I’m making a better effort to meditate, but I don’t know if I’m doing it right. Focusing on my breathing and releasing thoughts is hard and if I relax too much, I fall asleep.
If you have related issues when meditating, have you found better ways to meditate or alternatives that give you similar results?
I have ADHD, autism, and major depression, and meditation has been a fairly powerful tool for me (when I can will myself to use it) when it comes to straightening out my thoughts so my brain isn’t a big bowl of stressful spaghetti.
What’s worked for me is just allowing the thoughts to race, but not allow myself to interact with them. Eventually, they’ll run their course and settle down.
In practice, it kind of looks like this: I’ll focus on my breathing, but I won’t worry too much about quieting my mind. I only meditate when I’m extremely distraught about something. So naturally, the worries will rise to the surface and try to take over. While I’m focusing on breathing and settling down, the thoughts will come. Money issues, loneliness, responsibilities I’m avoiding, depression, dissatisfaction, etc. I’ll allow the thoughts to come into the forefront, and I’ll “look” at them. I’ll acknowledge them, I’ll allow them their space. But I won’t let myself to bring them into focus and give them any type of thought. I won’t engage with them. I’ll just…let them be. Objectively. Once I observe the thought, it’ll usually pass by and make room for the next stressful worry to show up.
EVENTUALLY, the majority of the things that are bothering me will have made an appearance. I’ll observe each one, and let it pass by. After years of practice, I’ve learned that the thoughts and worries will run their course and I’ll finally have the space to truly focus on my breathing and decompress. After all is said and done, I’m usually left with relatively organized thoughts and I am able to think clearly, without everything swimming around in my head, simultaneously trying to scream at me.
I really liked your comment about thoughts running their course. Something I feel like meditation has really helped me notice is how fleeting thoughts really are, even when not trying to meditate. When you develop the practice of not indulging in them while still “giving them their space” (so not forcing them away either) they do just seem to fade away on their own. When they’re not being fed they retreat. Some thoughts like to show up more than others, and some like to stick around longer, but meditation really gave me a confidence to let the thoughts be and trust that they’ll fade once they’ve had their tantrum. If I’m lucky and I notice I’m on a funk whenever I’m not meditating I can see it’s because I’ve been indulging in whatever worry or angry thought for the past whatever minutes or hours. And then I can use the confidence from meditation to remind myself that if I can stop indulging in and extending those ephemeral thoughts then my mood appears sorta silly and it’s curious that I got so upset over what feels like vapor in my mind lol. It’s just very thick sometimes