Meditation?

[flyingturtle]

I've heard about using meditation as a form for coping with things and calming down as opposed to SI or whatever else might be the case. My BF says it helped him a lot when he was suicidal/depressed last winter. I don't really have the patience to just sit there and breathe for a while... I suppose I was just wondering if this was a good coping method and if anyone has any experiences with it. Also wondering if there were different kinds I could do/how they work.

[snowangel_03]

One thing I've done before, was when I went to bed, I'd lie there with my eyes closed and breathe deeply and slowly. It calms me down and helps me get to sleep, too

I hope you can find something that helps

[capricorn]

Helps me a lot.
Personally I do visualisations, I focus on visualisations -- like imagining myself surrounded by light and then changing the colour of the light -- and things like that. Or I'll just sit there and breathe, and think about things, but not in a 'worrying' way, I try to think of things that have happened and what I can do to fix it or learn from it. It really helps me sort out my thoughts/mind in general.
My mother does Transcendental Meditation, which is where you repeat a phrase or word over and over in your mind for about five--ten minutes.

Glad to hear that it helped your bf, hope you can find something to help yourself.

[guest23]

I took a relaxation course this past semester in college and we listened to tape recordings that pretty much told us what to do for the half hour. I found that this helped more than just sitting silently, because then my mind would wander and I wouldn't actually accomplish meditation or solving my problems.

One I really like was we visualized we were on the beach, lying down on our backs, with our feet right on the edge of the water. And everytime you breath in you visualise the waves moving up and down the shore line. And then you take three deep breaths and see the water come up over your feet, and back down, up and down, up and down.. Then the water comes up to your knees when you breath in, and back down when you breath out, three times.. And then the water comes up to your hips for three breaths, up to your shoulders for three breaths and then up over your head.. I think you get the point. And then you keep visualizing the water washing over your whole body for about 5 minutes, and then you work in reverse. The water only comes up to your shoulders, then your hips, then your knees, then your feet. Then the water comes just up to the bottoms of your feet for a few minutes..

Another one we did was that we took 5 deep breaths and then held the sixth and tightened the muscles in one part of your body, like your feet, and then let it out and relax all the way. Then 5 more deep breaths and on the sixth tighten the muscles in your calves, and so on until you tense and relax all of the muscles.

[kiwi33]

I meditate every day and it has helped me *a lot*.

Usually I do a breathing meditation - focusing my awareness on the cool feeling of breath as I breathe in and the warm feeling as I breathe out. As thesegreyskyeyes has experienced, thoughts and feelings can come into awareness during that. The idea is to notice (without judging) those thoughts and feelings, let them go and then return awareness to the sensations of breathing.

In Buddhist terms (and note that I am a devout agnostic) this is called "pure awareness". It is training which helps to be able to witness thoughts and feelings, accept that they are just thoughts and feelings and that they come and they go.

It is not easy and takes time. My T (who is Buddhist in the religious sense as well as being a highly-trained Western clinical psychologist) told me that the Tibetan word for meditation translates roughly as "getting used to it".

[flyingturtle]

One thing I've done before, was when I went to bed, I'd lie there with my eyes closed and breathe deeply and slowly. It calms me down and helps me get to sleep, too

I do that already when I can't sleep. Sometimes it helps more than others, but it is a rather good thing to do... that's about as far as I've gone with it.

I took a relaxation course this past semester in college and we listened to tape recordings that pretty much told us what to do for the half hour. I found that this helped more than just sitting silently, because then my mind would wander and I wouldn't actually accomplish meditation or solving my problems.

I have this problem as well. My mind wanders from the actual meditation and goes off somewhere else. Maybe I should get myself some of those tapes...

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Thanks all for the replies. ^_^

[guest23]

If you don't want to spend money on the tapes, you can even record your own voice on a tape recorder, and play it back to yourself.

We did this as an exercise in the class I took, and for me it was a little bit ..stronger? I'm not sure the word, to hear my own voice speaking to me aloud, walking me through the breathing sequences.

Whatever works for you, babe.

[flyingturtle]

If you don't want to spend money on the tapes, you can even record your own voice on a tape recorder, and play it back to yourself.

We did this as an exercise in the class I took, and for me it was a little bit ..stronger? I'm not sure the word, to hear my own voice speaking to me aloud, walking me through the breathing sequences.

Whatever works for you, babe.

I honestly hate listening to myself talk on tapes/video... so that'd just be weird. Haha. There is also the mass expanse of the internet and free stuff...

[kiwi33]

My mind wanders from the actual meditation and goes off somewhere else.

That is completely normal. When that happens to me I do a visualisation meditation. I visualise (as vividly as possible) a stream with leaves floating down it. When my mind wanders I "place" the thoughts on the leaves and "watch" them moving down the stream and out of my awareness.

For me, this is also a good meditation to do when I am experiencing unhelpful thoughts or feelings. "Placing" those on the leaves and "watching" them go away helps me to understand that they are only thoughts and feelings, but they are not *me*.

[snowangel_03]

That sounds like a good idea, kiwi, I might have to try that on myself...

I hate hearing myself speak, too, so I can completely understand that part. Free to download might be an idea worth looking into

I hope you can find something to help.