Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Week 14

I managed another three days of meditation this week before realising that I need a break. I’ve had a few weeks of getting nowhere and it feels like I need to press the reset button. The storm of everyday life has cut short my inner journey and forced my boat back to shore.

I know some people say you shouldn’t get too attached to results but when you are training anything, whether it’s your mind or your body, there needs to be improvement otherwise there seems to be no point.

I think I’ve reached this point numerous times before and it normally results in a lengthy break, sometimes for months, sometimes for years. I don’t want that to happen, so I’m going to try and get back to meditating in a couple of weeks.

Not meditating for the rest of this week has been a bit of a relief, and I’m hoping that a rest will do me good.…

Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Week 13

Another week of getting nowhere. Thoughts still take over for the majority of each session. The times in between are calmer but unfortunately don’t last.

I come away from each session slightly more relaxed but with a sense that I’ve really just been daydreaming and not meditating.

The drowsiness of everyday life has taken over from the alert state in meditation. I’ve fallen asleep and can’t wake up, too distracted by dreams.

When I’ve seen all the progress I’ve made vanish over a few weeks, it doesn’t really encourage me to keep meditating as I’m no longer seeing any benefit. I need something to get that motivation back.

Do I carry on with trying to meditate, do I try something different or do I have a break? Maybe I could do with a week of more intensive sessions to try and break through the wall of resistance in my head.…

Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Month 3 Summary

I had high hopes at the end of the second month but this month has been very disappointing. I think various things helped to work against the meditation such as a painful knee preventing me from sitting cross-legged, a cold that’s lasted a few weeks and a much busier everyday life.

The sudden barrage of thoughts during meditation has been quite shocking, particularly as I seemed to be gaining some control over them last month. Obviously, I hadn’t advanced as much as I thought I had! I feel as though I’ve been battered by storms and now just I’m drifting.

The ‘wall’ in my head is back, with me and my busy mind on one side, and the peaceful meditative mind on the far side. I can’t seem to break through the wall at the moment. It’s like the desire to do it has faded and, without that motivation, I don’t have the energy/strength/will to reach the other side.…

Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Week 12

There’s not much progress to write about this week. The plan of gaining some mental strength by the end of the week hasn’t really materialised. Concentration seems a little bit stronger but there are still a lot of thoughts ready to dive in and carry my attention away.

A still mind seems out of reach at the moment, beyond a wall again. It’s hard breaking through the fuzziness from this cold, which seems to have been lingering for three weeks now. I’ve found myself drifting into sleep two or three times even though I didn’t feel particularly tired.

A head cold seems to encourage busier thoughts than usual but maybe the mind is using thoughts as a distraction from the discomfort of the cold symptoms. A possible way forward might be to focus on these symptoms instead of the breath.

A bit of a disappointing week.…

Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Week 11

My mind still feels a bit dazed but concentration is improving albeit very slowly. There doesn’t seem to be any power to it at the moment though, as thoughts are still carrying my mind away very easily.

I’m back to counting breaths again to help pull my focus away from all the thoughts, and it seems to be helping but it feels like there’s a long way to go to get back to where I was.

I’ve been tired a lot this week, and this has increased the propensity of my mind to drift into daydreams during meditation. Maybe I just need more sleep at the moment.

I feel there has been a slight shift away from the external world and back towards the search for inner peace. I’m missing the relative mental calmness I was cultivating a few weeks ago. It’s like I want to get back on the right path but I’m thrashing around in the undergrowth next to it.…

Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Week 10

It’s been a fairly manic week and the meditation sessions have continued to be full of distractions. Thoughts relating to what’s happening in everyday life seem to have had a lot of power. Awareness of the breath has been pushed onto the sidelines, and it’s been very hard trying to bring the focus back.

I don’t want to put too much effort into concentration, as I think it should be more natural and gentle. I’ve been bringing the focus back onto the breath when I can but also have been trying to let the thoughts wear themselves out.

I’m still sitting in a chair to meditate, as my knee is still delicate. I think I’ll have to use the chair for a few weeks, which unfortunately will mean that I’ll have to go through the hassle of adjusting to the cross-legged position all over again.…

Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Week 9

This week has been a bit of a disaster, meditation-wise. No steps forward but lots of steps backward.

At the start of the week, I was distracted by a sore knee. I’ve no idea what I’ve done to it but it started to swell up and got quite painful. Consequently, it was getting harder to keep focusing on my breath, and the sessions became a bit of a struggle.

It felt like sitting in the meditation position was aggravating my knee, so I reluctantly decided to sit on a chair. I always used to fall asleep doing this but I managed to stay awake. However, I noticed that I was more relaxed and less focused.

Mid-week, I started to get a cold and the fuzzy head made my head feel very tired, with the concentration trying to slide away all the time.

Just to add the icing on the cake, everyday life got quite hectic and intruded quite badly on my meditation.…

Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Month 2 Summary

It’s definitely been a better month, as illnesses have subsided and it’s felt like meditating has been more successful and also more enjoyable. I’m still doing two sessions a day of between 20 and 30 minutes. I’m glad I seem to have settled into a routine.

Awareness of my breath has been better, sometimes feeling as though the breath is close and clear. Unfortunately, as my breathing has generally become more relaxed and quieter, it’s been harder to detect. This is not so much of a problem with the in-breath, as this tends to be shorter and more powerful than the out-breath, and the colder air going in to the nostrils is more noticeable. The out-breath is gentler and slower and at body temperature, so it seems to disappear completely at times.

Concentration has improved overall, with some sessions seeing very few major disturbances.…

Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Week 8

This week’s meditation has been quite variable again. I find it a bit frustrating when I can’t get my mind to settle and the whole thing feels like hard work. I suppose I’d really like a perfect linear progression with each session an improvement on the last. Not much to ask, is it? Meanwhile, back in the ‘real’ world…

Morning sessions seem to have been better than evening ones this week. My mind seems a lot busier in the evening, with lots of thoughts about the day, which has been making it harder to settle and focus. I’ve a feeling that a month or so ago, it was the other way round with the morning session more difficult than the evening.

The background hum/hiss I mentioned last week has been more noticeable in some sessions, maybe when my mind is quieter, but mostly I’m not really aware of it.…

Mindfulness of Breathing – Journey 1 Week 7

Concentration seemed sharper and stronger in the first half of the week. I managed to keep attention on the breath, albeit in a shaky way, for majority of one of the sessions, and in others distractions seemed to only last for a couple of seconds.

I had the impression that when focusing on my breath, I was more alert and more awake than normal. When my concentration started to slide, it felt like I was slipping into sleep, with the daydreaming that followed almost like dreaming when fully asleep. Suddenly remembering to watch the breath again felt like waking up.

I’ve noticed that when my mind is relatively calm, there is still a background noise going on in my head. It’s a bit hard to describe but it’s similar to the constant hum of a busy road in the distance, but higher pitched.…