[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Stu

Up until about August I drank 5 nights a week and smoked dope more or less all day. I was able to con quite an amount of Xanax out of my GP as well by playing up anxiety issues that were fostered by my poor lifestyle in the first place.

I completely credit meditation and mindfulness in helping me to come down to a nice, social nights drinking once a week. I cultivated the capacity to tap into some sort of groovy cosmic inner ecstasy which I enjoy now far more than the hazy bubble I spent the vast majority of my adolesence in. Not that I regret the myriad of experiences both good and bad I experienced through the whole rite of passage. I could have just shaven off the last pathetic disaster of a year of it, that is all. Breaking my arm forced me to slow down and reasses my life and it has been a blessing.

You need something ready to replace your addiction with, don't you. Think of the health and CA$H DOLLAR you are practically rolling in for free as your reward for like ... not killing yourself ... and reaffirm it constantly to yourself. Love yourself unconditionally. The entire universe is inside you. Bring stuff out instead of taking it in!

I'm fully aware that I have traded one cliche for another. But thats a problem for the ego and I am so much more than that.

Originally Posted by Stu

Wow thanks!

Kizzy I had really bad anxiety and panic attacks as a teenager. The whole chemical intake thing then served to exasperate it whilst providing the temporary illusion of being of being an uninhibited extrovert. I am fine these days though - another thing meditation is excellent for - but I definately took advantage of it towards the end to get prescriptions.

Strips of Valium can also be bought real cheap around where I live. Tablets are the absoloute worst.

Yes you can definately tap in to something through practice, open mind and surrendering your ego. Or maybe it's the something that taps in to you. I am a total believer. A lot of this stuff struck me as intrinsic and obvious when I first encountered it.

Those break through points when you completely stop your flow of thought - even the thought that lets you know it is happening - are unreal. Coming back from that void gives me a real, marked sense of euphoria.

I could rabbit on about this stuff all night but typing on an Xbox sucks. Stu needs a new laptop.

..so anyway, your post got me ‘thinking’ Stu...as I often tend to do, for me thinking things through/thought processes etc is I guess my ‘meditation’ in that it drives me completely crazy..(and my family..)..sometimes... but it’s how I get things in order in my head and find my own ‘calm/inner space’...which helps you ‘see’ things more clearly and the best and probably the only place from which you should make important decisions etc that you might be facing...actually, even the smaller ones, all decisions/choices should ideally be made from a place of calm/inner peace..(clichéd..)...I’ve mentioned in other threads/posts and generally on the forum that rather than meditation, I do cognitive behaviour therapy which is the understanding of how I or anyone ‘typically’ reacts to something and how that can sometimes lead to unnecessary worries or confusions...but also to realise where anxieties or even anger/annoyances have ‘come from’ because you know when you could be having a great day and then someone may say something or a small thing happens and it annoys/irritates you and ‘spoils your day..’ kind of thing..and then if that annoying thing persists, it can start to become a ‘big thing’ to you....well, for me anyway..when I go back to the time before I was annoyed and the point when that ‘mood changed’, I find that irritating thing itself is nothing to do with it at all but just that some small thing about it brought ‘a sub conscious’ memory of a time when I was irritated and my conscious mind has drawn that ‘feeling/emotion’ from the past.. associated/triggered a similarity in the two situation...bringing the same ‘feelings’ back but because most people would never connect the two and be unsure why something really not that seemingly significant should annoy so much....anyway, that’s all I’ll say about that because you probably have no idea what I’m talking about and as you said, I could also rabbit forever about it, but I won’t...

..you know, I’ve had a similar ‘hazy’ time in my life..for different reasons to you...and there was no ‘buzz’ to be had for me but despite being what is still the ‘worst time in my life’ in some ways..?..in others I think of it and those hazy times as the best thing that happened to me...because when I came through mine, like you..I felt ‘awakened/enlightened’..just such an emotionally strong person...that’s not always the case because sometimes I’m a paranoid mess lol... but even then, I think it’s good to be like that as well (ocassionally..).. because if I wasn’t then I may lose those skills of finding my calm again...if we don’t use/practise things then it’s so easy to lose that skill or really just forget we ever have it at all...

..anyway, for you..I personally wouldn’t credit your ‘meditation and mindfulness’ to how you feel/see things now...I think your accident was by way of a ‘reminder’ that your body/our bodies aren’t quite or even nearly as strong as our minds...so while you were in your ‘hazy days’ maybe you weren’t as aware of having an accident than you might have otherwise been...but you did and as uncomfortable as that is for you and I know it will be..frustrating...from that, it’s forced you into a ‘slow down period’ in your life and really where I think the credit should be...’something good out of everything...’ kind of thing...you feel ‘awakened’..or however you think of it...and you feel you have new skills of meditation...well the meditation will definitely help you to clear all that ‘extra/pointless stuff’ out of your head for sure...but I think any skills you have to be able to do that, you’ve always had anyway...we all or many of us have, but not everyone uses them/is aware of them/knows how to use them...things like meditation/different therapies help that.. and medication as well sometimes, we’re all different in what we respond to and what’s good for us...and you won’t always feel like you do now..the nonsense we all have in life gets in the way and ‘hazes’ it all up again from time to time..but what you’re discovering is how to get back to where you are now when that happens...and from that centred point, you’ll be able to able to use those skills again to deal with the rubbish that life throws your way...which it usually does for most people...because what you’ve ‘discovered’ in your ‘awakenings’ is not meditation but a realisation of who you are, who you’ve always been and really that, that is actually more than just quite good or ok... but it always has been..whether you’re hazy/whether the people around you are hazy...whoever saw it/realised it or not or whatever situation..you were always that person and you were totally ‘equipped’/born with every skill/ability that you have now, you just hadn’t looked at the instructions of how to use it/how it worked...and you’re just starting to now and feel totally comfortable and happy with that..and absolutely so should you....the clichés of ‘know yourself’ ‘understand who you are’ ‘love yourself’ are clichés because they’re very true....without having those and believing those, worries/life etc will always be more of a struggle and more scary that it needs to be or could be....or should be....

...anyway, lol if you get to the end of this post..well done....and just really, really I wish you nothing but the very best in everything you do...