Anyone else have trouble meditating?
emgracewrites
Posts: 478 Member
I’ve been trying to meditate more but it’s a huge struggle for me. I live in an apartment with paper thin walls so a quiet and peaceful environment is pretty much impossible to come by, and when I do manage to drown out the noise my mind still jumps all over the place.
Just wondering if I’m the only one struggling, or if anyone has any advice that might help.
Just wondering if I’m the only one struggling, or if anyone has any advice that might help.
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Replies
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I've never able to do it but I've become less awful at it with practice. For me it helps to lie down on my stomach, preferably with a pillow under my head, emulating my sleeping position as closely as I can. I'm uncomfortable relaxing in a group so I need a place where I'm not seen on heard. Instrumental music does not work for me at all, even with a guided meditation session, but music with lyrics does work amd music with lyrics in a language I don't understand is best. I'm really bad at breathing the way they want me to for relaxation but focusing a little bit on what my natural way of breathing is does help. Keeping my face muscles relaxed and thus my mouth open helps. Also envisioning my brain taking a bath works.
This way I got as close to meditating as I could so far. But this took months of practice and learning about myself. We mostly do it at the gym so there's noise from the boulder hall above us and people running around but in the end that doesn't matter because I learnt all of these other things about what allows me to relax that are much more important than silence, especially when all combined. Good luck figuring out what works for you but if you're anything like me it's gonna require a lot of patience and work.2 -
Have you tried ear plugs? You can buy inexpensive foam earplugs at most drugstores and groceries. Editing this to add you could also try noise cancelling headphones or headsets.
Your mind jumping all over the place is normal. A few tips that might help:
(1) Try to establish a silent witness that observes everything, including your thoughts. You are not your thoughts, not your feelings, and not your body. Keep coming back. You can use your breath as an anchor, the way an anchor keeps a boat from drifting away in the fog. You can also give your mind a phrase to repeat, like Not thoughts, not feelings, not body, I am, or another phrase. Again, everybody has problems with the mind jumping around, especially in the beginning.
(2) Our physical postures are linked to our thoughts and emotional states. Try to relax muscular tensions all over your body, from your toes on up to the small muscles in your face, including your mouth, eyes, and forehead.
Hope these suggestions help. Meditation is a wonderful practice.3 -
@Hollis300 I wear noise cancelling headphones every day, but sometimes they’re still not enough. I have a sort of weird quirk where I’m ultra sensitive to noise so it makes it even harder to focus on the breathing/meditation. Guess I’ll just have to keep working at it, and try not to get so frustrated with myself when it’s hard1
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emgracewrites wrote: »@Hollis300 I wear noise cancelling headphones every day, but sometimes they’re still not enough. I have a sort of weird quirk where I’m ultra sensitive to noise so it makes it even harder to focus on the breathing/meditation. Guess I’ll just have to keep working at it, and try not to get so frustrated with myself when it’s hard
Maybe try walking meditation?0 -
TBH, I think this is exactly what the process is: If we were instantly good at it, we might not need the practice?
I have the same problems you report (the inside the head ones, I admit not the noisy neighbor ones). Usually, the training is to patiently bring one's attention back to the meditation practice, without making a value judgement about the jumping-around digressions. Like any other thing that's difficult, my experience has been that if I stick with the practice, I improve over time at staying in the meditation mode.
In a way, I think "it's hard to meditate because my mind jumps all over" is analogous to people I've heard say "I'm not flexible enough to do yoga". Just like a key part of the reason to do the yoga is to gradually become more flexible, a key part of the reason to do meditation is to learn to manage one's attention and mindfulness. It's like strength training not being just for people who are already strong, y'know, but rather also for people who want to get stronger?
Just a thought.5 -
Yep. I can't do yoga because I just can't keep still long enough. I bounce my knee when I sit because I'm a figety person.
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emgracewrites wrote: »@Hollis300 I wear noise cancelling headphones every day, but sometimes they’re still not enough. I have a sort of weird quirk where I’m ultra sensitive to noise so it makes it even harder to focus on the breathing/meditation. Guess I’ll just have to keep working at it, and try not to get so frustrated with myself when it’s hard
I like the suggestion for walking meditation.
For quiet sitting meditation, can you go somewhere other than your home? Outside? In the back of a quiet empty church? In a public library? In a car in a quiet place?
Maybe this will be helpful. An example: I like to meditate in my car under the shade trees in a beautiful national park across the road -- and because it's a national park, sometimes another car will pull over and park right in front me, which makes me angry. But what did I expect? I am trying to meditate in a space other people use, so this is going to happen. This is a good time to look inside and step aside from our feelings. I am not my anger. If I can observe something, I am not it. I can choose reason instead.
This is a Buddhist practice (I am not Buddhist) that sometimes helps when I'm angry.
Self-compassion meditation for moments of suffering:
1. Put both hands on your heart, pause, and feel their warmth.
2. Breathe deeply in and out.
3. Speak these words to yourself, out loud or silently, in a warm and caring tone:
"This is suffering,
Suffering is part of life.
May I be kind to myself.
May I give myself compassion."
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I've been a reluctant meditator for decades, lol.
I sign up for all the "Intro to Meditation" classes I see.
I do better with live guided practice. My church had guided meditation weekday mornings for three months this winter, which was great.
Absent a live class, I need to calm my mind down somewhat first, which is of course the reason yoga was developed.
Veterans and employees of certain VA facilities can access ompractice yoga/tai chi/meditation live zoom classes for free:
https://app.ompractice.com/veteransaffairs1 -
emgracewrites wrote: »@Hollis300 I wear noise cancelling headphones every day, but sometimes they’re still not enough. I have a sort of weird quirk where I’m ultra sensitive to noise so it makes it even harder to focus on the breathing/meditation. Guess I’ll just have to keep working at it, and try not to get so frustrated with myself when it’s hard
I like listening (through my noise-cancelling ear buds) to music that is instrumental or not in English, generally Sanskrit, ex: Krishna Das.
I am very sensitive to noise as well. I have heard it referred to as Auditory Processing Disorder and an inability to sensory gate. Neurology at my VA was unfamiliar with Auditory Processing Disorder and referred me to another department that was also unable to help me.
I was supposed to have a consultation about inability to sensory gate - will have to see what happened to that.2 -
I have meditated for years and consider myself to have a decent amount of experience meditating in all sorts of circumstances and conditions. Among the reasons I became serious about meditation was to distract/remove myself from painful or trying experiences and procedures/tests etc. when being diagnosed with and treated for cancer. It turned out that the cancer treatments weren’t so terrible, but the ability to meditate under duress has come in handy in other situations. I say this by way of introduction to reassure you that how happy you feel with your practice is a “depends on the day” and “depends on the mind” sort of thing.
Sometimes it is just harder to quiet my mind and I notice all sorts of extraneous thoughts popping up. I note/observe that I am having the thought and let it go. It is just part of meditation for everyone. In fact, I find that it is part of what meditation teaches me to do - understand that I cannot control everything and everyone around me, only my own responses and reactions. If I get upset and stressed by intrusive thoughts (which, lets face it are usually about the things that are stressing us out and we need the meditation practice for in the first place) I will perpetuate and prolong my suffering. So the question is not whether you can control and stop the intrusive thoughts in order to have a “better” practice, the question is whether you can accept that the thoughts will come up and release them instead of engage them when they do, and simply continue with your practice.
I think it is also useful to meditate in a group occasionally if you can. Or with a more experienced partner. There is an intense amount of supportive energy that can be generated when multiple people meditate together sharing a practice. Yes, you may sometimes notice someone fidgeting next to you or clearing their throat, but those sorts of sounds should be dismissed just like intrusive personal thoughts. More often, I have found the energy of others around me also meditating allows me to reach a deeper state of meditation and have a more restorative and healing practice. It seems like the energy generated by a group of people meditating together helps force out the unwanted thoughts and support each other’s practice.
Finally, while it might not a’count” as conventional meditation I am a big believer in just sitting and thinking on a problem that is bothering me. So if the thoughts you are having are centered around a larger theme and not just random “what to cook for dinner” “dont forget the kids permission slips” thoughts, maybe it is worth taking yourself for a walk and thinking for an hour “how can I get the family to share responsibility for tasks” or “do I want to apply for the director position at work” or whatever the bigger issue is you need to resolve to help free your mind from the relentless intrusions.5 -
@Sinisterbarbie1 well said, and I hope your health has improved by now.0
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Find a meditation app on your phone. I started five years ago and now I can do the guided meditations on my own. If you want to message me I will screenshot you the app I use it's great!0
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I read recently that instead of the old advice to remove all thoughts and feelings from your mind while meditating, now there's a new style of meditation where you just acknowledge the thoughts and feelings and let them pass. So it's ok if your mind is busy. I was never able to do meditation until I started doing it that way. Also Bluetooth headphones and doing a guided meditation might help with the noise. People do meditation in all kinds of circumstances, even in war zones.
Also you don't have to do meditation perfectly to experience the benefits of meditation. I was recently in a hospital for panic attacks and we had a guided meditation class where in the background there was a girl outside having a manic psychotic episode and screaming. And also I was dissociating at the time. I still felt some benefits from the meditation and felt calmer and like I was closer to being back in my body again afterwards. It's the same thing with yoga. I felt intimidated by yoga and then I saw a Yoga with Adriene video where she says you don't have to do it perfectly and you will still get benefits from it even if you can only do a modified version of the moves.1 -
@Hollis300 my health is much better, thanks! And I am glad to have stuck with the meditation practice too!1
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Rather than "meditate" I take that time to visualize - the topic(s) may vary, but I walk through whatever my topic for that day is in great detail. Example may be picturing a race, and I will focus on the tiniest steps, the mental processes, visualize various scenarios and how I want to react to them rather than how I have in the past that wasn't what I wanted.
This keeps me pretty focused.
As for the noise, my house can be fairly quiet, but headphones with some quiet meditative sound track playing helps me drown out even small distractions - a good sound reducing headphone may work well in your case.1 -
I started reading through some of these posts but due to limited time was unable to give them all the attention they deserve. Will do that this weekend.
However, I do have a few recommendations. First is the Insight Timer App. It is not only the biggest database of meditations but also free. The mediations can be sorted by length, language, type, teacher, music and all sorts of other categories. (my favorite teacher is davidji – I have done several of his courses and he rocks) There is a pay version ($60/yr) which allows you to set bookmarks, take (brilliant) courses etc.
Regarding meditating in a loud environment…the point of meditation is not to remove all thoughts but to be aware of them and let them flow without getting attached to them. It is being aware without engaging. Hence, if you are in a loud environment, accept the noise as part of the meditation. Do not fight it, just let it be. With practice, it won’t bother you anymore and become white noise. Just like going to the gym, if you meditate, you notice the benefits when not meditating. You are not as reactionary, calmer and more centered etc. But just like with the gym, this does not all happen after the first time. Bean by bean, step by step. Meditation is an awesome way to enhance your life, a real game changer.
Feel free to contact me with any questions
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RaquelFit2 wrote: »emgracewrites wrote: »@Hollis300 I wear noise cancelling headphones every day, but sometimes they’re still not enough. I have a sort of weird quirk where I’m ultra sensitive to noise so it makes it even harder to focus on the breathing/meditation. Guess I’ll just have to keep working at it, and try not to get so frustrated with myself when it’s hard
Maybe try walking meditation?
I'll second this recommendation. Walking is the closest I can come to "meditation". It's as if my body needs something to do before my mind can be somewhat quiet.
Guided meditations never work for me because I start to fixate on some aspect of the speaker's voice, like the way they pronounce words or how their tongue clicks on certain consonants, and that defeats the whole purpose.0 -
I always have on hand Howard Leight - NRR 33 ear plugs on hand for times there is too much noise for peace. When I can't hear anything disturbing, it is easier to feel undisturbed, to focus and to meditate.1
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I have two words for you: Guided Meditations. I was a very distracted meditator, and I've been listening to guided meditations for a while now. I agree with others, you have to find a voice you can listen to and not fixate on their voice. Insight Timer is a free way to start and there are a lot online that you can try before you buy. Ashley Turner is my personal favorite, she has samples on her website and if you have a Gaia membership, she has some great ones there. After doing guided meditations for a while now, I'm beginning to be able to sit in silence and concentrate on my breath for over 5 minutes! Keep at it, you'll find a way there.2
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Hi. I meditate for at least 15 min everyday this is included with my chants and prayers. I've been doing this for good few years. At first it was,difficult getting into a routine, I found that if you were to wear ear plugs or noise cancellation head sets, it works really well. Try a few minutes at a time and you'll get the hang of it. There's also other ways that meditation is preformed, like lying down, or standing with your eyes closed and breathing slowly. Don't be stuck with just the traditional sitting. Love hear back, if this works. Many Blessings.1
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emgracewrites wrote: »I’ve been trying to meditate more but it’s a huge struggle for me. I live in an apartment with paper thin walls so a quiet and peaceful environment is pretty much impossible to come by, and when I do manage to drown out the noise my mind still jumps all over the place.
Just wondering if I’m the only one struggling, or if anyone has any advice that might help.
Have you tried sitting in your vehicle. Some apartments have a garage complex. I used to sit in my vehicle at lunchtime. I'm not a classic meditator. I don't try to empty my head of thoughts. I swim through them until I receive a clear frequency. Swimming does that for me, but I can sit in my vehicle with perfect silence.2 -
I used to meditate but my mind wanders or I can’t concentrate because I have other things going on. It definitely takes practice.1
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I consider myself a baby Buddhist - and have been meditating for about 5 years. I find I do much better when listening to a guided meditation - my thoughts are way too intrusive and insistent if I try to go it alone. I’m currently using Insight Timer. I also do guided group sits via Zoom twice a week with different Buddhist teachers. It has helped me grapple with the nature of reality immensely!0
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I studied Mindfulness Based Stress reduction under a teacher through a hospital pain clinic for a year. Then I worked with a researcher at the National Institutes of Health who was studying the effects of meditation on the brain. We worked together for 2 years. Then I began zen buddhist meditation under the guidance of a teacher for 6 years. Then for the past 10, I have been a student in an extremely rigorous zen buddhist training program.
I’d say that my advice would depend on whether you are meditating to learn how to cope with emotions and stress. Or whether you are meditating to discover the true nature of mind/reality. Serious meditation to discover the nondual nature of reality and transform your relationship with the self and world requires pretty extreme discipline and a good teacher. Most people just want to feel a little better but don’t really want to transform themselves. They aren’t able or willing to truly let go of self clinging. But either way, a common mistake people make in the beginning is thinking that there is some certain state to attain or certain way to be. For example, have unbroken concentration on the breath, or get rid of all thoughts or attain a peaceful serenity. Really the most important thing is to become completely and fully intimate with the moment you realize that your mind has wandered off the meditation object. (Usually the sensations of the breath either in the belly or at the nostrils). That moment where you go “wait! I’m supposed to be meditating and instead I’m day dreaming!” That moment comes and goes in an instant. So to really understand what that moment feels like in your body - in detail - means you have to have that experience over and over. So really, the more your mind wanders, the better the opportunity to notice that, and then non judgmentally note what your mind is doing and start over.
Over time, you will notice that you can go longer and longer concentrating without the mind wandering. You can get into absorbed concentration states that feel quite pleasurable. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to notice and start over. People talking can be a distraction because you’re listening to content. But you don’t need silence. You just note “I’m not meditating because I’m angry about the noise.” And start over again. Over and over. It is totally worth pursuing. Totally. I wish everyone would meditate and learn about how one can detach from the conceptualizing function. We can really see the difference between the world as it is, and the world that is filtered through the net of concepts we throw on top of it. The world as it is - revealed thru meditation is amazing. Good luck!0
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