Chewing the Cud

It’s been a while since my last post, but I’m still practising meditation which, I believe, is going really well. In many ways meditation  has just now become a part of my life; it is something I can’t live without and is now a habit.

But now, I want to informally write about a subject that for a long time I have resisted: positive affirmation and brain reprogramming, and its role in helping recover from depression, anxiety and stress. Of course, to many, this is very old ground, but to me it’s all new.

I must state that this is unresearched writing and is merely my own personal observation based on the fact that I am recovering from a serious depression.

Background
I’ll be honest, I have never been part of the positive affirmation brigade. In fact, on reflection, and I hate to admit it, I have never been a particularly positive person despite doing quite well for myself. Moreover; a lot of the people I encounter have a tendency towards the negative, or at least before long conversations end up littered with negative statements. I suspect that most workplaces have serious pockets of negativity (particularly in times of economic crisis) and of course the general media bombards each and everyone of us with dramatised misery by the second, minute, hour and day. Negativity, in all its guises can also be found in internet forums whereby topics and threads soon get out of hand between individuals who share vastly different opinions — not to mention cultural ideas and beliefs. It seems to me that negativity has become the default condition for an awful lot of us and I’m no exception.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
I could write for hours on my experience of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), but suffice is to say it works — although it is not a quick fix and will require action and commitment for a long time. CBT has shown me that in essence I have learned to become a negative thinker and sadly I have become very good at it — so good that it’s made me depressed and anxious! But the good news is that I can and will unlearn this skill, and gradually I will learn to be positive and more balanced in my thinking. CBT has also taught me that for many years I have allowed my thoughts to dominate my feelings, actions and behaviour and now it’s time to change my thoughts and behavior to a more balanced and positive bias.

I am told that core, and other beliefs, lie at the heart of depression and of course many of those beliefs were formed in our early years. For me, I have been told that I have issues with self-esteem and assertiveness. To be honest, initially I disputed this with my therapist, but the fact is that there are many components of both self-esteem and assertiveness, so one doesn’t have to be lacking entirely in order to suffer mental health issues.

Positive Affirmation and Changing Beliefs
I’m no brain scientist, but I have learned that our conscious mind passes information to the subconscious and once embedded the subconscious runs the pattern in the form of habits. Essentially, our subconscious is where our habits reside, and negative thinking is, I believe, a habit. Part of the problem is that those negative thoughts are bundled with those horrible emotions (feelings) and for me they come out of the blue, often with no opportunity to work out what on earth I was thinking off.

So, at the moment I’m using numerous positive affirmations in an attempt to re program the brain. It’s a long haul but to quote Mastermind’s Magnus Magnusson, “I’ve started so I’ll finish”.

Currently, my mediation time is divided up into the following sections, each lasting about five minutes in duration:

• Breath awareness;
• Listening and sound;
• Body scan and sensations
• Attention to thoughts
• Visualisation of acceptance.

In particular I have found sound to be the most fascinating aspect. My experience is that, for me at least, there is no such thing as silence:  namely,  I always hear what I can only describe as an electrical waveform, or buzz, running through the body. But what is fascinating is how it takes the dedication of meditation to experience this fully. In addition, the sound intensifies depending on how busy my mind is, or has been, throughout the day.

In general the meditation is going well although it may be time to vary the practise. I have found that the full body scan is not as effective (or enjoyable) for me, but I might have another try with that soon.

Mediation over the past few days has been good and I have practised without guidance using the iPhone app Insight Timer.

There is no doubt that persistent practice yields great benefits, and yet the change is subtle as opposed to sudden and dramatic. I have noticed that I no longer take my thoughts too seriously because through the practise of meditation it is easy to see thoughts for what they are: thoughts! This means that at the very least I know my  uncomfortable thoughts will pass, and at best they disappear once I have sat with them and ‘invited them in’.

Acceptance has also been a key concept to grasp. There is so much that can’t simply be changed and coming to terms with this is liberating in itself. Don’t get me wrong it’s a constant battle; made all the more difficult when suffering from depression, but progress is being made and this, for me, makes the effort to meditate worthwhile.

Today involved walking five miles into Bolton and then Five miles back into Horwich to collect my car which, thankfully, passed it’s MOT and had a service. In essence, it was a full day of exercise but I’m tired now and paying for it.

Tonight’s meditation was 20 minutes unguided and it went well, although for the first time during meditation I was consumed with the rather sad thoughts of loosing my father several years ago. But as directed, I decided to sit with it and accept the thoughts for what they are.

At the moment, I would say I’m still making progress through the depression but alas, it’s not gone completely — move on — tomorrow is another day and there are many people in much worse situations!