Too Much Monkey Mind When Meditating!!!

[Bridge to Infinity]

I find it very difficult to achieve a state of awareness/observing thoughts/detachment from thoughts during my meditations 

I used to be able to effortlessly pull this off (detachment from thought) but now it seems I can no longer do what I once could.

I suffered some major anxiety, loneliness and depression when I moved out of my parents’ and into a new country, and my monkey mind has tripled or quadrupled even... Its as if though I had beat the shit out of the “monkey mind” only to have made it more powerful and more wild...

The result of having suffered this anxiety, loneliness and depression is that I can now sit all alone by myself and be totally entertained by my own mind chatter. Drifting in and out of awake dreaming states (day dreaming).

I, now have very unproductive meditation sessions, I have been going at it for a couple of months with little progress, where as before, within a couple of days of starting to meditate  I would be able to experience massive differences in my day-to-day experience.

My fault for not sticking to the habit when I clearly should have.

What to do moving forward? 

Edit:

I no longer feel anxious, lonely and depressed however one of the side effects of having suffered through that is the development of a more powerful monkey mind. 

Edited January 13, 2020 by Bridge to Infinity

[Bridge to Infinity]

@Timothy I discovered that Marijuana use for an extensive period of time (4-5 days straight) is very effective for handling depression and anxiety. What it allowed me to do was the following: To view my life and problems from a perspective of happiness and security (by-products of being high) and because of that enhancement of vision and ease of perspective I was able to better situate myself in my own life. I had many insights that exposed the dysfunctions that were in my life. It also helps that I had an ego death early on while on a mixture of Adderall + Indica-Marijuana + CBD droplets. I've been off of weed for a good while now, and I don't crave it nor are the results some temporary fix. Weed is greatly underrated for its ability to allow you to introspect and view your problems from a higher perspective. 

Edited January 13, 2020 by Bridge to Infinity

[SoonHei]

Your interest in what the mind is saying... That's the issue. It pulls your attention in.

Say in a waiting room to see your doctor, there's a TV and Dora the Explorer or some cartoon show you don't give a shit about, you'll naturally find something else to kill time with or read a magazine etc

But if the TV is showing news on your favourite sports team game is on you will be drawn into it.

So the amount of thoughts is not really the issue, although fewer thoughts help sure... But it's what's playing on the screen of your mind which pulls your attention in and disturbs the meditation/focusing on the silence.

 

[SoonHei]

?

[Lento]

Don't resist the monkey-mind. Allow it to move like crazy, and be watching over it. Right now, in your mind, there's a separation between awareness and thought. But that separation itself is a thought and is illusory. Ask yourself: why do I not want to have a monkey-mind? The answer is probably because you think the monkey-mind prevents you from being present. But does it really?

You have always been present. Otherwise, who was there to be able to describe it to us? ?

[Shin]

Are you conscious during the monkey mind or do you realize you were been somewhere "else" after a while ?

If you have just a monkey mind but are more conscious than you were before, you didn't lose progress.

The point is to be conscious, not to have a blank mind (even though that's a side effect).

[inFlow]

@Bridge to Infinity Breathe very slowly, 20 seconds in, 20 seconds out. The mind works with the breath. If you can slow down your breath that much the mind will have nothing to do, but to shut down and stay silent.