16 replies to this topic

[Raptor87]

Well a lot of people meditate in order to become more true to themselves. Well it has backfired on me lately.

It seems that I am more open. Almost to open about certain things. I say inappropriate things, I don´t think before I say something. I even told the neighbour something inappropriate without in what context it might land.

Has anyone here had this issue?

[Raptor87]

Of course I ment in what context it might land. What I told her was inappropriate. I have also said things to people, being too honest about myself and others which might give the wrong impression of me.

[fogisa]

I don't think i can offer much for ideas but just say maybe don't be hard on yourself. It happened a few times, maybe it will happen again. Being calm is the key and maybe it was so new to you- this calm effect from meditation, you temporarily lost your head with excitement. Just try to come from the heart, we all have glitches in us, and this one just sounds like an overload of emotion surfacing unexpectantly. It takes time, too, things are going to rise to the surface you may have never dealt with before, so give yourself a break, keep meditating, getting to know yourself is a good thing, it makes it so your relationship to others is based on sincerity.
I have a friend, ha, (he takes cayenne for headaches) he is wonderful, sensitive soul. He often says kind of bizarre, maybe inappropriate things. I think sometimes it's because he's so repressed or shy it's the only way he can assert himself.

[jadamgo]

This happens very commonly. Often the explanation is that anxiety has been serving as your "mental filter" to keep you from saying inappropriate things -- even if you aren't socially anxious, you do have worries about what would happen if you said too much about yourself, or spoke your mind on certain topics.

When meditation calms this anxiety (which you may not have even known that you had), you may find that you need a new way to filter out inappropriate things from your conversations with others.

A good way to do that is to be more mindful and attentive of what you and the other person are saying during conversation. When they are speaking, try to focus more clearly on what they are saying. And when you are speaking, be mindful and clear about what you want to say to the other person.

If you do this, attention will become your new mental filter. It takes some effort to get used to, but in the end, it does the job far better than anxiety. This is because anxiety blocks out a lot of appropriate, healthy self-expression in addition to the inappropriate things. Mindful attention does the opposite; it enhances healthy self-expression.

Edited by jadamgo, 06 September 2012 - 05:01 PM.

[Raptor87]

Thanks for all the great replies guy´s! I know that anxiety correlates with my internal world when I am socializing.

Anxiety can really take over ones cognition in that sense. As you say, mental filter. But anxiety doesn´t allow anything except perhaps living in a prison.

How much time would it take for my cognition to build up in relation to meditation when interacting socially?

[Lister]

Mmm I wouldn’t go so far as to break it down into complex elements that will lead to a socially and mentally sound person. To me that’s a bit silly.

If you have a desire to speak honestly about yourself that probably stems from an internal desire to be accepted... which is... you know... normal.

My philosophy is to basically just say everything you can think of that you know you shouldn’t say until you run out of stuff. Tell everyone you know everything about you until they get annoyed with it and say “SO!?” at which time you know you’ve run out.

When you’ve annoyed everyone thoroughly and they’re all ready to beat you over the head with a large lump hammer STOP. Take some time to reflect on everyone’s responses and what you think of that. At this point you’ll probably figure out that the majority of the stuff you were worried about was just normal stuff we all go through.

If you have some quirkily weird elements like being a furry or some such thing you’ll probably want to find meet up groups with other like minded individuals. Not everyone will accept everything about you because they have insecurities of their own they’re dealing with.

Sadly as far as a timeline goes it depends on how much of yourself you’ve been holding back. If you’re into things that are fringe it will take you longer. In this world I can promise there is next to nothing out there that is totally removed from society. So regardless of who you are there will be others like you out there that will accept you.

Also, while you’re driving everyone nuts Meditation will help for sure in allowing you to recognize these truths for yourself. Just remember to breath.

[Polaris]

We all have challenges that we face, and even experienced meditators can run into social conflicts. What was inappropriate expression towards one person may be completely acceptable to someone else, perhaps even enough to form a harmonious rapport with him or her.

One of the main areas of growth or evolution for humanity involves our connection with other people. The energy center or chakra that corresponds to this particular life lesson is the third chakra, or solar plexus chakra. Lister's advice on remembering to breath is on point. Most people are shallow breathers. Breathing from the diaphragm is an exceptionally beneficial tool that everyone has access to in every conscious moment, although we may take for granted what's right under our noses. More oxygen goes into your body and brain when you take deep, fuller breaths. More oxygen in the brain enhances cognition and can provide more clarity. It helps to bring you into the moment, which is where the power is. Cognition will certainly be of a higher caliber compared to alternative shallow breathing. Superhuman cognition probably won't be the result, especially in the beginning!

Practicing diaphragm breathing takes practice, practice, practice. It may be helpful to look at it like physical exercise. The more you do it, the easier it is to keep up the practice. You don't have to go into full blown meditation to practice it.

What I've noticed is that the more agitated a person is, the more resistant they are to taking deep breaths. It's as if the ego has its grip so tightly, that the person has no desire to do a simple technique that would bring more clarity. The more anxious one is, the more one is cutting off their vital life force energy, and optimal oxygen intake.

I accidentally created my first kundalini awakening experience through a deep breathing exercise, combined with a visualization of light. Breath is extremely powerful, and very underestimated.

Edited by Polaris, 15 October 2012 - 01:07 PM.

[starlight_starbright]

We often tighten a noose around our own expressive nature. We may express ourselves in tight, defensive ways. Meditation seems to loosen that noose, allowing more relaxed expressive tendencies.

[Godof Smallthings]

Interesting thread.

I agree, deep breathing is very powerful stuff. Pranic breathing in yoga, qi gong, so called 'rebirthing' - regular practice leads to quite different mind states. I also had a kundalini awakening type experience this spring after mixing and matching various meditation techniques, but the two main ones were zen meditation, Thich Nhat Hanh style, and pranic breathing with stretching exercises for extended periods. Working with the liminal state right after waking up, I believe I induced a persistent theta state that had extremely strong effects. The peak would be classified as a manic episode with psychotic ideation in Western psychology. I intensely felt that everything in the universe was essentially one and the same, and that my mission in life was to help everyone towards awakening to this fact. My self confidence was through the roof, I had almost no fear left, and I felt a strong pervasive LOVE toward everything.

I gradually got out of the state after enrolling in a vipassana meditation retreat where participants were required to meditate 12-15 hours per day, half of the time which was sitting cross-legged on the floor. I am very inflexible from having lead a sedentary life for the last 10 years, and after some 6-7 days, my body couldn't handle the pain very well, even though I gave it my very best due to the extreme energy flow I still had left from the kundalini syndrome. Also, the vipassana technique they taught (an offshoot of the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition) employed mental verbal noting, engaging the left side of the brain more, which probably also reduced right hemisphere dominance and theta waves somewhat.

Throughout this autumn and winter I've got out of regular meditation practice and instead focused on nootropics, healthier eating, brain training (games such as dual n back and those available at brainturk and Cambridge brain sciences), brainwave entrainment (using a Neurosky Mindwave EEG device and Neuro Programmer 3 from Transparentcorp) and last but not least daily physical exercise of at least 1 hour - all of these things have been good and interesting - but my goal is to get back into twice daily meditation practice after the end of January, as I know that it's a path with greater overall benefits than most others, and the actual core catalyst for all these huge changes that have taken place in my life this year.

Edited by Godof Smallthings, 27 December 2012 - 04:46 PM.

[Connor MacLeod]

Godof Smallthings and Polaris,

Would you please describe your kundalini awakening experience. Thanks!

[Godof Smallthings]

Hi Connor,

I described the main points in my post above, but I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you might have.

In essence, I would actually advise against doing what I did as after a review period of many months now, I am convinced it can be handled more skilfully.

To make better use of this type of experience, you should first hone your mind with whatever practice it is that you are involved in, and make sure you do it with regular feedback from an experienced teacher. Working on your own in the early stages could be a bad idea.

In the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition, you'd typically start gradually by developing mindfulness and doing constant, as-rapid-as-possible noting of sensations under the supervision of a teacher, so that when you eventually got to this stage, it would essentially be integrated and processed by an already strong mindfulness and fairly well developed mental processing speed and a familiarity with rapid noting. You would also have some direct experience of what is called the three characteristics of ultimate reality.

I did not really have these things, so while my experience felt awesome, magical and full of insight on a personal level, I did not gain a deeper insight into ultimate reality - and the ramped up speed of my brain and altered perspective seemed to bombard me with information - many of the things that struck me 'out of the blue' still feel like true insights now many months after, while others were decidedly sheer delusion based on me letting my mind take me for a ride, and ultimately stemming from misconceptions about the workings of reality. One such delusion was that of thinking I had enough insight to help other people with their emotional problems. Another one was a vague sense of 'impending doom' (not in a paranoid, anxious way, but still).

There were a number of other oddities attached to the stage as well: I became quite evangelical, trying to suggest any and every one to start meditating. I also became generous and empathetic, giving away fairly large sums of money. Other experiences included spontaneous movements and postures, profound and deep feelings of gratitude, heightened sensory acuity (smells and tastes, tactile sensations and sounds were more intense and detailed). Other effects were increased libido and patience, and strong 'out of the box' thinking in solving problems.

[Connor MacLeod]

Hi Connor,

I described the main points in my post above, but I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you might have.

Did you experience an overwhelming feeling of energy, perhaps intensely pleasurable, in the spine and brain? Could you percieve the chakras and their precise locations? Any perceptions of internal light or sound? These are a few things that I'd be inclined to associate with the rousing of kundalini.

[Godof Smallthings]

Did you experience an overwhelming feeling of energy, perhaps intensely pleasurable, in the spine and brain? Could you percieve the chakras and their precise locations? Any perceptions of internal light or sound? These are a few things that I'd be inclined to associate with the rousing of kundalini.

I felt no internal light, nor did I perceive the chakras and their locations - but an overwhelming feeling of intensely pleasurable energy is spot on.

While almost every meditation session during a couple of weeks leading up to this experience were pleasurable and gave me energy, there was a particular session/moment that stands out as markedly special.

I woke up in the early morning hours without having set an alarm, and instead of trying to go back to sleep or enter normal waking consciousness and do something like turn on the light and read a book, I immediately started to do slow mindfulness so as not to disturb the mind. I performed each motion of getting out of bed very slowly and deliberately, focusing my attention on the movement of each section of the body. I walked from the bedroom into the study using walking meditation Thich Nhat Hanh style, sat down in my chair and did sitting anapanasati (breath focusing) meditation for what felt like 30 minutes or so.

I then got up and started to do stretching with pranic breathing (I had not been doing proper yoga practice before, but my voice coach had taught me stretching with pranic breathing in order to help me release tensions that blocked my progress in singing). I did a few different stretching exercises, and at this point I was completely in the now and in the flow, time perception was completely gone, all that was left was awareness and the sensations and sounds of each deep breath.
I stretched down toward my feet, gradually increasing the stretch for each in breath, and consolidating with each out breath. I have no idea for how long I did this, but when I finally stood up again and my back straightened, there was a sensation of energy rushing up my spine simultaneously with a WHOOOOOOOOSH sound that seemed extremely loud but I think must have been internal. My entire body started to tingle with energy and the effects I described above started to arise.

So in short, I recall no no internal light, nor any perception of any chakras or their positions (I didn't know chakra theory at that point), but the other things you mentioned were there.

Edited by Godof Smallthings, 08 January 2013 - 01:54 PM.

[Connor MacLeod]

Thanks, GodofSmallThings, for your interesting account.

[starlight_starbright]

I think the early hours can really contribute to a powerful experience. Your early rising allowed your mind to settle with ease. The daily gossip, ramblings, stresses & worries had not yet appeared to wreak havoc on your ability to let go. I will try to rise earlier; thank-you for the enlightenment.

[James Phillip Turpin]

Its a common experience in spiritual practice that things could get shaken up socially because you are changing and growing. However, you may want to look into the scientific research. Mindfulness meditation tends to get relatively better results when put under independent scientific scrutiny than, say, transcendental meditation. You might look more into what kinds of meditation you are doing versus what is out there and what you really want based on the results you want. In other words, learn more about meditation. Just as not all supplements are the same, not all meditation is the same.

[VIGOR]

Lol yes! I have most definitely experienced my lifes book being opened for all to read the wonderful thing about it is that it opened me up to vast amounts of constructive criticism and all the people that didn't like what was written in my book slowly bagan to filter out of my life! Its truely a wonderful experience when we embrace it and see it as the fire that refines the diamonds of our soul.
Namaste