's has been happening for me but I'm trying to edge back into normality when I am released. I have had an opportunity to translate my experiences into something I understand as I have no dharma. 

I think I need to go back to Ewok phase - I never had the opportunity to be a child and I choose ewok not emperor palpatine. 

Ewok and I can only be together in the present - so I think mindfulness is the way to go. I never finished the waking up app so that'll make it easy with my ADHD. 

i have the opportunity to begin again which I am grateful for and stop running. But I need to leave my sonic the hedgehog phase and learn to walk. 

look through my eyes. 
when I meditate pay attention to the emptiness. 
Be a good bhodisattva - have a look at the moral code. 
no navel gazing. 

I will have the opportunity to speak to Daniel soon. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 6/22/22 4:35 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 6/22/22 4:35 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Spoke to Daniel Monday and it was really helpful. It was good to get an outside perspective because it helped to normalise my strange experiences. 

It's not clear what is happening because I've not been doing insight practices and I don't have a good grounding in dharma or the insight path to have any idea where I am. 

I have been getting my insights from therapy and it has been really helpful for me to better understand myself. 

I think I am in equanimity but I need a long period of stabilisation. Daniel suggested no meditation practice - only practices that are grounded in body/movement and with my eyes open. Therapy books to read, ppl who can support me in the journey in the UK. Also take a holiday! 

The psychiatrist I saw 2 weeks ago will be prescribing me something to help with my ADHD. 

I will stay mindful and grounded in reality. I didn't realise fire kasina is literally playing with fire - it just helped me to focus on something external. It felt really peaceful when I was going through a difficult time. I also thought it would help with concentration and so be useful in dealing with my ADHD. 

The last 2 weeks may have been a breakdown/reshuffling? or a psychotic break, or a continuation of my decompensation from Jan or a spiritual awakening. It's just not clear but I have been given good advice. I think that a lot of my dissociative barriers came down as I was getting tinnitus which is usually a sign that I'm coming out of dissociation, this was happening for 1-2 months before everything kicked off. 

I have been at a friends house for a few days and she's been looking after me. It was also my birthday yesterday so we had a good time traipsing around the countryside. Probably feeling the best I have done in the last 6 months and feeling like I've been released. 

thanks again for all the good advice I have been given. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 6/25/22 11:06 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 6/25/22 11:06 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Things have calmed down and become clearer. 
It helped that Daniel talked about 3 modes and that clicked for me. 

I had the ego death because it was my false self. I have never had a self I was born this way. The dissociation helped to give me structure so that I sort of worked normally as a self. 

I saw all the things I did because I've always been on the path. I just need to explicitly understand what that is. 

I have a single view back - I was flipping around so much because my brain was struggling to work how it used to. 

I'm definitely in equanimity. There are no fireworks because everything is small emotions and thoughts. It doesn't matter where else I have been that's where I am now. 

I've been struggling so much because I kept trying to do what I've always done. I keep trying to run when all I can do is walk now. 

I am home, I am secure and I am not alone. I've never been alone. I keep trying to figure out where I am but I just am. 

the flame does not do anything anymore - but I see golden light and I know I am not alone abd that I am home. That is enough. 

oneview 

​​​​​​​May you be of good karma 
May you be patient 
May you be a mercy on the world. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 6/29/22 5:56 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 6/29/22 5:56 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
So my mind has settled back into a single view. It felt like my mind was flipping around trying to find the right way to see things for a while. 

I ended up shoving all the stuff I had seen into a different part of my mind. I think I found something but it made me Ill when I would get close to it. 

I will get to it eventually - just need to stabilise for now. I experience people differently now, more directly than I used to but I'm no longer inert. 

The child part of me is safely ensconced within me - I finally felt security when it happened. I am so thankful I never lost my link with it - it's my humanity. 

I feel little but I no longer have anhedonia - my core is in the right place. Sometimes I can generate metta but it's weak, I continue to try and feel as much as I can. 

The tinnitus is helpful in helping me concentrate - it's like I'm trying to tune into something. My brain continue to talk so I have added following my breath. Not much comes up - but it doesn't feel static like dissociation used to. 
Some lilac clouds that felt peaceful and produced gentle energy/warmth in my body. 
sometimes whorls of tiny pinpricks of light. I saw those for a while, but a cough I couldn't feel through threw me out. 

I feel even. Everyday I try again - I keep myself grounded in reality and physical activities. 

I can see my therapist. I had felt so much gratitude towards him for his care of me that day I was falling through moments. I will work on getting back that link. 

Just need to get back on the same page again, or meet in the middle. Most likely it will just unfold. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 6/30/22 7:01 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 6/30/22 7:01 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
The last 6 months have been the hardest of my life - mainly because I have not had my normal abilities to be able to push through challenges. 

It has exposed so much to me about the imbalances in my life and the the traps I have been caught in for the majority of my life. 

I have been into work intermittently during this period when I could, otherwise I would work from home. Being inattentive has almost made me have tunnel vision so I was mostly faced with immediate problems. I lost touch with what was happening with the team I manage although I have been talking to the most of them. 

I have a friend in the team as we had been doing the same job before I became the manager. I relied on her to let me know what was happening on the ground. I have been thinking of creating a post within the team for continuity. 

I have been back in the office this week although not back permanently. I touched base with my manager and other seniors and I have been told that the team hasn't had leadership and that I am missed in the team. This is fine - I understand that my absence will have an impact. 

However what was difficulty was that it was my friend talking to all of them and saying this on 'behalf' of the team. She had also been making comments generally in the office. On one level I feel bad for myself, because out of everyone I would have thought she would have talked with me to understand what is going on. It hurts that to get kicked when you're down. 

The cool hard part of me has decided I need better friends. It explains her mortification when I told her what I had been going through. It's not personal, I'm still her manager and that takes precedence. I will talk to her about speaking to me if she has any problems and ways I can help make her more comfortable to do so. That it's valuable feedback for me to know how I'm doing. I will tell her I will not continue with our personal friendship. It hurt to hear, but I needed to because there are a lot of things that I've been getting wrong. It helps me to know my blind spots. Not having a personal friendship helps to not take it personally and she is free to say what she wants. But it would be best if she spoke to me if she'd like me to do something about it. 

I was thinking of what I was going to say at a personal level - but I knew that it didn't matter anymore because there is no longer a friendship. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/1/22 1:35 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/1/22 1:35 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I have just realised something. 
I artificially shoved all my knowledge of my other side to maintain some level of functioning last week on Tuesday night. 

My core self is in the right place but it still feels. Even though I can't feel that part very well anymore. I have to maintain equanimity - if I don't my core self still reacts and I'm still getting reactions. This is what results in the lack of sleep. 

I used to be able to keep equanimity with dissociation - but my core self feels emotions correctly. I don't so I get the wrong signals. So I get sent to the hell or animal part? I don't understand that very well yet. 

I haven't integrated that hell/animal part but I have to because it's part of me.  This doesn't get much better until I do. 

To get to equanimity I have to lose emotion. I tried doing it a couple of times last night but I can't find the path. I can't make my brain quiet because of my ADHD. 

Round and round I cycle. Still worth it to keep that part of me. 

Emotion = energy. Let's see if I can figure out how to make that equation work during the course of the day so that I can rest at night. 
George S, modified 1 Year ago at 7/1/22 8:23 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/1/22 7:49 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
The hell/animal part is a reaction to the emotion (thoughts/actions), not the emotion itself (the physical sensations).

The closer you can get to really feeling into the physical sensations of the emotion, the less space there is for the reaction. It's typically a more intense experience of the emotion, but it passes through the system much quicker and leaves less residue. You don't need to try to make the brain quiet - once the emotion is felt and released then the thought patterns run out of fuel and die down by themselves.

Reactions take awareness away from the emotion, so they seem to offer short-term relief, but they also feed back into the emotion, which keeps the whole emotion<->reaction cycle running. Emotions do contain short bursts of energy, but it takes a whole lot more energy to keep a reaction pattern running (resisting/clinging to the emotion).

It's not like you don't feel emotions any more in equanimity, it's just you don't react to them in the same way so there is less proliferation. You experience emotions more as physical sensations rather than thoughts.
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/1/22 1:19 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/1/22 1:19 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Hi George, 

The physical feelings aren't there when I am in equanimity. I feel little when I'm on my own. I think I only have cognitive emotion. 
When I am with people I can show emotion - I can react. 
It was worse in March - I'd try to feel anger - but when I'd try feeling it in my body I'd get joy/understanding/happy/love. It was like I didn’t have the correct code that interpreted what I was feeling. That’s why I think of emotion in terms of energy - if I had no emotion I had no energy. 
Feelings would get 'stuck' - that's why I was doing fire kasina so my thinking part would engage with the flame so that I could feel. I kept having anhedonia. Now I probably have less feeling but it doesn’t make me feel down. 
I can't meditate in the conventional sense at the moment. My mind won't stop talking and I don't feel sensations in my body very well - I have to sort of tune into them. 
To get to the point where I can feel I have to use breath, flame after image and the faint tinnitus roaring -> tinnitus note in my head and the afterimage disappears. I'm using things I can sense to get me in and out of equanimity. I’m triangulating 3 external senses, sound, sight and touch/movement. 
I think that’s what I’m trying to do - I should have a better idea of what the states are the longer I’m here. It might not even be equanimity - I have no idea because I have not been doing insight practice. 

I'm unsure why I'm like this - either born or it's developmental. If feelings get back to normal I will try and compare to what you have written. 
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Chris M, modified 1 Year ago at 7/1/22 3:38 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/1/22 3:38 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
It's apparent that there are people for whom the usual meditative process is difficult and/or not useful. For whatever reason. I have a daughter-in-law to be who was born with no left arm and hand below the elbow. From her I have learned that I don't need to overcompensate for her thinking I'm "helping" or to assume she can't handle anything that comes her way. She's more than capable of doing everything, despite the missing arm and hand. 

What I'm saying is that sometimes we need to listen and adapt despite having preconceived notions about what works. Because what works for me might not be useful or even possible for another person. I believe this diversity and abolity to overcome is a testament to the power of the human spirit.
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/2/22 9:58 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/1/22 4:05 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Edit - Thanks Chris M (I agree we stumble along the path somehow) 

I'm so glad to have stumbled on this community - otherwise I feel my recent experience could have been quite isolating. 

I read other peoples meditation logs and I love the details - it's piecing together landmarks that you might find in your journey. The diversity of experience is accepted and it's understood that 2 people may not experience the same insight point in the same way. 

I also have been able to listen to MCTB and there is a chapter on the strangeness that you can encounter. 

It's really helped to ground me and normalise my journey. I probably wouldn't be as open about my current difficulties. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/2/22 5:28 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/2/22 5:28 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
May all beings be happy. May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be liberated through the knowledge of who they truly are. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/5/22 2:19 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/5/22 2:11 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I haven't been doing much 'meditation' in the last few days. 
The need to adjust something, whatever it was is no longer there. 


I am doing waking up again - my mind starts talking again whenever I do it. However generally my mind feels more settled and it's not commenting on everything I was doing or thinking constantly. 


The feeling that I'm not in my life anymore, that I can't affect anything has passed. I have persisted at being mindful and grounding myself in reality. To not turn my mind inwards, to respond to what I see not thinking. 


I think before I always used to be listening to something when I was doing things. Audiobooks and podcasts mainly, my desire to do this is totally gone. My mind was always in different places. I'm much much slower, find it hard to do 1 thing at a time and stay on track. I know it's not back to what I used to be able to do, but I really appreciate any ability to do anything. I feel a bit of aversion, disquiet at my previous disconnection. 


I only know what is happening today, I keep double booking myself into social events accidentally. I keep apologising and asking people for their patience while I try to figure things out. 

I tell myself I am a child and I need to learn to walk again. I don't have full bank emotions, but contented feels good. I work with what I have, accept what I am given and most importantly I don't feel the need to work it all out. Things unfold. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/5/22 5:29 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/5/22 5:29 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Need to keep modes separated. This will build cues that will help me be in the right mode.  

- vipassana meditation = equanimity/balance of emotion, thought and morality. This is why I start planning the future. 

- mindfulness = poise, looking outwards, scanning, how to be in the world. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/5/22 4:08 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/5/22 4:08 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Still have a heartbeat - I'm angry right now. 

I have turned into Russell Crowe and I'm going around fighting the world. I'm on a charm offensive and no one seems to like it when I tell them how I really feel without making it all 'nice' for them. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/5/22 5:16 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/5/22 5:16 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Ok - the anger is still cognitive emotion. I've just given myself a headache. Body emotion would have been easier to just feel and allow it to dissipate. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 7:55 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 7:55 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Meditation is limited, my ability to concentrate so I can read is limited.

I can mainly just do, I keep getting it in my head to go to my local Buddhist centre but I really don't like dogma. There's lots of chanting and something called Ngondro that will be happening in September. 

I'm going to a talk about the 3 jewels today, will just see what it's like. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 10:59 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 10:59 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I want to know why there are 11 Buddhas around the Buddhas in the shrine room. 
It makes me think of every posistion. 

The middle Buddha must be the present - and he had a pestle and mortar and his right hand was touching the ground. So he's medicine Buddha. 

What do the past and future Buddha poses mean? I want to look it up. They also have 11 Buddhas around them but it's 12 including the main Buddha they surround. 

What does the number 5 mean? Why did the llama have 5 candles lit behind her as well?
The 3rd fetter is giving up attachments to rites and rituals so why do they have them? It's also annoying me that I'm so interested in it. 

Why go to refuge? Why can't you just decide that you'll follow Buddha, dharma and sangha? If it's all insight practice and mental realisations why the ritual? 

I really do not like ritual. Main vibe is annoyance today. 
George S, modified 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 1:11 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 1:11 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
That's the spirit! Fck dogma and ritual. The only Buddha is the Buddha in your mind emoticon
Martin, modified 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 1:37 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 1:37 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 746 Join Date: 4/25/20 Recent Posts
I'm so impressed that you followed through and went to check it out. There is so much weird stuff in all the myriad forms of Buddhism. It's cool to look at it. I think that realizing that things are messed up, even, and especially, where we might hope they would not be is a useful thing to do. Investigation is the bomb. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 3:52 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/10/22 3:52 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I can't shake off how uncomfortable I am with the rituals and the culture that comes with Buddhism. I grew up Muslim and if you throw off the yoke of one major religion, you are loathe to get back into that sort of thinking. 


I guess I've realised that I have settled down but I can't shake off the feeling I have to do something. I don't want to go back to that something is wrong feeling I've had all my life. 


Insight meditation is closed off to me even before I figured out it was a thing. I don't know if that will eventually get fixed somehow, but I'm trying to look at other avenues. The reason I want to talk to someone who isn't secular is because the experience I had was very religious seeming. I know I have to follow the eightfold path but it feels like my nose is being squashed into teachings and the errors of my way. That experience with my work colleague was all right speech. 


I feel like a barnacle stuck to the side of a whale. I don't know where we are going and I'm filter feeding clues on the direction. It's still interesting and I'm glad to be on a journey figuring it out. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 6:20 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 6:20 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Blue light - I see a blue ball of light when I do fire kasina. 


That is the colour behind the head of the medicine Buddha. I think the middle Buddha is the waking up Buddha, and I am still asleep. 


I cannot wake up from insight practice - I think I have to do things in real life. I think I have to follow the path that is offered regardless of my jibber jabber. My thoughts on the matter hurt no one but me - I still have to do it to wake up. 


caveat - might still be wrong I have no idea. I felt like I was asleep in the talk yesterday - I think that's because the part it goes into is asleep? I basically can barely remember what was said. I was just looking at the Buddhas and the candles. 5 were lit at the beginning, the 2 end candles in front of future Buddha and 1 in front of now Buddha went out by the end of the talk. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 6:56 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 6:56 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Have you ever tried a practice that would ground you in your body and/or in presence? Like hatha yoga? Or slow noting such as Shinzen Young's system? I have dissociated in the past and it's no picnic. Sometimes we need to build ourselves up before it's a good idea to deconstruct ourselves. 

All my best wishes for your wellbeing and practice.
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 1:42 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 1:42 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Thanks Linda. 

I have stopped dissociating since the dissociative barriers came down. That happened when I had the ego death I think. 


I will speak to the Lama - I think I will be able to speak about the experience I had to them directly. I might be able to say the words I heard. 


They will either know what direction I need to go or not. I'm stuck, I don't think there is anything I can personally do to improve my situation. I need to be pointed in the right direction externally. 
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Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 2:18 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 2:18 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 7134 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Posts
Then I hope it's a very wise lama. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 11:04 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/11/22 11:04 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I'm going to see what happens Linda. 

I'm fast learning that there is no such things as a free lunch. 

Energy, euphoria, states come from somewhere. I've been robbing Peter to pay Paul. I'm done with paying. 

The lama has lineage - so my hunch is that if they can give direct instruction it doesn't matter where I started and where I have ended up. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/18/22 3:28 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/18/22 3:28 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I had a chat with the lama last week. I was thankful at the time because a great weight was taken from me. I gave metta to the lama when I was able to, although was still not very strong. 

I thought that I would get back the power of 10 carebears that I had before all this went down. Something to sustain me. 

No. The child, the best part of me is asleep. I have come down from the part that knows everything and that I have been blocking. 

I am very, very angry. The psychiatrist better help me because I have hungry ghosts. The therapist will tell me what I am or we are over. 

I will go to refuge and I will be the newest most resentful member of my new sangha. I will get the knowledge that is owed to me. I will be a thorn in the side of my lama until I do. 

All the normal routes are closed off to me. 

I don't know by what design I have fashioned my altar. But I have been putting everything I am given back in the offering plate. 

I give nothing and I take nothing. Or paraphrased, I will take what is mine and I will give what is owed. 

I did not know what I was signing up to when I took the bodhisattva vow. You are supposed to be helped during bardo but the system broke down for Tara. Instead I'm mad as hell. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/18/22 10:56 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/18/22 10:09 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
edit - formatting was bad. 

Not feeling anger anymore, I'm hoping that is the last bits of paranoia and grandiosity I will exhibit.


I think I'm coming down, it's just really hard to regulate myself.


It's tough getting caught up in stuff you don't really understand.


I'm really thankful to the lama, I've not been well since January and my mind got blown up at some point. Just trying to get to the point where I can regulate myself and feel properly.


I don't need to go to refuge at all - the lama gave very clear instructions that I need to get better in myself, follow the directions of the medical professionals that are helping me.


I just keep getting caught up in bubbles of weirdness when I start raving.


I want to make this very clear because I don't want to mislead anyone. 
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Chris M, modified 1 Year ago at 7/18/22 12:59 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/18/22 12:59 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
I don't need to go to refuge at all - the lama gave very clear instructions that I need to get better in myself, follow the directions of the medical professionals that are helping me.

Perfect!  This sounds like a common sense approach.
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 7/26/22 2:45 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/26/22 2:45 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I don't know what the hell I am but I think reality is going to catch up with me today. 

You cannot use the same path twice. I think each path has to be done in a different way? 

Does anyone know if this is true? 
George S, modified 1 Year ago at 7/26/22 1:30 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 7/26/22 1:28 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Yes, I think everyone's path to awakening is unique!

Even the orthodox Theravada monks who published accounts, they all had their unique personalities/conditioning and surprisingly disparate kinds of experiences and challenges on the path.
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 9/6/22 6:59 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 9/6/22 6:50 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Disparate experiences and challenges eh? 

I've been In a high security mental health ward for around 3 weeks. They reckon I've got mania or something but I'm getting out next wed when they have downtitrated me on whatever benzo has been 'calming me' (I'm already calm!!)

I just thought the pylon at the end of my garden was matreiya but let's keep that between ourselves.

I haven't had my phone for 4 weeks my family had to tend to it. 

I was just minding my own business - I just wanted to be able to pay attention consistently for 1 hour. 

Anyhow I've made lots of friends that I will probably have to work hard to break up with because it's based on us not having any idea what is going on. Making crazy plans at 2am and then get shouted at by the mental health nurse because I have a friend in my room I'm talking to who I'm not fucking. I may as well be playing smiths I know it's over. 

yours truly got taken off section and didn't have to have a tribunal because I am acrually sensible - I just had some crazy spiritual experience. 

I made sure not to mention r2d2 ewok or emperor palpatine. 

​​​​​​​I need a haircut. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 9/6/22 7:07 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 9/6/22 7:07 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I'm going nowhere near buddhism I've barely ever had mental health orobldms apart from the trauma and suddenly I'm not allowed to drink out of metal coke cans incase I slit my wrists. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 9/7/22 5:23 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 9/7/22 5:22 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Yeeesh still manic at least this log keeps me honest. 

was just expressing my frustrations I have no suicidal ideation whatsoever. Looking forward at another chance at life emoticon but with a better mental state than the last year. 

hope you are all well and yes I will be studying the 8 fold path, buddah is the best thing to come out of this. 
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J W, modified 1 Year ago at 9/7/22 12:35 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 9/7/22 12:35 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 671 Join Date: 2/11/20 Recent Posts
Oh no, so sorry to hear you've been having a rough time! emoticon

Sending you positive vibes, I hope you feel better and more grounded and that you continue to find the support to help you get through this (from both mental health professionals, friends, family, etc) emoticon  <3
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 9/7/22 5:04 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 9/7/22 5:04 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
thanks JW. 

Yes family has been awesome and sadly things like this show who your friends really are. 

just avoiding trying to post at night it's like I'm fine all day and then get irrationally angry! 

I'm much better than I'm coming across - this log is where I put the worst of my stuff. 

​​​​​​​
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J W, modified 1 Year ago at 9/8/22 10:51 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 9/8/22 10:51 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 671 Join Date: 2/11/20 Recent Posts
I believe it... actually done that myself, go take a look at my old log if you need proof ;)

But yeah it can be difficult, for me it's kind of the opposite where it can be difficult to talk to some family members since they're all pretty conservative, but my friends are all the crazy artist people so they're cool emoticon

Best wishes to you <3
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 9/25/22 4:30 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 9/25/22 4:30 PM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
I need to keep trying to remember to update this log. 
It's important to me to document what I have been going through and out my experiences into some kind of order so that I can process it all. 
I'm getting better - still incredulous about my initial experience but I will write about it at some point. 

I'm medicated and my concentration is shot but it already was at the beginning of the year. 

The main thing that I have realised fairly early on was that I haven't had the insights into the mind that insight meditators describe. I may have just been hurtling towards a breakdown/mania/psychosis since the beginning of the year. 

Still very grateful for this commmunity for keeping me grounded in many respects. 

I just try to keep walking. I'm hoping to get to the point where I can concentrate enough to start to learn about the eightfold path. It was one of the things that seemed most important after my experience. 

insight meditation - I will not be going anywhere near until I have healed psychologically. Eventually yes - it's a journey I'd like to go on. But I have to finish where I am first, be able to walk. 
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Chris M, modified 1 Year ago at 9/26/22 8:42 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 9/26/22 8:42 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
insight meditation - I will not be going anywhere near until I have healed psychologically. Eventually yes - it's a journey I'd like to go on. But I have to finish where I am first, be able to walk. 


This seems to me to be a very wise choice for you to make.
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 9/29/22 7:16 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 9/29/22 7:16 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
Chris M - it's weird I came here just to get help with concentration/attention but I have been unravelling alongside. I may never have the mental health to go on the path - but insight meditation wasn't even something I was aware of. 

I have been telling myself that the worst has already happened. 
All those strings that were holding me up have been cut and this has likely been building up a while - years most likely. 

I have been having moments of anxiety so I concentrated on the wall - eyes open and followed an irregular patch of wall, the edge of it and I slowed my breathing down. 

I can only do what is in front of me, and that is one thing at a time. This too will pass - impermanence. 

Shame is a feeling, anxiety is a feeling, helplessness is a feeling. Feelings pass, situations resolve.

I'm super lucky to have another pass at life so that I can see the world again, I have the opportunity to rebuild and my eyes are totally open. Balance - that's what the eightfold path means to me. 
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Tara ☔️, modified 1 Year ago at 10/2/22 11:28 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 10/2/22 11:28 AM

RE: Amphibios’ concentration log

Posts: 45 Join Date: 5/25/22 Recent Posts
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/2812081#_com_liferay_message_boards_web_portlet_MBPortlet_message_2812081

whst a helpful thread - recorded so that I can keep referring back to it. 
The article is amazing - battling a lot of what has been mentioned currently. 

​​​​​​​just learning to be and accept the difficulties I have currently. 

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