HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Meditation/Support Group - Week 2

Support Forums
>
Lyme Disease
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 2/9/2021 1:45 AM (GMT -5)
Look, Week 2 is already upon us!

My goal for this week:
- have a mindfulness moment once per day
- meditate for 10 minutes, twice
- start a new book for this month
- not rage quit my job 🙃

One of my main reasons for wanting to practice meditation is to reduce my reactiveness. I am reactive, rather than responsive, to situations and it is often messy. I am quick to get flustered and let my emotions control me; one comment or one encounter can overthrow the rest of my day. As you can imagine, this is bad for my relationships and it's also bad for my job because I teach high school students (who are frequently triggering for me). I do think a lot of my mental/emotional responses are connected to bartonella and bebesia, but I also have decided that I don't want to be run by these symptoms and I can't just let them be an excuse to treat people poorly or give in to a bad day. I am historically someone who falls into the victimhood mentality and I don't want to be like that anymore. I want to be stronger and I want to actually start helping myself. I think that maybe I can cope with these illnesses and mitigate the symptoms if I can train myself to be more responsive rather than reactive.

Anywho, long-story-long, I'm putting my goals on here and my reasoning to help myself be more accountable. I'm going to schedule time into my calendar this week to actually come on here and post--hopefully I can be a better accountability buddy this week! (:

I'm looking forward to hearing your experiences this week, hope y'all are doing well. xx

Meditation/Support Group said...
Add to this thread to share your experiences this week. You could report...
- Meditation log (days, length, etc.)
- Meditation reflection (how did it feel doing it, how does it feel after, etc.)
- Symptoms experienced this week
- Emotions/thoughts experienced this week
- Any tools/videos/books etc. that helped you this week
- Anything else you want to share! This is a place for support after all.

Anyone is welcome to join and contribute at any time! Just introduce yourself & add a post and we'd love to have you!
Posted 2/9/2021 10:14 AM (GMT 0)
” See, I don't really have any routines to begin with--I'm bad about waking up on time, bad about personal hygiene, never go to bed at the same time, etc. I guess I need to get creative and find something I can chain to.” From the first week.

Routines are insanely important, and you will make huge gains if you get better at that.
I recommend that you read this book
https://www.amazon.com/atomic-habits-proven-build-break/dp/0735211299/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=atomic+habits&qid=1612866190&s=books&sr=1-1
There is a ton of apps on the app store, but as you said, use a paper on the fridge or something like that. That was what my girlfriend did, where I prefer to have it digitally.

I have done 7 days in a row now (of the days I measure).
Im going to take the next 6 weeks and just focus on the basics and reduce herxing to a minimum. So no cardio, no trying new supplements or ones I have herxed on before. Taking some Argentyn 23 but only when I have been in a store as its an antiviral that I take to reduce the risk of Covid. Mindfulness, sauna, quercetin for MCAS, work on my sleep and stress. Maybe do some more earthing also.

Post Edited (Deep_sleep) : 2/9/2021 3:17:09 AM (GMT-7)

Posted 2/10/2021 8:15 AM (GMT -5)
I have been practising Vipassana since 2009, and also during last 5 years of illness. It learns you to look at the sickness/pain with equanimity, which can be quite reliefing. Almost after every sitting I feel somewhat rmore or less relieved of the pain. It doesnt seem to have a great permanent healing effect though, I have also done several retreats during Lyme and some of them I felt eaven worse going home than I was when arriving... quite opposite the effect when I used to do lolng retreats before being sick...
Posted 2/10/2021 12:29 PM (GMT -5)
This is an interesting area. My patience to sit for long is not good, so wokring on meditation is not easy.

Does music help when meditating? Is there a certain thought process that helps more than others?
Posted 2/10/2021 1:13 PM (GMT -5)
Guided meditation is in general easier for a beginner. Headspace is great and what I used for many years. And start slow with 5 min and build from that. I prefer noise-canceling headphones and no music when I meditate.
Posted 2/10/2021 1:22 PM (GMT -5)
there are many forms of meditation from many different cultures

about the most studied one with proven benefits is mindfulness meditation.

much as the OP describes - it's about practicing consciously placing your attention where you want it so that eventually you will be more aware of the choices you are making as they happen, even when you are not meditating, and in fact, be able to spot yourself reacting to things and take a correcting action to act deliberately and positively by intention - and thereby enhance the quality of your behavior, relationships, decisions, etc - rather than reacting on autopilot like most of us do most of the time.
i also has many direct physical health benefits

for anyone wishing to try an easy way to get into mindfulness type meditation - a few of us on here ( dcd and pots and I anyway ) are trying the Waking Up mindfulness app - from a guy called Sam Harris

the app is free from the apple app store and google I imagine - at least to begin with - it's structured into two parts - lessons to learn about meditation and the ideas behind it - and practice - where you do guided meditations with Sam Harris talking you through it. this gives you a flavor of what mindfulness meditation is all about
Posted 2/11/2021 3:01 PM (GMT -5)
A friend of mine is trying to get me into doing silent prayer. I agree with whoever said this:

"See, I don't really have any routines to begin with--I'm bad about waking up on time, bad about personal hygiene, never go to bed at the same time, etc. I guess I need to get creative and find something I can chain to.”

I feel like I really have to get firm about what I actually want to do. I know I will have trouble getting myself to do anything as long as I am not sure that I really want to do it. I just keep doing things halfway, and it doesn't really work.

It really does help to have a routine, but I really have trouble with that.
Posted 2/11/2021 5:02 PM (GMT -5)

Notime4lyme said...
A friend of mine is trying to get me into doing silent prayer. I agree with whoever said this:

"See, I don't really have any routines to begin with--I'm bad about waking up on time, bad about personal hygiene, never go to bed at the same time, etc. I guess I need to get creative and find something I can chain to.”

I feel like I really have to get firm about what I actually want to do. I know I will have trouble getting myself to do anything as long as I am not sure that I really want to do it. I just keep doing things halfway, and it doesn't really work.

It really does help to have a routine, but I really have trouble with that.

forming new habits is hard -

some things that can help
1, start small - 5 minutes a day to begin with - even 1 minute if you struggle - then build-up

2, make a list - actually write it down on a piece of paper - of all the reasons why you want to do the thing - and what you will get from it - put some time into this - really flesh out all the reasons and benefits -and put it up where you will see it

3, attach your new habit to something else you already do - eg some daily task you already do - like brushing your teeth - or even just - 1st thing when you roll out of bed - new habits are easier to form and stick to when you do this

Good Luck !
Posted 2/12/2021 5:10 PM (GMT -5)
That is great advice Garzie and something they write more about in the book I posted. I'm grateful that you started this mitchkay as it's something I realized, I need to spend more time with in very stressful times.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply