Meditation

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Do you meditate? If so, what benefits do you get from it, and what is the technique you use?

Yes, I meditate, I find it's a great way to control stress and high blood pressure.

I use standard Transendential Meditation techniques with either a single candle or some gentle music. Enya, Enigma and some Tangerine Dream tracks work well.

Ed Almos

Ummm, hard one. I discovered something when I was but a kid, concentrating on an object, mental picture. Don't laugh too hard but the one that worked the best for me was an open safety pin. It put me in a very nice place, almost a floating feeling.

I watched an listened as the word came into common use in the 60's, well here anyway.

I suppose I do at times and times past, but it's some sort of thing that just works, I don't know what to call it.

An interesting thing happened in very early spring (boring and long, sorry). I slipped on some ice came down hard on my shoulder. I think now I ripped something. Pain, well yeah, after I got done wanting to retch, I made it in the house and to the couch. Could not lift my arm, took an asprin and decided to "move" the pain while I waited. The Wife was watching. I felt very hemmed in, like the walls were closing in with the pain. So I centered and moved the pain, in this case easy because it was pretty much in one spot. After I moved it (my hip was bad too) I was able to get up and walk with very little limp, reach up with my arm, grab the wife behind the neck and give her a big kiss and then went back to the couch. Very little pain involved, it was gone from my shoulder. Probably a dumb thing to do in hind site. Here's the thing that I had never noticed before, because any time I had done it in the past, I didn't know I had AS. Evrything in the room, seemed to my eye to be further back, less imposing on my personal space. It was not the "centering" and moving of the pain and getting rid of it so to speak that startled me, been there and done that before. It was the fact that the world around me had moved out of my personal space, further back, like I could actually see it. I mean I knew the wall in the kitchen had not changed from 20 feet to 21 feet away, but it sure looked like it had.

For me to tell you how I do it or even what it is, I can't. The power of the human mind is pretty awesome. That some formalized method is out there to do much the same thing I have no doubt. That I should do it more often, yes, but I'm lazy and I happen to like intensity to much. Well around the house. I incite stimming, I like it, I repeat intense music and other little goodies, fires up the brain flow. Some I don't like pacing I'd just as soon not do. Anyway, don't know if this had anything really of what you might be interested in.

Tie Chi looks pretty interesting to me as well. I'd be curious to know the mental state after.

not that anyone (or I) would call it meditation but I like to find a quiet place and zone out.

A nice quiet place...hmmm….a cave perhaps, would be ideal. I think I do a kind of zoning out when I go hill walking. I don't deliberately zone out, but I do lose track of time and feel very relaxed. I think it's the walking that does it, the rhythmic motion.

Postpaleo, that’s not a boring story at all!
It’s great that you managed to lessen the pain of the injury that way. I am interested in meditation as a means of trying to improve my concentration, and become more focused, but the fact that it can also help with physical things too is good news. I think there are a few of us ‘creakies’ here who would find this very helpful.

The Tai chi, I’ve not tried but I have seen people doing this (in Hyde Park, on a visit to London) The movements were so flowing and graceful, and all the people, about eight of them, were moving in unison. It was relaxing just to watch them.…I imagine it would be a very ‘grounding’ exercise to do.

I bought The Meditator’s Handbook by David Fontana and there is a chapter in it about Tai Chi, as stillness meditation, also the TM that you mention, Edal, plus some others. Definitely worth trying, I think.

I meditate. Generally I'll focus on the sensations in my body, or on my breath. If I'm out in the city walking somewhere, I'll often meditate on the feeling in my legs, and of my feet contacting the pavement. That can help when being outside feels a little overwhelming. If I'm waiting for the T (public transportation) I'll focus on an object across from me like a tree, or even a pebble in the tracks. Sometimes I'll use the Healing Rhythms biofeedback system for meditation as well. It has guided techniques. At other times I'll do a visualization. When I wash the dishes I try to be aware that I'm washing the dishes.

I find that the meditation helps me to focus and not get so sucked into strong feelings and my thoughts. I feel less stressed and am more aware of what's going on around me. I'm just starting again after a couple months not meditating particularly regularly. The noise from my neighbor's television has been really unbearable and I've broken down in tears a couple times. My landlord is giving me the runaround and won't let me soundproof. So hopefully this will help me cope a little bit until I'm able to move.

Used to found it difficult and gave up shame on me.

My fitness routine is meditation for me. As I fly just above the pavement, doing my S-turns, I can take my mind wherever I want while my muscle memory keeps me going in a near-perpetual groove. I listen to various music while doing this. If the temperature happens to be hot and oppressive, I'll listen to soothing music such as Enya. I'm still keeping my attention to my rear-view mirror for vehicles coming up from behind, but I can often go for 10 minutes or more without seeing any.

There are many ways to meditate. I found the simplest to start was count breaths, to 10 or if you "mess up," i.e., find yourself thinking about something else, start over. The most critical thing is not to judge yourself for doing it "well," people do it for years and still find themselves thinking abotu needing peanut butter or whatever, just start over wihtout judgement.

If you go to a class and learn walking meditation, that is also good for beginners. You should also start in a quite place - over time you can learn to accept and tolerate minor noises, but don't make it too hard on yourself when starting out.

Now I am being taught how to let thoughts arise and scrutinize them objectively. I would not have done that as a beginning method, though. I do find that either way it helps you clear away the nonense you don't need to have in your mind, and you can, in a way, psychoanalyze yourself, because things you had buried will be uncovered and poof, you realize soemthing you'd been denying for years, and you will be less caught up in worry, etc.

Personally, there is no way I could listen to music while meditating, I'd fixate on the music, and from what I understand that is a common Aspie thing.

That's my meditation then; fixating on the music while my muscle memory pushes me hard. I find it very therapeutic.

I sometimes focus on my body when I'm outside, especially if there are crowds of people milling about and I start to feel stressed. I just find a place where I can just stop moving, and gather my thoughts. I try to imagine that I'm a tree, and that my feet are firmly planted on the ground. It seems to stop the hustle and bustle getting to me, and the feeling of being overwhelmed by people.

I hope meditation does help you cope with the noise from your neighbours. I've had this in the past and it is stressful...it helped a bit to try not to take the noise personally, if you know what I mean. To try to think of it as just sound floating around, and not that it was directed at me. I think meditation would have helped.

I use a few different techiques.
I sit or lie comfortably, somtimes staring into a wall.
Breathe in, breathe out. Concentrate on the breath.
Everything that enters my mind is acknowledged and then tossed into a dark abyss from which it can't escape. (I think visually)
I do this to empty my mind when it's overloaded.

Another technique is the autohypnosis technique, where I just snuggle up as comfortable as I can in my favourite easy chair.
I make up a "mantra" that I wish to ingrain in my subconscious, like "My subconscious will tell me the solution to [a particular problem]", "My subconscious will lead me to where my car keys are", or perhaps something more long term like "My subconscious brings me health, wealth and happiness", and repeat it over and over again, whispering it to myself while relaxing.
After a while, I fall into a slumber where my body is completely relaxed and my mind feels like cotton, and I keep repeating the mantra.
The idea is to poke a specific "hole" the "filter" between your conscious and subconscious mind, because the subconscious experiences and records everything you experience, but it filters it down to what is important at the moment so that the conscious mind can handle it, because it can't handle as many impressions.
You actually remember everything you've ever experienced, but the problem is to get it to the conscious mind.
So by telling my "filter" to let through the solution to a problem, or opportunities that may lead to something desirable, my conscious may pick up on and act on them.
I can even use this to find lost stuff...

A third kind of meditation is the more profane one, where I snuggle up in my couch with a nice Belgian beer and just let my mind wander...

MB,

Thanks. I'm trying to do this and it does help a little but I could probably be doing a better job of it. A couple of months ago I tried to do a week long silent retreat in my apartment. My neighbor's tv wasn't as bad then but he'd blast his music every day at around the same time for about an hour. On the second-to-last day of silence I was finally able to use the music as a meditation on interdependence and realized that not only was the music bringing my neighbor pleasure but it was giving me the opportunity to learn how to cope with a major stressor. I think I probably forgot about what I'd realized after a couple weeks but you've reminded me of that. It's clear that some of what my neighbor is doing may very well be directed at me, like when my girlfriend and I were talking and she was getting a little loud. He blasted his stereo. But that's only an assumption and, if it is true, he's only another victim trapped in a pattern of behavior that's not constructive. It makes little sense to blame him for that.