Meditation With A Journal

[Blessed2]

Today I tried meditation with the laptop open and ready in front of me, to journal or express or stream thoughts while meditating.

 

But I really spent most of the time expressing, not meditating. And all of it just feels extremely frustrating, cause there's a thought that I'm doing it wrong and it's not calming at all. Really I just feel kind of stressed out after it.

 

I wonder why. And if I am doing something wrong.

 

Am I too quick to end meditation and start expressing? Do I do it too much?

 

Why does it feel much less calm than without the journal there? Why the overwhelment?

 

[Orb]

6 minutes ago, Blessed2 said:

Today I tried meditation with the laptop open and ready in front of me, to journal or express or stream thoughts while meditating.

 

But I really spent most of the time expressing, not meditating. And all of it just feels extremely frustrating, cause there's a thought that I'm doing it wrong and it's not calming at all. Really I just feel kind of stressed out after it.

 

I wonder why. And if I am doing something wrong.

 

Am I too quick to end meditation and start expressing? Do I do it too much?

 

Why does it feel much less calm than without the journal there? Why the overwhelment?

 

Any time a stream of thoughts arise that are frustrating or overwhelming, its the lens "throwing up" beliefs. Let it happen, it's actually purification. 

 

Keep in mind that this process is upside down meaning that the times when it's uncomfortable or frustrating it's a sign of growth. 

[Mandy]

Sounds like you're expecting yourself to do both, so whichever one you're doing seem incomplete. Pick one, then do the other. 

 

Try doing morning pages (stream of consciousness writing) before meditation, then the next day do it after and see how it changes. Fascinating. 

[Phil]

15 hours ago, Blessed2 said:

Today I tried meditation with the laptop open and ready in front of me,

Meditation is thought activity coming to rest, via focus upon perception and or feeling instead. 

‘In front of me’ would be a subject-object thought, which meditatively could be brought to rest.

 

Expression wise, the thought can be inspected and what arises or is felt emotionally can be expressed & therein the discord emptied. 

This would be release. 

 

Release is, release of thought attachment or the believing of thoughts so to speak, via the acknowledgement of the emotion(s) actually felt. 

 

In short - thoughts aren’t true, thoughts are apparent. Appearing. 

Feeling - is appearing as thoughts, and is real, and not apparent. 

 

15 hours ago, Blessed2 said:

 

to journal or express or stream thoughts while meditating.

‘While meditating’ is a hijacking of meditation on behalf of a sep self of thoughts - the very thoughts otherwise allowed to come to rest meditatively. 

Similarly, frustrated or frustrating is a hijack of frustration on behalf of a non-existent second or separate self. 

 

Again, what’s sought, what’s wanted, is release, or, surrender.

As there is no separate self which could release or surrender - these are aspects of obscuring thoughts, obscuring what’s sought - release.

These thoughts are ‘the resistance’. 

Emotions going unacknowledged is ‘the suffering’. 

 

15 hours ago, Blessed2 said:

But I really spent most of the time expressing, not meditating.

The sep self is never present. As thought, the sep self is part & parcel of a narrative of time. 

Awareness, aware of thoughts, is presently-only. 

There is no experience as it were of thought & emotion “outside the present”. 

 

15 hours ago, Blessed2 said:

And all of it just feels extremely frustrating, cause there's a thought that I'm doing it wrong and it's not calming at all. Really I just feel kind of stressed out after it.

 

I wonder why. And if I am doing something wrong.

An apparent experience of judgmental thoughts does not constitute a sep self (which is also thoughts). 

It’s not that you are or aren’t doing something right or wrong, it’s that there’s no sep self, such as the knower (who judges), or the doer (which is or isn’t doing x, y or z). The “one wondering why” is not a self, but is the thought appearing, about a self. 

 

15 hours ago, Blessed2 said:

Am I too quick to end meditation and start expressing? Do I do it too much?

Meditation is thought activity coming to rest, via focus being upon perception and or sensation. 

The “doer” is thoughts. Not an actual entity. 

 

15 hours ago, Blessed2 said:

 

Why does it feel much less calm than without the journal there? Why the overwhelment?

There’s no ‘it’. 

[Blessed2]

On 8/10/2024 at 3:09 PM, Mandy said:

Sounds like you're expecting yourself to do both, so whichever one you're doing seem incomplete. Pick one, then do the other. 

 

I don't think so.

 

Like for example, today I first did stream writing and then meditation w/ the journal.

 

Got a very clear intuition to keep doing this. It just kind of sucks and doesn't resemble what I think meditation should seem like.

 

Just a lot of nonsensical thoughts and beliefs coming up and out.

 

[Mandy]

1 hour ago, Blessed2 said:

Got a very clear intuition to keep doing this.

 

The best thing to do is align with it then. ❤️

[Blessed2]

1 hour ago, Mandy said:

The best thing to do is align with it then. ❤️

 

❤️❤️

 

Just wondering why it feels so profoundly different.

 

And also it's different in that whereas before meditation was kind of like 'just sitting through it, eating up the frustration etc and expecting results from it', now it's more like addressing the thoughts, beliefs and discord head on. Difficult to describe.