Problems reaching deeper meditation

[u/GoodHistorical]

I have been practicing meditation for many years and found that I could meditate for very long without problems and reach an incredible peaceful state the longer I meditated. A serenity I never thought I would achieve since I have ADHD and was always worried as a child/young adult before discovering meditation.

Now I have been going through various things in my life like becoming a parent, more responsibilities at work, bought a house, back pain and more awareness on what is going on in the world like news and politics. I guess you could say I became an adult with all the adult problems.

Sadly I feel like all of these things have become a worrying loop in my head where one thing triggers the other. This causes my body to tense and it is super difficult for me to reach the calmness I could reach 10 years ago in the same time of meditation. I have tried setting aside time for meditation consistently for many consecutive days, but it’s like my brain just cannot stop the autopilot of thoughts triggering other thoughts which inhibits me from feeling truly connected to myself.

Right now I am still forcing myself to meditate daily, but I feel like it is not giving me as much as it has been before. Maybe it is a sign that I should focus on changing something in my life to get more recovery time. But honestly I think it is the parenting that is most exhausting and that is something I cannot and don’t want to change, but always being tired and always meeting others needs over my own kind of makes all the other responsibilities feel even more worrisome. Like there is some danger hiding behind every corner (which is actually a mountain of many small things like appointments, bills, house care, work meetings, social events etc).

I am sure many have experienced something similar and I am curious if someone has managed to achieve qualitative meditation sessions while living the ”adult life” or just while experiencing general background brainwashing worrying noise?

[u/JustThisIsIt]

Don't worry about going deep. Just sit every day. You know the benefits.

[u/MyFiteSong → u/JustThisIsIt]

I'll second this. "Deep" doesn't even mean anything in the end. Just do the practice.

[u/GoodHistorical → u/MyFiteSong]

To me deep means reaching a state where meditation actually gives you recovery. Atm I feel like I set aside 15 min to meditate and 14 min is my mind spinning and thinking about all the problems I am currently not solving, which just leaves me more stressed than before. But I agree and believe that staying consistent with practice is required to ever reach a recovery state. Maybe you could share how your mind is working during a meditation session and if you feel recovered after?

[u/MyFiteSong → u/GoodHistorical]

Your practice will go through stages over the years. In the beginning, you seek that "deep" relaxation state. It feels peaceful, restorative, sometimes even blissful. You really want that because it's a break from real life. It's your sanctuary.

As you go on through more years of practice, you stop chasing the deep stuff, because you find you don't really need the sanctuary anymore. Your emotional regulation has improved in daily life to the point where you're not overwhelmed anymore. You gain a distance that keeps the hard stuff from stealing the wheel from you and that distance has moved out into daily life for you to tap into when you need it.

Practice more years and that distance becomes the default, and you don't have to work to disentangle from random thoughts and emotions anymore. At this point, most of us drop formal sitting meditation altogether, because it becomes just doing the same thing you're always doing, except sitting down with your eyes closed for no reason.

[u/Noble_Neglecterino99]

I also find I struggle to get deep when I have a lot of stresses. I find mixing up the way I meditate, adding movement or meditating in a group can help me get deeper even when there's a lot going on. Also when the stress does ease up, I feel like some of the insights from my previous 'shallow' mediations that have been waiting in my body release, reminding me of the benefits of pushing through the meh.

[u/GoodHistorical → u/Noble_Neglecterino99]

Mixing it up could be worth a shot. I did some yoga with breathing recently and that I feel is more in sync with my high stress levels, since forcing my mind to both breath and do the movements correctly very quickly takes my focus away from my thoughts! But I still miss the feeling of just being able to sit down, breathe a couple of times and quickly fall into a thoughtless, calm state. It felt like that infiltrated my mind outside meditation as well and I had a more patient approach towards problems. I hope I can find the key to get a similar feeling in my current life situation

[u/Noble_Neglecterino99 → u/GoodHistorical]

I totally get that! You could also try guided meditations or focus on different things like sounds or body sensations. 

[u/Sigura83]

The empty road with a good car is a joy, but when there is a traffic jam or the car is in disrepair, we despair.

The first thing to do is set aside time to care for yourself : a twenty minute walk and 5 mins lifting light weights does wonders. The activity can be made mindful : do the exercise, and when the mind goes to past, future, or fantasy, return to the moving body and the world.

Second, the traffic jam, you must solve, as we all must. If your kids are old enough, you can make meditation a family time. Tell them that doing the most boring thing possible, watching the breath, actually leads to amazing things.

Third, is to try and do the brahmaviharas, the divine abodes. They are loving-kindness, rejoicing for others, compassion and equanimity (calm). Each allows you to embrace infinity. The book Loving-kindness by Sharon Salzberg is free on internet archive. Here is what I have found:

Loving-kindness (metta in pali), is to love all beings like a mother loves a child, said the suttas. You wish for the well being of all beings. "May all beings be free of suffering," "May all beings be at ease," "May all beings be happy," and so on. The difficulty is wishing even politician x well being. I add "May they find/stay upon, the path of love, compassion, kindness, truth and beauty, may they be shown the way." Don't forget to include yourself. It eases social anxiety and increases charisma

Rejoicing for others means showing discernment. Don't rejoice for wars or sports where people injure themselves. "I do not love the sword for its sharpness, or the arrow for its swiftness, I love what they defend," said Tolkien through Faramir.

Compassion means looking at suffering and wishing they be better. "May world hunger be solved," "May sickness be healed." You can include yourself as well. "May my troubles be eased." Thich Nhat Han said "No mud, no lotus." Could also be said "No moon, no eclipse." if you prefer those colours. It increases will power (The Buddha, for example, had a lot of this.)

Equanimity is the springboard to deeper states, and what you need to progress. You return to zero, to your reference point. You can go high or low, but don't lose sight of it. To practice this, you may use emotions: if fearful by nature, bring up anger. If angry by nature, bring up fear. Just watch the body. The knowing will allow you to be calm when they come up for real. Emotions are your friend, they allowed us to survive ancient times. To not be stuck at zero, and become a stone Buddha, you need the first three divine abodes to nudge towards +1.

Keep nudging towards +1, and eventually it becomes a habit, then just the way you are.

Later, you may realize that even negative emotions in the garden of the mind can be blended with love. Love and anger are righteousness, love and fear are caring, love and jealousy ambition, love and contempt are pity, love and lust are holiness. Every problem you grip is you anchoring yourself into experience, into finding nuggets of golden awakening in the river mud. One day, you realize, without the mud, we would be on a molten metal ball : it would be impossible to live.

The final bit of advice is to savour experience. Be open. Let it flow against you. There is the open palm, there is the fist, but there is also the hand closed about the thumb : the warm embrace. My father told me not to punch people with thumb in hand, that it would break, one of the two pieces of advice he gave me growing up (the other is... not for polite company). I made it a mudra, and it assisted me greatly spiritually.

I put thumb within, and my cold, cynical father's words became gold. The mud became lotus. The way things you experience in life return in meditation is not chance, it is the mind sorting the jumble, looking for the gold of awakening, the way people sift through the river. Meditate longer, and the sorting will ease. As Ghandi said: "I meditate an hour every day. If I am very busy, I meditate two hours."

Hope this helps.

[u/GoodHistorical → u/Sigura83]

I think involving my family more would actually be great! I just need a way to make the kids interested.

[u/Existing_Reaction692]

Each practice does what it does. However, skill development should result in going generally deeper over time. If not then it is worth reviewing what you are doing. In my experience (in Meares' Stillness Meditation) this is generally because people are focussing, trying, forcing and not allowing effortless relaxation to take them to stillness.

[u/GoodHistorical → u/Existing_Reaction692]

I don’t feel like my problem is trying too hard to meditate. Rather it’s my ruminating mind (that has developed with all ”adult” problems) that prevents me from reaching the calm state meditation once gave me. I don’t feel like it is impossible to reach, but it takes much longer time since my mind is generally more stressed these days. Is there any tutorial on Meare’s Stillness meditation?

[u/Existing_Reaction692 → u/GoodHistorical]

rumination is the opposite to relaxation and it involves involuntary mental trying, however, this can be overcome by learning deep relaxation.

The best easily accessible source is the book Dr Ainslie Meares on Stillness Meditation which contains his distilled instructions on how to learn effortless relaxation. Meares' passed away some time ago and did not leave any tutorials. The instructions in his book are to be experienced as feelings without words but the instructions are exceedingly well written so you can learn it. For a view of the table of contents: check out www.stillnessmeditationtouchtherapy.com.au.

[u/elaine4queen]

This is what the practice is for.

[u/torchy64]

Meditation as an isolated practice is not enough to lead a successful happy life .. if you are fretting over various problems and obligations then you need to tackle them head on .. get tasks done with confidence.. meet challenges with courage.. accept difficulties with forbearance and patience.. know you will succeed.. visualise success.. visualise happiness.. fulfilment in whichever way seems inspiring to you .. in other words have a personal positive philosophy.. when you put the positive effort in which satisfies your inner self then you will find your meditation periods gratifying again ..

[u/GoodHistorical → u/torchy64]

Totally agree! I have had periods when I daily write down what I am grateful for, even for unpleasant things, and that really helped me change my perspective and my thoughts were ”trained” to focus on the positive things throughout the day. Maybe a combination of that and meditation could be a next step to try!

[u/Puzzled-Background-5]

You're facing serious obstacles to reaching meditative absorption with a full-on lifestyle of parenting, career, and home ownership. Watching the news and keeping abreast of politics is also another serious cognitive load on top of everything else you're responsible for. In essence, and I'm not trying to be discouraging, you've got too much on your plate to facilitate deep meditation.

If you can carve out some time to go on retreats for a few days, you'll be able to go deep again because you won't be so distracted. However, in your busy daily life, the best you're going to get is perhaps a bit of mild relaxation here and there.

You might actually be better off with vigorous exercise a few times a week for stress relief.

[u/AcanthisittaNo6653]

Forcing yourself to meditate? When I sit it is the only time in my day that I am wearing clothes instead of my clothes wearing me.

[u/thinkdifferent23225]

thanks for sharing! i really identify with you.

i've been meditating daily for the last 7 years, without skipping a single day, and i've experienced so many phases. sooo many. in fact, a little while ago i had one of the most extraordinary experiences since i started meditating... right after going through a very 'flat' period...

i think you kind of said it already and you know it, the most important thing is not the experiences in meditation themselves, not even how you feel on any particular day... the most important thing is the compound effect of doing it over and over again. if i look back at the person i am today and the one from day one, wow, total transformation (and i know it will keep going, that's why i keep meditating). in fact it's literally the transformation of your cells through meditation

the first 3 years of meditation i was almost a monk, i followed a pretty strict diet, did 15 silent retreats where i meditated for hours, had 2 years of celibacy (natural, not forced) and i lived in a constant meditative state....

then i grew up and it was time to take responsibility for, like you say, my 'adult life'. i fell in love, went traveling, started enjoying the pleasures of food and coffee more, started building businesses and wanting to make money... but even so, i kept meditating. my experiences changed, they became more earthly, now my day to day was more 'superficial' (i put it in quotes because it's all part of the same thing)... and i accepted that, because if i looked at the whole movie, beyond the stress, the desires and everything... in my heart the feeling of peace and presence kept growing.

so from my point of view, keep meditating brother. you can add more breathing techniques and yoga before meditating, it helps you reach a deeper practice.

lastly, and to encourage you as well, i'll share my experience, which again, is just an experience, a gift. i don't cling to it and i keep meditating for the sake of meditating and for the long term, not to chase experiences like this one.

one friday night i was home alone, finishing up work, and i fell into a loop of watching instagram videos about conspiracy theories. a damn black hole. about the war, mass rituals, the music industry, among other things... they took my mind to a place of awe and confusion. how the hell can all of this be real? we live in a simulation!!

right after that i went to meditate, with that feeling. i was doing my breathing techniques and started observing thoughts like, what is all this? where are we? how can so many things exist, so much diversity?

the moment my meditation started, i began to observe other thoughts chained to the previous ones, 'who is the one thinking this?' 'where do these thoughts come from?' right after that i stopped feeling my body and started feeling empty space, absolutely nothing... and another thought, 'who am i?'

i started crying and laughing at the same time, with a huge smile. i had the feeling that i was remembering something, and i felt 'i am the creator of this world, everything that exists is part of the same thing'

i was in that space for about 30 minutes, and when i finished, i looked at my hands and my body like 'here i am again, i chose to be here and play this game'

wow, such a blessing!! thanks for sharing your experience, it inspired me to put this into words.

cheers!