meditation

I don’t know about you dear reader, but I’m always looking for answers, trying to delve deeper into my mind, understand myself more and unlock the mystery that I sometimes am to myself and to those that love me. Sometimes it’s a really tiring and painful journey for everyone involved and sometimes it feels like I have spent months down in the depths mining for answers and only come up with gold dust if that.

When I first started this journey, in earnest that is, because let’s be honest we’ve all half assed it before, this stuff is not easy and it’s full of unimaginable pain, my mind was pretty closed. First, I has been conditioned that medication meant you were weak. I fought that battle for a year with extreme health anxiety before completely abandoning ship on that notion and I’m so thankful I did. That said, I am a firm supporter of genetic testing for medication interactions. I unfortunately was prescribed a medication that had a significant interaction with my genetics and it had dire consequences on the trajectory of my life. Found out a little too late that I should have never been prescribed that medication. Genesite testing, ask your provider if you have never heard of it. As far as I am aware it’s only available in the US at the moment. It’s not a silver bullet. it will tell you what medication’s will metabolize correctly with your genetics, but it won’t tell you the dosage. Still, that gets you a long way from the “here let’s try this for a month or two and see how you do” method of psychopharmacology.

I’m constantly looking at research, new apps, new modalities of therapy, books, anything and everything that could provide any help. I have even gone so far as to dialogue with the head of a few psychedelic research studies (usually asking why someone with my diagnosis is excluded when there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to the efficacy of the treatment.) Yeah so my mind is wide open at this point and so I present to you Luminate.

First, let me be clear, I use the app, I don’t get paid to use it. So this isn’t a paid endorsement which I know is against community guidelines. This is my experience with the app and it’s been pretty wild. I wouldn’t write about it if it wasn’t.

A little backstory: In 2021 while researching mental health news I found this article:

I Tried the App That ‘Makes You Trip’ – and It Was Surprisingly Good

The basic premise, which’s is fully researched based is simple. The torch on your phone is used to create a strobe effect that when coupled with their music and guided or unguided mediation creates the same brainwave patterns that get generated when you trip. You simply pick a meditation, set an intention , put on some headphones, go into a completely dark room, turn the torch toward your face, and close your eyes, and start the session.
Now, I have never tripped mind you, yet that is, so I can’t actually speak to the actual experience and compare it, what I can speak to is what I’ve experienced from a healing perspective.

Obviously there is a medical disclaimer which I should mention, this app shouldn’t be used by anyone who has epilepsy or suffers from photostrobic induced seizures.

Honestly, I don’t remember much about my experience in 2021. I was at a different place mentally then and I think that made all difference, that and I hadn’t yet tried cannabis, another stigma I left in the dust.

So here at rock bottom, with really nothing left to lose, I rediscovered the app and decided I’m going all in and I’m getting as high as I can before I do because I’m gonna get some answers. I have to.

What happened next is somewhat indescribable. After each journey that app gives you a chance to process in a journal. The first trip was so powerful and emotional that I couldn’t even write anything down. I think the only thing in that general entry was “wow that was intense.”

That was about three days ago. I have done many journeys in the last three days. I did a journey on loving kindness and realized how many people God put in my life along the way, who actually saved me from myself who I didn’t appreciate, who I discarded because of my mental health issues and who now today I completely appreciate. I realized my ex who went through hell with me is one of the most loving and kind people on this planet, and that she’s never given up on me and I didn’t appreciate her.

I did another journey on contentment and realized that I have believed the lie that my life has been full of discontent. There have actually been many moments of contentment and I see them now and appreciate them.

Last night I did a journey on negative thoughts. This was the most powerful one yet. I had to pick a negative thought to focus on. My negative thought was “I am a failure”, this thought was drilled into me by my perfectionist father, it has shaped my life more than anything else and created so much damage. What I ended with was this:
I have far exceeded both of my parents. My father died the same miserable man he was, full of regret and my mother who is on the threshold of this life at 82 is so unhappy she tried to kill herself twice last year. I am anything but a failure. My father wanted me to be perfect, and because I wasn’t I far surpassed him and all his unreasonable expectations. I am self-aware. I understand my illness fully now and that my friends is success.

I can’t say this this app will do for you what it’s doing for me. All I can say is that I have never stood in THIS place before and this app helped me get here and it feels great.

Incidentally I did go someplace in my mind, in case your wondering. I went back to the first moment I was told in so many words I was a failure. I was in my parents bedroom, watching my mother and myself as she showed me my sisters report cards and asked me why I couldn’t get grades like her. I was 6. In that space I was able to talk to my younger self. I told him, just be you and don’t listen to them, they don’t know what their talking about because they are broken, sad people, who can only feel better by making other people feel sadder than they do. You aren’t a failure. I’m proof of that.

Any tips :) #Sleep #Tips #help #Comment #Wellbeing #MentalHealth #Support #Mindfulness #Meditation

I’m usually lucky 🍀 and sleep 😴 quite well but after a cold an hyper focus on my breathing 😮‍💨from a stuffy nose thankfully I’m over my cold now. But I still have that body protective thing I was doing where I was so focused on my breathing it’s a silly dumb anxiety thing but it’s like you forget to breathe and instead of doing it automatically you are doing it short ish sometimes focusing on the breath is said to calm you down in meditations spiritually but for me it’s the opposite. Any tips for getting to sleep, I’m trying to listen to calming music and affirmations but it’s not working as well as it usually would. I’m like half resting but conscious and if I sleep deeply like REM sleep it’s very little. Please help :( I feel so dumb and annoyed at myself. Sometimes even during the day I have that thing too like checking with myself with my breathing 😮‍💨 and it’s becoming an annoying new habit I just want to function normally and stop the silliness which I didn’t have this annoying thing until recently. It’s like yes my body is trying to protect me in its own way with anxiety but I don’t need this. #Anxiety #Breathing #dumb #Silly #Anxiety #shame #barriers #struggles #advice #themighty #MentalHealth #Anxiety #Depression #Support #help #Listener #Selfcompassion #feelingdumb #feelingsilly #Selfacceptance #confused #bodysymptoms #sensations #Hyperfocus #Meditation #tired #Insomnia

I like to share some things that helped me and perhaps that can help you too. I struggled with emotions, anxiety, anger etc in the past.

When I am angry before bedtime, I cannot sleep and for the whole night, it's as if I am holding a ball of fire. Later on, I learnt mindfulness meditation to cope with emotions and meditation is wonderful for calmness, and there is this method of meditation for body scan that helps me fall asleep easier. There are times where I can't sleep much the whole night but meditation helps to sort of put the mind at rest so even though I was aware that I didn't sleep much, I was not cranky and I feel ok. Energy level is also ok and not too tired out.

Meditation also teaches me to observe my anger, sadness and emotions instead of being overwhelmed by it, and that emotions, like thoughts, comes and goes and we should be kinder to ourselves.

I used to think that meditation is for religion but its great for mental health. You can try "calm" or "smiling mind" app for a start.

The other method I use is Reiki, also great for calmness and rest and I also use some reiki visualizations when I am on the train and I can get anxious but the visualizations helps me calm down. Hope these methods may also help you.#Anxiety #Reiki #Meditation #MentalHealth

This year, I chose to stay home over the holidays. I didn’t choose to stay home because I don’t love my family or because I didn’t want to see them. I chose to stay home for the sake of honoring my emotions.

As someone who struggles with mental health issues, being around multiple people at once can have a tremendous effect on me—and not a positive one. My family is aware of my conditions, but they don’t always know how to respond to my emotions, let alone understand why I feel the way I do. So before large gatherings, I tend to become anxious, panicky, and overwhelmed.

This year, I’d already been feeling an increase in my anxiety before the party even began, and that was the only indicator I needed to make my decision. Some guilt arose while I was in the process of deciding to stay home, but I knew I would only benefit in the long run.

Here are the three key things I told myself to help curb the guilt I experienced as a result of choosing to stay home rather than participate in holiday celebrations with my family.

I don’t owe anybody anything.

I can’t take the reactions of others personally.

I need to trust my gut.

Whenever i had overwhelming emotion i meditate. #PTSD #Meditation #Trauma #Guilt #MentalHealth