Body focus out of control

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

Hi everyone!

I need someone to help me on this as it is really bothering me for a long time now.

After some time of meditation practice without any professional guidance, i notice that too much focus on any given body part is bad.
The problem is that i couldnt control myself after that.
For example, i focus all day, without wanting it, on my face muscles. After a while they get tired and tense and i cant smile and laugh properly wich is, at least, undesireble, not to say depressing. I wont give any more examples but there are many more with its problems associated.

I want to stop it but i wasnt able to do it until now. Ive tried some other solutions like focusing on non muscle parts, or inhale from a part and exhale to another. I even tried to focus on common objects to get my mind away from my body.

As you can see this is an insane and depressing situation, and, to be honest, thats how i am feeling for some time.

Can anyone give me an advice. I?d really apreciate it and if it works i?ll ?surely be forever gratefull.

#2

Well, id really apreciate some advice, so im not gonna let it go so easly.

Thanks for your compreension :slight_smile:

#3

Hello,
This does not sound like a meditation practice to me. Meditation is not simply focus and not simply concentration, though these 2 concepts may be a fruits of meditation.

This forum cannot substitute learning from a living teacher who has mastered your practices themselves. Why, now that you have gotten into an “insane and depressing situation” do you come here for help rather than seeking a teacher close to you? Obviously, your mind is strong–like all of us–and you can cause unwanted results and compulsion/obsession with wrong practice. This is what I think is happening for you. I have no advice for you, other than to seek a teacher immediately. Until you find one who is many steps advance to you, stop doing all practice that have been rajasic, vata- and pitta-imbalancing for you.

I truly sympathize for you. This type of pain is more potent that even physical pains.
I have found in my own life, that it is best for me to not act on something until I have discerned what I need. Best to stay where you are, stop what has caused the discomfort, do what you can to calm what you’ve have disrupted, and wait for assistance to make the next move. When you are thinking and moving from a place of pain and confusion, it can be very difficult to choose something that will not result in more of the same.

Be very kind and very gentle with yourself.
Best wishes,

#4

Thanks for your concern.
I will follow your advice and try to have guidance from a master.

#5

Sometimes i feel the only way to get better is letting go, stop caring and accept everything that happens because if you cant fight it, better live with it as it is something normal, beacause its normal to you :slight_smile:

#6

It is true that we are not in control of lives, though this should not be mistaken to be that we don’t contribute or that we are not responsible for our lives. This fact can be both extraordinary painful and our absolute salvation.

In my own life, I have found success in surrendering only if I have first done practice as an observer in my life. Witnessing ones own pain and watching ones pain as practice can pull you out of the [I]experience[/I] of your pain. Be careful to let thoughts move in and out of your mind without charging them with emotions. Do not make everything that comes into your mind personal, as most is not even ours. I have some success with this personally, though I am no master. I too work with this practice as a student of it. Perhaps this member could assist you in some way: Bentinho Massaro.

There are tools that will help calm your mind and help with what you are suffering from now: wave breath, read uplifting books, self-massage and oiling of your feet and scalp, keeping good company with others, keeping your diet clean , watching uplifting movies, etc. Be very tender with yourself and you will see a difference soon.

Best wishes,

#7

Hi Nichole, i really apreciate your interest.

Im fighting hard. In fact i have this, lets say, malfunction, since i was 22, im 31 now.
I used to surf a lot but since this started to happen, i started to mess with my legs and i couldnt surf so good, then the motivation started going down.

It comes and goes, and sometimes i forget about it. But since the begining of the year, its bothering me and its really bringing me down.
Im fighting it, but recently i made an horrible headache and one of these days i really couldnt smile because it was hurting like i had been laughing hard.

So this is my, lets say, my drama.

But misery is nothing but a state of mind, wanting something very hard that you cannot get. So if you stop wanting you dont suffer but you dont live. I personaly prefer to fight, even if that brings me a lot of sufering. Maybe one day ill stop caring and wanting but not yet.

Today im better by the way. im testing some solutions and they are working. Maybe i can control my mind just enough to get by. Theres hope.

Kisses to you

#8

You have said the word fight three times in your post. maybe you are fighting too hard, maybe fighting at all is too hard. Perservere through the ordeal, belive in yourself. when you fight something if you are not beating it, it is beating you. Step to the side and no longer fight. When someone pushes you, if you push back then guess what, you use energy and you loose energy.
just thoughts
good luck in what you seek JOse
seeker

#9

JoseJose - I am with you. Maybe it will give you some comfort if I tell you that I have also faced similar ‘depressing’ feelings after meditation. After listening to some teachers and also reading some literature, here is what I found and here is what I did to solve this depression problem. And it worked!!
Mumukshutwam is a Sanksrit term meaning ‘burning desire for liberation’ which Adi Shankaracharya describes in the Vivekachoodamani (means “Crown Jewel of discrimination”). As one meditates, this ‘burning desire’ tends to grow stronger.
Swami Ramakrishna Paramhansa had bouts of intense mumukshutwam and one day he sat in front of Kali’s idol and said, “Devi, I will kill myself if you do not appear before me this instant” and, as the story goes, Devi appeared before him. When Swami Vivekananda (his prime disciple) asked him to describe mumukshutwam Ramakrishna reportedly took him to the Hooghly river and forcibly held Vivekananda’s head under water till the latter came out gasping for breath. Then Ramakrishna told him, “Just as you had this burning desire to breathe, if you had a similar desire to see God that is mumukshutwam”.
This story is not to scare anyone but to point out that it is this ‘leak’ of the mumukshutwam feeling that results in this feeling of depression after meditation. The feeling of not being able to reach the state of ‘ananda’ or bliss causes turmoil within us.
Now the solution which helped me. As our respected member Nichole has said

Pranayama came to my rescue - I practiced the following simple breathing exercise. Try it, maybe it will help you also

  1. Sit in a quiet place
  2. Take a deep breath and hold it for as long as you comfortably can
  3. When holding the breath, imagine the breath circulating through your body and collecting ‘depression’. The details of how exactly you visualize this does not matter. Just repeat to yourself “my breath is collecting my feelings of depression” and visualize the breath as a fluid picking up dirt particles
  4. Exhale and imagine that the breath that has collected this dirt is going out and FAR AWAY from you. Once again details do not matter. Just say to yourself, “There goes my depression” and visualize the exhaled breath with some kind of dirt rising up and above you.
  5. When inhaling the next breath, visualize fresh clean air entering you
  6. Repeat this exercise for around 5 minutes with focus

Hopefully, this exercise may help you

Much love and peace

#10

Well, i really apreciate your advices.

Ill try it and in fact im getting better.

Mind can kill you if you believe it can, but if you believe 100% you can control it and channel it to the right way it starts happening.

I came to realize that bad thoughts leading to depression are a bad habitt of your mind but if you realize it, if you believe it, you can control it to start having good thoughts, it starts happening and then, with time, the mind aquires a good habbit of thinking in those good things you had to fight to have in the first place.
Then your mind gets a good habitt of thinking good stuff and you no longer have to fight, because it happens as an habbit, as routine.

Our lifes are made of habbits, bad and good, lets focus on the good ones. Mind is no different.

Mind can be addicted to bad thoughts. But it can be addicted to good ones too, if you work on it. I believe this now and it is starting to happen.

In the end you realize you can truly control your mind, she tries to bother you, like an enemy inside, but if you believe you can, you kill it.

Did anyone saw the nightmare on elm street? A little bit like that, i guess, but it takes a little time to shift from total depression to happiness. You must fight but if you believe you can, you can.

What do you think?

By the way, reading some of Bentinho Massaro writings really helped.
Thanks. :=)