Jordan's Meditation Journal Starting Jan 1 2019

[Jordan]

March 22, 2019

I started meditating at 12PM today. I got several texts that interrupted me. I decided to respond to them. I don't really have to respond to anyone quick unless it is my girlfriend so I guess I could have went back to meditating instead of responding.

Texting then going back to meditating a few times was an interesting change trying to focus in quickly after being distracted. It made me think of ways I could try meditating with alternating between normal seated meditation and walking meditation. That might help me be more mindful going about my day. I could even try alternating working on my computer and meditating in 10 or 15 min intervals and see how that goes. 

[Jordan]

March 23 2019

i was interrupted about 40 min in with a call from my grandma and finished the last 20 min later in the day. I remember the first 40 min in the morning went pretty well. The 20 min later on was difficult for me to sit still. 

March 24, 2019

I did 8 min in the morning then got busy with something after getting a text then finished the hour up in the afternoon. I got a text from my dad about having free tickets to a hockey game that night which made my mind really active. I kept wondering if I have enough time to finish meditating before going and wondering who else was going. It was hard to watch my thoughts without getting lost and becoming unaware of the feel and hear senses. 

March 25, 2019

I just meditating for an hour starting at 11:30am after a big breakfast and some coffee.

It went really well today. At the beginning I had strong emotions coming up as I was thinking about frustrating things that happened in the past. I opened my eyes once for a second but went back to meditating. After about 15 min I was able to focus really well.

I quickly noticed when image and internal talking was coming up and making a story. I was able to understand the stories contents and still label, feel my emotions , muscle tension and body position and hear my refrigerator and cars driving by every once in a while outside. The hour went by very quickly and I could have happily kept going. It was a better experience than normal. Usually I am really glad when I am done.

[Jordan]

March 26, 2019

I meditated for an hour without moving starting at 9:30pm. My back was pretty sore today which is uncommon. The session went fine. My legs and feet felt hot. I want to try to put more effort into picking a sensation to focus on and really savoring it as the top priority. Sometimes I just note something and know it is there and not really feel or hear into it that much and am still partly paying attention to other things.

[Jordan]

March 27, 2019

I meditated for an hour without moving starting at 10am. I was trying to savor the sensations I was focusing on as much as possible and it seemed to help increase the clarity of the sensations and stay on task. My back felt better today and was only a little sore.

A thought came up that I could make a YouTube video explaining how to do the technique. Then I went into a thought story where I filmed the whole video and explained everything I wanted to explain in the video. I realize I didn't really label and savor during that time but I wanted to finish the thought so it would be out of my head and I could continue meditating without it nagging me. I went back to meditating and was fine afterwards. 

[Jordan]

March 28, 2019

I meditated for an hour mid day. I moved and checked the time 3-4 times at the end. I kind of did it unconsciously. I am not sure why I was so eager for it to end. 

March 29, 2019

I opened my eyes a few times but didn't move. I sat for an hour 12pm-1pm

Today I did something a bit different in my meditation. I did the savoring part for 4 breaths instead of 2. Starting out I slowly scanned my body labeling feel for 4 breaths on each spot from top to bottom of my body. If I felt muscle tension and could relax it easily while still sitting up straight I did. If I couldn't relax the tension easily I just felt it and didn't try to relax it anymore. I then switched to feeling my emotions from top to bottom. I focused on the other labels hear, image and talk each separately for a while. After I was done that I just went back to noting and labeling whatever sensation draws my attention for 4 breaths. 

I liked the longer savoring time and focusing on 1 label at a time for the beginning so I will try this method out for the next while.

Last night I had a dream where I was bit by a snake on the leg and it paralyzed my leg and hurt. I woke up at around 4am and couldn't sleep for a while and couldn't stop thinking about the dream and what might happen if I got bit and had to call for an ambulance and if i should try to pull it off or let it let go by itself.

[Jordan]

March 30, 2019

I sat for an hour. I moved and checked the time a few times. Today I tried the same method as yesterday. I noted "feel" then "emotion" then "hear" for a longer time than yesterday (maybe 30-35 min in total) and it went great. When I got to the inner see I started thinking about my old jobs I had and after labeling "image" a couple times I kept getting strong emotions and getting lost in stories every time. I tried it over and over and kept getting lost. After I focused on inner talk and it seemed to go fine. At first I purposely said stuff to label then after I didn't try to say anything and just listened to see if any internal talk would come up. I only spent the last 10 min focusing on whatever came up which was really hard after all the emotions came up about thinking about work. 

After getting lost in thought I moved a few times and checked the time. Thinking about work really made me feel stressed and afraid.

I quit many jobs after I started feeling bad emotions when thinking about them. Usually when I start a job I really enjoy it and am excited about it. After 6 months of so I dread doing it and don't like even thinking about it. This might happen because during situations that stress me out and scare me, I will ignore and avoid the emotions. They never seem to go away when I think back about them. Enough of these situations build up and I start associating going to work as being stressful and scary.

I might need to look into shadow work and work though these emotions and do my best to let them go and detach them from the memories if I want to stick with a job for a long time without it being torture.

[Jordan]

March 31 - April 5

Today is April 5, I have been meditating these days an hour per day right before bed usually starting  at 11pm or 12am. I have not been able to concentrate or sit still the whole time. Sometimes I had to take short breaks. 2 times I lied down for the last 30 min. I did the mindfulness with labeling technique and sometimes started with body scanning and relaxing muscles.

 

Today I had a different experience. I meditated starting at 8:30pm and was able to concentrate a bit better than in recent days. I still moved, itched myself, opened my eyes and checked the time with 20 min left. Shortly after I had thought come up: 

"All that exists are appearances and that there is no reason to assume that physical reality exists behind these appearances."

I have thought the same thing before while watching Leo's videos but I understood it differently this time. I'll try to explain my understanding of it.

Why would I assume that my boxy exists just because there are feeling appearances of my body and  seeing / hearing / feeling appearances of a memory of my life? Emotion appearances may exist making you feel that the thought "my body is real" is true but that thought / emotion is an appearance and appearances are the only "things" that exist. Physical objects are not real. What I am is not a physical body, I am the intelligence that understands appearances as they come into existence.   

I feel like I said appearances like 1000 times haha. I hope what I said kind of makes sense. These thoughts make sense to me but I don't fully grasp it. I think I need to meditate more.

Edited April 6, 2019 by Jordan

[Zigzag Idiot]

It makes sense to me. The body is not real eternally. It's just a tool needed for an Earth experience. My paraphrasing could be altering your meaning though.

I'm that way with words. I've caught myself doing that a lot. Using a word repeatedly in expressing an idea,,,, Maybe I'll just laugh instead of being overly self conscious next time I catch myself doing that.

[Jordan]

April 6 - 11 2019

I have been slacking off in my meditation. I have been doing meditation late at night before bed because I have been working hard on a website I am making. The website is tendonitissolution.com. I have been working on it for the last 3 weeks and haven't wanted to stop to meditate during the day. I am pretty close to finishing it so I will get back on track with meditating mid day which usually goes much better. 

I haven't been able to sit without moving these days I was too tired and couldn't manage it. I often would lie down after a while or the whole time. I plan on sitting from now on and not starting my meditation at 12 or 1am

April 12, 2019

I meditated at around 6pm for an hour. I sat the whole time but I was interrupted by 2 phone calls. I kind of wanted to take those calls and don't regret it. After the calls I couldn't sit still for very long and would open my eyes and scratch itches without being able to help it. Tomorrow I will try to find a good time to meditate with my phone on airplane mode and maybe I will try strong determination sitting instead of the mindfulness with labeling I have been doing.

@Zigzag Idiot

I think your paraphrasing is altering the meaning but I like hearing your understanding of this topic. 

I was saying that there are no physical things. It is like when Leo made the episode about brains not existing. If you consider that the present moment is all that there is, there only exists 2 things which are 1: appearances 2: the understanding of those appearances. The understanding doesn't come from a physical brain because a brain isn't on the list of 2 things that exists. 

For example if there exists an understanding that you can look down and see "your body." The truth is that you are not seeing a real body, that is just an appearance and your mind is wrongfully labeling that appearance  as a body that was born and requires food to live etc. This is not true. It is just an appearance similar to other appearances you have in your memory that you call a body. It would be more accurate to say you can have the experience of looking down and seeing shapes and colors that resemble a body.

I am not sure how useful it is looking at reality this way though. I think it is mostly important to focus on being more present to these appearances and removing the believe that your labels and concepts are real. That way you can more easily distinguish what is real and what is concept. I hope that kind of makes sense

[Jordan]

April 13-15

These days I still meditated right before bed and the sessions were not good since I was so tired

April 16-17

I didn't meditated these 2 days. There were the first 2 days I haven't meditated at all since starting on January 1st. I didn't want to meditate at night and decided I would meditate in the morning the next day. On the 17th I got busy and focused on my website again and I didn't get around to meditating.

April 18

Today I got back on track meditating for an hour doing the strong determination sitting technique from 1-2pm. It was really easy not to move this time compared to doing it before bed. I did have lots of thoughts come up but I didn't try to stop them. I started thinking about the answer to the question "what am I?" and trying to experience the answer to that. I was thinking about how you think you are making thoughts come up but in reality they show up out of nowhere, triggered by previous thoughts and sensations and are observed by you but not created by you at all. I will hopefully not miss any more days. I'll try waking up early and doing my meditation in the morning from now on.

[Jordan]

April 19, 2019

I meditated for 1 hour starting at around 12pm. I did the mindfulness with labeling technique. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to do the technique instead of actually doing the technique. I'll do my best to focus a bit better tomorrow.