19.11.21:50 minutes sit. 20 minutes of concentration and 30 minutes noting.
Concentration: Nice session, no distractions and no dullness. Low sensitivity, objects feeling a bit vague. Working on whole body breathing.
Noting: First noting session. No dullness, no big distractions. Noting mostly body sensations and watching the visual field with closed eyes. Much vibrations and tingling in the head and moving from the hands towards the head. Difficulty discerning feeling tones.
120 minutes walking meditation. Noting.
Interesting session. Was able to keep a steady rate of noting. There was a strong change of perspective, confusing. Saw my reactions to other people more clearly, almost felt like fear when strangers got to close.

20.11.21:30 minutes sit. 20 min concentration, 10 min noting.
Heavy dullness, could not keep my head up. Decided to stop the sit after 30 minutes and do the meditation later in the day, but the feeling of heaviness lasted the entire day. Felt like a sleepwalker, and never got to it.

21.11.21:50 minutes sit. 20 min concentration, 30 min noting.
Concentration: Still working on whole body breathing.
Noting: Still figuring out the method, stumbling on sensations trying to find labels for them. There was a bit more distraction than I am used to. Able to feel sensations in the body, intentions, and thoughts while noting them without too much problems. Struggling a bit with sensing feelings and feeling tones.

22.11.21:50 minutes sit. 20 min concentration, 30 min noting.
Concentration: Feels strong, no distractions
Noting: Getting more used to labelling. Have added the feeling tone pleasant, unpleasant and neutral to each label. Less struggle to find a label, but it feels a bit mechanical.


23.11.21:50 minutes sit. 20 min concentration, 30 min noting.
Concentration: A bit dullness, some distractions
Noting: Labels flows easier. Still feels a bit mechanical. A bit more distractions towards the end of the session. Feels like I am using a bit too much effort. Trying to keep noting in everyday life.

24.11.21:50 minutes it. 20 min concentration, 30 min noting.
Concentration: Quite dull today, sleep has been off the last days.
Noting: I feel I am getting a better understanding and intuition for the labelling, still feels somewhat mechanical and I have to spend, relatively speaking, a large amount of effort to keep noting. There was a fair bit of dullness and I had to open my eyes and note out loud to keep from sinking deeper into it. Experimenting with freestyle labelling, labelling with feeling tone and labelling with both feeling tones and mind states. When examining mind states there seems to be a fair bit of disinterest, I suspect this may be related to, or maybe the root of, the dullness I’ve been experiencing in my practice for some years now.

25.11.21: 50 minutes sit. 20 min concentration, 30 min noting.
Concentration: Experimenting with doing metta instead of focusing on the breath.
Noting: The noting speed is increasing, still there is a mechanical uninterested aspect to it. I keep wondering whether I am in a way controlling the awareness. If I look for it there is comfort and peace present, yet I keep noting itches and tensions mostly. I have never included emotional states in meditation, but have been meditating on the breath and bodily sensations for over a decade, so there is a habitual aspect to the places the mind goes. Seems I would benefit from training the mind to be more aware of emotional states, but it is often vague and difficult to label with gives rise to frustration and impatience.

Try focusing on the feelings of vague, difficult, frustration and impatience!

I will, thanks for the reminder. I tend to get a bit lost in the sensations of vagueness and dullness, but I find the noting practice really useful when working with this.

26.11.21: 50 minutes sit. 20 min concentration, 30 min noting.
Concentration: Fell into dullness in the end of the 20 minutes, will focus on keeping energy up as to not enter the noting in a falling energy state.
Noting: Labelling happening faster. Trying to notice emotional states, but often I feel nothing and note uncertainty. There is a great comfort in being able to just note uncertainty and vagueness. More and more I fall into a noting-like state off the cushion, feels almost as if I’m zoning in.

Yeah sometimes vagueness/dullness can be like the system's way of shutting down to avoid uncomfortable emotions.

27.11.21:50 minutes sit. 15 min concentration, 35 min noting.
Concentration: Delightful
Noting: Increase in clarity and confidence of labels. Dullness still happening, but I can easily counteract it by opening my eyes. When I note with open eyes, especially when noting watching, it gives rise to weird reactions. Still using the sensation-feeling tone-mind state labelling. It is difficult, but feels right. I suspect that my practice has been lacking the emotional aspect of experience for a long time. I can remember almost deliberately repressing it during my first Goenka retreat because it was so intense. I think the fear of the painful states made me close up a fair bit, I never dared to use the technique they taught when I got home from that retreat. Seems like I now have a clear goal. I feel encouraged.

28.11.21:50 min sit. 20 min metta, 30 min noting
Noting: Strong dullness, was a bit hungover. Had to keep noting out loud with open eyes.

29.11.21: 50 min sit. 20 min metta, 30 min noting
Metta: Many distractions.
Noting: Got a call for a job interview right before the sit with only a day to prepare, lots of planning thoughts. Engaged with the planning for most of the sit. Not a solid session.

30:11:21: 50 min sit. 20 min metta, 30 min noting
Metta: In a way it feels like it’s working, but still there is a mechanical aspect to the practice
Noting: Very few distractions, still working on feeling emotions. I have a job interview in a few hours I not well prepared for, able to let worrying and planning go and not get stressed or distracted by them.

01.12.21: 50 min sit. 10 min metta, 40 min noting
Noting: Trying to note emotional states, feels like they are there far of in distance. There is a bit of doubt if I am really feeling anything or just imagining, but still trying to put a label on them.

You could try investigating the feeling of doubt itself, e.g. ask yourself what do you feel in the body when you doubt your ability to note emotional states. Just focus on the most noticeable sensations at the point of doubt - are they hard/soft, hot/cold, light/dark, diffuse/concentrated, moving/static etc.

Good advice! I will try it out. Thanks.

02.12.2150 minutes sit, 20 min metta, 30 min noting
Did not do my normal morning session, so I did it in the afternoon instead. Much more dullness present. Did the practice without much distractions, but it felt very distant. Like it was a far away sound I heard the periphery of awareness.

03.12.2150 minutes sit, 20 min metta, 30 min noting
Tried to notice mostly emotions and intentions the first 10 minutes, and mostly thoughts the next 10 minutes and everything the last 10 minutes. Felt much more engaging even. There is a space when waiting for thoughts to appear when i get lost. There is a balance in striving I haven’t quite gotten the feel for yet. Some times it feels as if I am trying way to hard and controlling what I note, but in the other hand if I don’t apply effort the noticing stops and I drift away.

04.21.21:50 minutes sit, 20 min metta, 30 min noting
Continued to notice emotions and thoughts separately, I really like this practice. Think I will continue to do this until I feel more proficient at noting. Emotions are still elusive, and I tend to get lost for a few seconds when noticing thoughts. Still when noticing them alone I feel I get into the habit of it stronger. Almost as if they were different muscles I am training. When noticing everything I tend to mostly notice warmth and tingling in my hands and feet, contact with the chair and floor, and a sense of pressure in the head. I notice emotions and thoughts mostly when I realize I am not noting them.

So I stopped posting here, but I did not stop meditating. I will try to give this another go.
09.08.22: 86 minutes sit, 20 minutes concentration:
Pretty standard sit. When I switch from concentration to noting there is a lot of movement in the body and mind. This gradually calms down and a sense of peace and spaciousness fills me. Halfway into the sit, everything is very quiet, but I feel I am just noting the same 5-10 sensations in a loop. This causes me to lose interest a bit and makes everything somewhat bland. Abre recommended that I look for the most subtle experience. I've just started to experiment with this, but it makes the meditation feel more alive and deepens the feeling of space and peace for a short period. Looking forward to working more with this.

Abre also recommended that I try to expand the space of awareness. I have been trying it out a bit, but can't quite get a hold of it. I need to experiment a bit more with it, but finding the most subtle sensations resonate more with me right now, so I will focus on that for the moment.

Still, when the bell rang after 60 minutes, I extended the sit by almost 30 minutes without any problem. I realize when writing this how big of a change this is from 3 months ago when I had to struggle to sit for 45 minutes.