I find it so difficult to get back into a meditation practice once I lose consistency. When I have a good daily schedule that includes meditation in the morning it feels easy to actually get up in the morning and do it, even though I'm not a morning person. The meditation itself also feels "easy", I feel I am actually in it, meditating, focused. Once I lose that though, it gets so hard to get back into it, and even when I do get up and have a meditation session, the actual meditation does not feel like it's an actual meditation, my mind is goin all over the place, completely unmanageable, which makes sense of course, it just makes it all the more difficult to do it again the next day.

I'm not upset about this, I am fully accepting it and aware of it as a challenge that I need to find my way to overcome. Maybe starting again with shorter meditations throughout the day will help build it back up until I can feel better about the meditations in the mornings again, or when I ever I do them, I used to do one in the morning and one in the evening for about 20 minutes each.

I am aware that i will lose my practice every now and then, and that things won't be consistent forever. That I can have a great schedule for a few month, and then it can suddenly get disrupted. And that is ok!

I am sure others experience this too, in their everyday life and not just in regards to meditation. The key for me is to be aware of it, and to not get upset that I am once again losing my practice, schedule, or consistency. It happens, and it will happen, I am accepting it and learning from it, specifically, how to detach from the negative feelings around it, and how to reintroduce the same schedule or a different one if needed.

Maybe I'll write more about it later on, in full, but I have been journaling a lot about something I have been going through, specifically this feeling of things not aligning within me. I came to a theory about an internal conflict within me that has 2 main sides, and a third antagonistic side.

Side A: The side that takes in what is literally said, this side needs either a yes or a no, sometimes, even a maybe is enough of an answer. As long as it's not beating around the bush, straight to the point, direct.

Side B: This side takes in the behavior. This includes, for example, if a person is being distant with you or showing affection. This also includes verbal communication, for example, if the person speaks to you in a certain way that is caring, or not caring.

The conflict arises when Side A and Side B do not match. To take the situation I was in as an example, a partner said that she still had feelings for me, and wanted a future with me, but, all of her actions and her behavior indicated otherwise. This created a conflict between the two sides. The conflict was that I was being told one thing, but, in reality, I was experiencing the complete opposite. And this caused me a lot of stress, which I will get into later if I post more about this. But it created restlessness to the point where I was chasing around for answers and clarity.

The third side, Side C, is the antagonistic side, the one that will always try to cause more chaos and conflict, even if Side A and Side B are in align, if there is an agreement between them. Side C will try to prove them wrong, and to bring up the slightest option for doubt for either side.

I'm not able to sleep right now. I woke up and have been having thoughts about this person that I just can't stop. I just go down storyline after storyline, endlessly, replaying the same ones over and over again, making myself upset and even angry.

I have complete chaos in my mind. I know the answer as to our relationship is simple, but, my mind keeps going through these thoughts, it keeps making things up. It tells me stories that are not even real, they are not reality, but to my mind they are so real that they just feel as if they are actually happening while I am thinking them. I am making it all so much more complicated than it actually is also, I know it's simple in reality, but it's so complicated in my mind. It's an odd feeling, because I know the truth and know how it really is, but, I also have this other part of me that knows everything else that my mind made up about it.

I feel like there is a shadow that is cast over all of the good things I have in my life, to the point where they are all dimmed, almost to the point where I can't even see them. I can't feel their positivity. It feels like I am incapable of experiencing and enjoying the good things I have going on, which are a lot. I have so much good in my life, from the experiences I have on a daily basis, to the people I meet every day. I even enjoy my current work and what I do. But I just can't fully enjoy it.

I have been meditating, hoping that will help, but that too is feeling like a dead end. Not that I will stop practicing and trying, I won't, but I am in a place where it all feels futile, as if nothing is getting better, even when I pretend it is.

There are moments where I feel like there is hope, and that I am getting to a good place and am in the right direction. Those are few though. But I do have hope and a knowing that I will feel better more often, and then I will feel better more than I feel worse, and eventually, I will just feel good, with an occasional fall, but I'll get back up.

I have been having trouble finding happiness. I experience momentary joy, but it never lasts. I laugh, sometimes to tears, but the moment it's over, that joy goes along with it as well, and I am left feeling some sort of emptiness that makes me feel like I am completely alone. It usually comes and goes, but sometimes it lingers, for a while. This is one of those times.

I am surrounded by people and friends, but even with their company, I feel the same. Sometimes, even when we are all together, laughing and having fun, I suddenly zone out and lose all that joy, and am just overwhelmed with emptiness.

What is this emptiness? I ask myself that a lot. What is this loneliness? It feels like there is an answer to it all that I am just not getting. It feels like there is something I am not doing right, or something I should be doing. Like there will be a moment where I will just have this realization of what it is, and the emptiness and loneliness will just go away.

Don't ask for something to be more than it can be right now. I heard this quote today and felt how much I relate to this. This for me has been one of my biggest struggles, one of the biggest lessons I have had to learn and am still learning. To not force things into being what I want them to be, when I want them to be.

This goes for anything, really. Especially for relationships and people. Whether you meet someone you are interested in, but they are just not interested in you, or its just not the right timing, sometimes all you can do is let it go and allow it to have its time, allow it to work when its ready. Forcing it, trying to make it more than what it can be right now can result in simply nothing, making it not even work when it could have worked when the time was right.

Its not about waiting, its not about predicting the future, it's just about letting go of trying to force things to happen the way you desire. Trusting in who ever it is you believe in or want to trust in, whether this is a god, the universe, yourself, or just having plain out trust, that things will workout, and that you will be pleased.

It's a big lesson, it's difficult to put into practice, especially when it is in relation to other people or a lover, but the more I do, the more I see that it just works. Letting go, allowing things to happen when they happen, and not forcing anything into existence.

What I have noticed is that I am more aware of my thoughts, and that I am lost in my thoughts. Getting lost in my thoughts has always been something that has consumed most of my day. The moment a story line would start, I would just get so deep into it and I wouldn't even realize it until it would completely take over and even change my mood.

I have been meditating on and off for quite a while, but it never really made a difference, I would even get lost in the story lines while meditating. That changed when I started going to a Buddhist meditation center about a year ago, I spent about 3 months there and they explained that you should not try to let go or get rid of thoughts while meditating, that instead, you want to be aware that you are thinking. Once you become aware of them, you just let them go by themselves. But to not force this process, simply sit and be aware of the thoughts.

Once that sank in, I started putting it to practice during meditations, and it actually showed some results, it started working, I started noticing that I was thinking and lost in the stories more and more, and was able to bring myself back, and that translated into everyday life.

Now, when I think about things, even before a story is created I am already aware of the situation, that I am thinking and that if I continue this way, I will get lost in the story.

I can't stop the story line and myself from getting lost in it every time, but, I am aware of it every time now, and that is a huge difference. It gives me more control over my mind and my thoughts, and the option to actually make a decision, if to continue down that path and get lost, or if to end it. It's just that for me some story lines are too tempting to not go down, but that is another practice!

Though I have been doing much better in the past 6 months, I still hold on to things too tightly. And recently was a great example of that in which I won't go too much into detail, but, I held on too tightly to the point where I lost the very thing I was holding on to.

Looking back now, I can clearly see what I was doing, but, of course, while I was doing it I was oblivious. Though, this time was different from the past because I actually was aware that I was doing certain things, where in the past I wouldn't even realize the state I was in. And though I was aware of how I was feeling this time, I was still oblivious to the bigger picture of it, the smaller and bigger impacts of what I was doing, of holding on so tightly.

For the things that I did realize, I just couldn't get myself to let go and to release even a little bit, I didn't know how. And the things around that, what it was causing the other person and me, I just couldn't see.

Now that I am past it, I can see it all and see what it did to me and to them. Of course like anything it's not as simple as that, there were many factors in this, but, I was a major one, and my lack of ability to release the holds even a bit made things worse and worse, very quickly, to the point where I couldn't even tell if what I was doing and thinking was even me, or if it was just part of this terrible attachment that I formed.

My lesson from this of course is to stay on my path, and learn to love loosely, to not hold on too tightly, but also to learn to identify when it is actually happening, to identify what causes it and how to prevent or stop it if it has already begun. This is a lesson that I have yet to learn as I just realized that I still feel powerless in this situation, I don't know yet how to handle it. But that is the ongoing lesson I need to learn.

It depends how long you have been practicing meditation for. If you are new to it, sitting for long periods of time, even for 30 minutes, can be too much. You might just not be used to it, you might not be sitting correctly, you might experience more back and knee pain, and a few other things that could cause you to burn out quickly from the practice and just stop it.

In comparison, meditating for even just 5 to 10 minutes a day in the beginning has quite a few benefits, the main one is that you don't burn out and get tired of the practice so quickly, instead, you build it up and make it a long term practice. Other than that, it helps build stamina, strengthens the muscles required for sitting, and allows you to slowly get into the mindfulness part of the practice with less stress.

So I would say that sitting for 15 minutes, or even 5 to 10 minutes can be more effective than sitting for 30 minutes, 1 hour, or more. Even for the more advanced and well practiced meditators, sitting for such long periods of time is not necessarily more beneficial than a short session.

I was always under the impression that meditation means to stop thinking. That the purpose of meditation is to be able to stop your mind from thinking. Now I know that this is not the case and that this is not the purpose of meditation.

But this is a very common thought. I hear people say quite often that they weren't able to quiet their minds while meditating so they stopped because it's not for them. Or that meditation makes them more upset because they keep thinking and keep trying to stop thinkin which makes them think more, and on and on.

I understand them, because I had the same idea of what meditation means. But meditation is actually pretty far from that.

It's not to stop your thoughts, it's not to fight your mind, it's not to sit in stillness with a blank mind. It's simply to be aware that you are thinking, and to calmly, bring that awareness to the breath, or to what ever your object of focus is, but to not fight to focus on it.

It should not be a battle, a task, or a chore. It should simply be to become aware. From this awareness while meditating, you will slowly become more aware outside of meditation. And this is where life starts to change.

The longest session I have done was a 3 hour long session that included about 10 minutes of walking meditation every 25 minutes or so.

I did this once a week for a few weeks, and the more I did it, the more I got used to it. The sitting was pretty difficult, but here are a few things I noticed:

1. After doing this for a few weeks, the sitting still felt as difficult in the end as it did in the beginning, but, it was far more tolerable, which made the whole session easier.
2. Many times I found myself waiting for the bell to ring that indicates to begin the walking meditation. This would usually replace even my string of wondering thoughts as It was so difficult for me to keep sitting, I was sort of waiting for the relief of the bell and anticipating it.
3. Other than the above point, thoughts almost never stopped, but, that isn't the point of meditation. I'm noting this just to not give the impression that there was any attempt at stopping the thoughts from coming in this practice.
4. Sitting back down after the walking meditation felt like a sort of reset, even though the walking was just about 10 minutes and the sitting before was so difficult. The sense of a reset really helped make it tolerable and less difficult.
5. There were moments of "clarity" in which I felt as if my mind was in a dream state. There were still thoughts, but, they took on a slightly different form, I wasn't attached to them or focused on them, but I was just aware of them as they were playing in the background in my mind. This usually didn't last long, but it was an amazing feeling and experience when it happened.
6. I felt a great sense of accomplishment after each session, no matter how the session went.
7. There was a sense of calmness after each session, again, regardless of how the session went and if I was full of thoughts the whole time.
8. Doing this type of practice in a meditation session with other practitioners made all the difference. I don't believe I would actually be disciplined enough to do this whole session on my own. The presence of others really played a huge role in keeping me going.
9. It wouldn't be fair to not point out the physical pain I guess, so yes, there was pain in my back and in my legs, and they would tend to fall asleep. I would shift around and switch my legs around to wake them up and prevent them from falling asleep. Overall, it's not pain I would be worried about or that would prevent me from doing this again, it's more of an uncomfortable type pain, and it got easier as the weeks went on.
10. The beginning of each session was easier on the mind than the end. In the beginning I felt more in "control", not in the sense of controlling my mind, but just being less on auto pilot and having less thoughts. The end of the sessions were far more chaotic for me, thoughts were out of control, I would also find myself following the thoughts story line a lot more, rather than bringing my awareness back to the breath. I would engage in the stories.

This was part of a month of constant meditation in which I meditated twice a day almost every day, and went to lectures, so it would be pretty hard to say what impact this specific part of the practice had on me for that time and after. I can say that those days were quite peaceful, less stressful, and just overall more mindful.

Overall I would say it was a great experience. It was without a doubt very difficult, but very rewarding also. I personally jumped right into it, starting with daily meditations twice a day, including this 3 hour session once a week, but this may not be the best approach to this, maybe some would benefit from starting with much shorter sessions, or just the hourly sessions once or twice a day.

I love the analogy of the flow of water, I think it can be applied to different parts of life.

There are a few things that characterize a flow of water:
1. There is no force, it is just flowing, naturally, without trying to and without forcing the water to flow.
2. There is no pulling or pushing, just as the water comes, it also goes. It's a flow.
3. In a river or creek, there are areas where the flow is rough and chaotic, and there are areas where it is calm and gentle, and yet, it is all part of the same flow.

I think this is a good analogy for life:
We should not try to force things, we should move along with the flow rather than against it. If thoughts and distractions arise, such as anger, hatred, or other negative emotions, or even just unwanted and uncontrollable thoughts, just as in the flow of water where there is no pulling or pushing, there should be no pulling or pushing of the thoughts. Just an allowing of them to fade away just as they came. At times life will be difficult, rough, and chaotic, but there will also be times where its calm, gentle, and relaxing. All of it is part of life and we must all go through this, because it is the flow of life, and going against it will only make things worse. Trying to force things, trying to push thoughts out, and trying to skip around the rough parts will just make life more difficult than it is.

Letting go of thoughts to me has always felt like a task to do while meditating, and that is not the point of the meditation or of letting go of thoughts.

Rather than it being a task and something you are actively doing, I think of it more as allowing the thoughts to pass. To not try to force them out, but to just let them be. In my mind, and it may just be me, but thinking "letting them go" always felt like its something I need to do, and that is adding another thought to your mind, the thought of needing to let the thoughts go. So instead, I see it as allowing them to go, letting them be what they are - passing thoughts.

I like the analogy of a flow of water in a river. Nothing is pulling and nothing is pushing. There is no force applied, and yet there is flow. This is how I try to see my thoughts while meditating, and in general in life. Just as they came with nothing pulling them in, that's how I should let them go, without anything pushing them out.