I tried what you suggested. I sat in one position for 50 minutes and tried to focus on the feeling of breathing in my belly (see how I tabooed my earlier use of “meditating mindfully”?) Here’s what I observed:
At first it was a bit hard to find the breathing, it’s more subtle than the feeling in my nostrils. But I was able to occasionally focus and my focus gravitated towards that region close to the belly button. It feels better to focus on my belly than on my nostrils. Focusing on nostrils feels heavy and shallow, while focusing on belly feels a bit more light and deep.
What surprised me most was that I felt like I was actually able to focus on the feeling in my stomach without trying to control my breathing as much. At least I was able to more easily convince that this was the case. It feels like nostrils are so close to where the act of breathing happens, while my belly is more distanced from this thing that does the breathing. It feels more like focusing on an external object.
It was mostly fantasizing and daydreaming and I was able to focus only for short periods of time, maybe a few seconds and just occasionally. I got obsessive-compulsive thoughts like “focus on your nostrils”, but I tried to be mindful about those and mostly succeeded. I was a bit tense and at least at one point I noticed my heartbeat was quite fast, which made me more anxious. Part of this tenseness was due to the fact that I decided a poor posture when I started. I decided not to change this posture along the way.
I feel more relaxed than when I started and I don’t usually feel like that when I’ve meditated. So overall, a positive experience, placebo or not.
Great. Thank you for sharing your experience.
It sounds like you are moving in the right direction.
The fact that your heartbeat gets fast and an emotion comes up that makes you anxious is no bad sign.
If you stay present and your body processes the emotion it’s dealt with. After processing strong emotions
my body usually feels more relaxed than before. In meditation tension can rise to uncomfortable levels. Then the body recognizes the tension as unnecessary and
the tension falls off.
I think 50 minutes are probably too much for you at your stage.
Staying focused for 50 minutes is very hard and you are likely to lose your focus.
In your situation I would rather go for 10 or 15 minutes for meditating alone. Set an alarm clock.
Once you reach the point where you feel like you can focus for longer periods of time you can increase the time you meditate.
If you want to spent more time writing down what you experienced like you just did is very useful.
It allows you to make sense of the experience. That’s what diary writing is about.
(I’m also embarrassed if someone notices I’m keeping a diary which is of course really stupid and something I should work on).
I personally keep information like that in my own Evernote account and don’t have a physical diary that could lie around that someone could notice. You don’t need to talk with the kind of people who would look down on you for having a diary about the fact that you have a diary.
The point of writing things done in a diary is to refine your thinking. You force yourself to bring clarity into your thought. For me writing a post on LW like the one above about why I recommend focusing on the belly instead of the nose, refines my own thinking about meditation. Using you and LW as an audience instead of simply writing down my thoughts in a private journal has advantages or disadvantages.
When writing for an LW audience I have to be more careful with terms like chakra then when I’m just writing for myself. Writing emails to friends can also be useful to refine your thoughts. You probably have a bunch of different friends with different perspectives on life and different level of trust when it comes to sharing personal experiences.
All my writing still goes into my Evernote account. Meditation can lead to perceiving a bunch of new things that you never experienced before. If you don’t want to become a mystic, putting cognitive labels on experience is important to keep your orientation and be able to navigate the world.
I’m not sure if I got anything else out of your post, but I will try to focus on my belly the next time I meditate.
It was the main point of my first half. At this point in time understanding the “why” isn’t that important.
It [my belly] feels more like focusing on an external object.
That’s an interesting way of putting it. With time your belly won’t feel like an external object anymore
but will feel internal. At that point a lot of your anxiety issues will likely solve themselves.
I tried what you suggested. I sat in one position for 50 minutes and tried to focus on the feeling of breathing in my belly (see how I tabooed my earlier use of “meditating mindfully”?) Here’s what I observed:
At first it was a bit hard to find the breathing, it’s more subtle than the feeling in my nostrils. But I was able to occasionally focus and my focus gravitated towards that region close to the belly button. It feels better to focus on my belly than on my nostrils. Focusing on nostrils feels heavy and shallow, while focusing on belly feels a bit more light and deep.
What surprised me most was that I felt like I was actually able to focus on the feeling in my stomach without trying to control my breathing as much. At least I was able to more easily convince that this was the case. It feels like nostrils are so close to where the act of breathing happens, while my belly is more distanced from this thing that does the breathing. It feels more like focusing on an external object.
It was mostly fantasizing and daydreaming and I was able to focus only for short periods of time, maybe a few seconds and just occasionally. I got obsessive-compulsive thoughts like “focus on your nostrils”, but I tried to be mindful about those and mostly succeeded. I was a bit tense and at least at one point I noticed my heartbeat was quite fast, which made me more anxious. Part of this tenseness was due to the fact that I decided a poor posture when I started. I decided not to change this posture along the way.
I feel more relaxed than when I started and I don’t usually feel like that when I’ve meditated. So overall, a positive experience, placebo or not.
Great. Thank you for sharing your experience. It sounds like you are moving in the right direction.
The fact that your heartbeat gets fast and an emotion comes up that makes you anxious is no bad sign. If you stay present and your body processes the emotion it’s dealt with. After processing strong emotions my body usually feels more relaxed than before. In meditation tension can rise to uncomfortable levels. Then the body recognizes the tension as unnecessary and the tension falls off.
I think 50 minutes are probably too much for you at your stage. Staying focused for 50 minutes is very hard and you are likely to lose your focus.
In your situation I would rather go for 10 or 15 minutes for meditating alone. Set an alarm clock. Once you reach the point where you feel like you can focus for longer periods of time you can increase the time you meditate.
If you want to spent more time writing down what you experienced like you just did is very useful. It allows you to make sense of the experience. That’s what diary writing is about.
I personally keep information like that in my own Evernote account and don’t have a physical diary that could lie around that someone could notice. You don’t need to talk with the kind of people who would look down on you for having a diary about the fact that you have a diary.
The point of writing things done in a diary is to refine your thinking. You force yourself to bring clarity into your thought. For me writing a post on LW like the one above about why I recommend focusing on the belly instead of the nose, refines my own thinking about meditation. Using you and LW as an audience instead of simply writing down my thoughts in a private journal has advantages or disadvantages. When writing for an LW audience I have to be more careful with terms like chakra then when I’m just writing for myself. Writing emails to friends can also be useful to refine your thoughts. You probably have a bunch of different friends with different perspectives on life and different level of trust when it comes to sharing personal experiences.
All my writing still goes into my Evernote account. Meditation can lead to perceiving a bunch of new things that you never experienced before. If you don’t want to become a mystic, putting cognitive labels on experience is important to keep your orientation and be able to navigate the world.
It was the main point of my first half. At this point in time understanding the “why” isn’t that important.
That’s an interesting way of putting it. With time your belly won’t feel like an external object anymore but will feel internal. At that point a lot of your anxiety issues will likely solve themselves.