r/Mindfulness

Ok so ever since high school iv been very tired all the time. I got diagnosed with a couple different anxiety disorders and went to the doctor for blood tests and all of the came back normal if not perfect health. I was so confused what was contributing so this fatigue. Iv suffered from constant racing thoughts and blind optimism. Iv tried to think my way through every problem iv ever had. Iv also never been particularly emotional in fact the opposite. I hate crying and feeling sad. I started meditating consistently 2 months ago. I do 20 minutes every day trying to focus on the present moment. In the last 2 weeks iv paid more attention to being present in my day to day which has been significantly harder than I anticipated. In the last week I have felt the most grief and emotions I have ever felt. It's like a constant weight on my forehead. It's weird because I workout and eat healthy and feel physically great. My nervous system has also significantly regulated since starting meditation. The weird part is that I feel more energized now but the sadness is lingering and I have no idea how long this feeling will last. I'm trying my best to just sit with it but wow it's not great. Iv never just let my emotions linger like this and it's a strange feeling. Im wondering if the fatigue was caused by suppressed emotions and if this feeling is pure sadness or grief.

How do i even try to focus on anything and be mindful when this house is draining the life energy out of me. Its so unbearable sometimes and i cant move out yet for personal reasons

I am alone and lonely in my late 30s. I do not have friends. And i work in a stressful environment. Over the years, i formed patterns of masturbation and sexual thoughts in my mind, which would in turn free and relax my mind.

I now see that these patterns are no way real. The reality of being with a person would give me a different level of satisfaction. Hence i want to embrace my loneliness and be real with it rather than living in this temporary illusion.

So, how do i break this pattern of wanting to intensely masturbate or fantasize?

In reading posts in this community, I've noticed a common issue: most people try too hard to fight anxiety or force their minds to go completely blank. This often backfires.

It's not that the methods themselves are wrong, but rather that they go against a fundamental principle: how can one possibly fight against thoughts that arise from within oneself?

Taoism teaches us to "go with the flow." In Taoist practice, there is a perspective on muddy water: if you try to stir it up or force it to clear, you only make it murkier. The only way to make it clear is to leave it alone and let the sediment settle naturally over time.

I feel that modern mindfulness sometimes involves too much attachment—treating chaotic thoughts as enemies to be defeated. Yet, the more you fight a thought, the more power you give it. Our philosophy speaks of wu wei—non-forcing or effortless action; it is the art of letting things take their natural course.

I used to be very anxious myself. I am a highly sensitive person with a heightened awareness of the world around me. Whether in life, romance, family, or friendships, the slightest hint of trouble would plunge me into deep, exhausting internal conflict. I would doubt everything, triggering a cycle of negative emotions and thoughts, and then fight against myself—leaving me utterly drained.

Because I was exposed to Taoist traditions from a young age, I tried applying those concepts: instead of being a combatant, I chose to be an observer. I would watch where my emotions and thoughts originated and seek the root cause there.

When I practice sitting meditation—or what you might call "mindfulness"—I don't try to empty my mind. Instead, I naturally accept those thoughts and slowly relax, allowing myself to enter a meditative state quite quickly.

Of course, in the beginning, it took a lot of struggle and resistance before I could connect naturally; I tried countless times, and there were moments when the jumble of emotions nearly caused me to break down.

So, what I want to share is this: peace isn't something you achieve by striving for it; it comes from giving up the fight against your own thoughts. This is just a personal insight I wanted to share, and I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.

After a few years of meditating, I feel like I've tried most meditation apps and also watch a lot of online guided meditation videos and i find i'm at a point where i really dislike having to scroll through libraries of meditations to 'find the right one for the moment' per se because it ends up being quite time-consuming and it sometimes deters me from actually meditating altogether.

I also try to bookmark meditations i like but then listening to them over and over again i start to get bored of them too...

do you guys feel the same decision fatigue when it comes to choosing your guided meditations or is this just me? if so how do you deal with it and how do you deal with not listening to something over and over again?

Hello,

I started to meditate for a few days by inhaling and exhaling.

It improves my sleep, but it kills my motivation to do anything.

Any advice?

Thank you.

Sometimes it feels like its a hindrance. Like its harder to connect with people, the average person, the majority who lack self awareness. Feels like you're the odd one out, not looking for distractions and trying to be present in the moment. Connection for you feels different, deeper, more intentional and thats what you search for but struggle to find. You dont care to spend the energy trying to connect with those who arent on the same wavelength.

Ive been finding it harder and harder. Realistically it is being in the minority thats done the work and constantly is working towards the best version on myself not only learning from my mistakes and patterns but observing others taking lessons from them. Not sure if I'm alone in this or how to navigate it.

i constantly feel ashamed at some point in life too much,

sometimes when i go out i wear most charterless clothes and hide my face and tattoos.

i constantly feel ashamed and dominated unless i dominate people.

and i feel disgusted at myself evertime i cover myself with persona.

ive heard lots of people saying 'people dont care about u so be comfy'

i dont agree with this idea, people are constantly on their competition games as soon as they walk out the door(either conciously or unconciously).

everytime i try to just not pretend and stay as myself, some chimp comes and lecture that is not ok.

This morning, I was meditating like every day. For some reason suddenly I felt like my eyes were lifting up and I watching from my brain. My eyes were twitching, all the thoughts stopped and I felt very calm. I quickly opened my eyes and I felt very calm later on too compared to everyday. What happened?

I’ve tried doing some research online about this but to be completely honest, there are just so many different claims about what mindfulness is, what it does, and how it helps that I kind of feel overwhelmed. I like Reddit because I like actively talking to real people who have personal experiences with the topic, instead of just trudging through generated articles and other garbage.

Does anyone else feel like stress management skills don’t actually work?? I think exercise helps me deal with my anxiety levels, butttt it doesn’t make me feel any less stressed about external stressors in my life. Journaling makes me feel even more dialed in to the negativity, and many other skills feel like I’m just adding even more stressors and goals and responsibilities on. Sometimes, I feel like there’s all these suggestions from people in my life and my therapist and the internet, and I just keep filling up my plate with more and more and more coping strategies. Nothing sticks, except for exercise. And also the train metaphor (Ex. This train is heading toward “Oh no what if I have cancer” town. Do you really want to get on and go there?), that one is so simple and genuinely helps so much LOL

I WANT to know how to practice mindfulness, I really want to make use of it because it doesn’t take a lot of time and doesn’t cost money and there are actual real studies about it that prove it’s effective. But I just feel like I’m bad at it. Whenever I try like the body scan mindfulness thingy with my therapist, I either end up dissociating or I get very frustrated at myself, at him, at the world. I think “I cant even do this right. This sucks, I suck, everything sucks.”

I know people say it takes practice but I really do practice it. Maybe not as often anymore as I should, I just can’t get over that feeling that I’m doing it wrong. I feel like I’m missing the point. My therapist says it’s not supposed to make you feel better, but then how is it a stress reducer? Can it actually make my life stressors feel less huge and overwhelming? Can it really get me out of my head for a little bit?

Also, a little more niche, I wonder if mindfulness can be applied to sexual anxieties? I have a really hard time being present with my partner, shutting out or not being bothered by the intrusive thoughts, and sometimes I just get so incredibly overwhelmed. I’ve tried to focus on the physical sensations and all that, but again I’m kinda like.. why isn’t this working? Like nothings happening lol

What does mindfulness actually DO? What am I supposed to actually do? I know there’s not a right way, but I feel like I’m way off track here. It just seems so vague and intangible? Does anyone have a guidebook??? /j

About three months ago, I experienced a state of consciousness that completely caught me by surprise. It has never happened again since.

I feel that every attempt to describe it falls short or sounds too vague, but I'd really like to understand what actually happened. I'm not looking for a mystical explanation—I want to stay critical and grounded. Hopefully, despite the limitations of language, someone will recognize what I'm describing.

For context, I've struggled with derealization, anxiety, and various psychosomatic symptoms for a long time. I have been diagnosed with CPTSD, I'm currently in psychotherapy, and I practice mindfulness and Buteyko breathing exercises recreationally because they help me manage my symptoms.

One day, while walking home, I focused on my breathing and on the act of perceiving itself. It wasn't really meditation; it was closer to what some people might call grounding, although I wasn't consciously using any established technique. It may simply have involved the same underlying mechanism.

I began to notice the space between myself and the objects around me. This may sound strange, but during derealization I often experience the world as flat, almost like watching a movie, and I lose my sense of spatial depth. This time, depth suddenly returned, along with a vivid sense of reality.

At the same time, I realized that I could consciously shift the way I interpreted my own perceptions, which fascinated me.

That evening I went to bed feeling anxious. To calm myself, I imagined that the anxiety was happening inside me while everything around me remained quiet and peaceful. The next morning I woke up with an incredibly strong sense of reality—a feeling I had almost forgotten existed before derealization became part of my life.

Over the next several days, a series of unusual but remarkably consistent perceptual changes occurred.

For example, I could simultaneously feel emotional pressure inside my chest while also feeling the touch of my clothing on exactly the same spot from the outside. It was as if I suddenly became aware that these two sensations were separated by only a few millimeters of physical tissue, yet in consciousness I experienced them simultaneously.

The same thing happened with my head. I was aware of my thoughts "inside" my head while simultaneously feeling the breeze on my scalp. Again, I became intensely aware that only a thin physical boundary separated my inner experience from the external world.

Eventually, this culminated in a strange feeling that I can only describe as transparency or permeability. Not literally, of course. Rather, I stopped experiencing a clear subjective boundary between "inside" and "outside." Thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, sounds, and tactile sensations all seemed to unfold together as one unified process.

I also found that I could deliberately shift the perspective from which I experienced ordinary things.

For example, I stopped experiencing sound simply as something "coming from outside." Instead, I became aware that sound only acquires meaning because my brain constructs it. Rather than feeling like "I'm hearing sounds," it felt more like "I'm experiencing my hearing from the inside." I could simply hear sounds without immediately attaching meaning to them. It sounds strange, but this shift in perspective made me feel profoundly present.

Ordinary sounds gave me goosebumps and sometimes even mild feelings of euphoria. Food tasted much richer. Despite having diagnosed ADHD, I found myself completely fascinated by ordinary, previously boring activities without craving constant stimulation.

My thoughts didn't disappear, but they stopped pulling me into them. They felt like a movie playing in the background. I could watch them pass by while continuing whatever I was doing. I no longer felt compelled to engage with them.

When walking down the street, I became aware that not only my body, but also my thoughts, emotions, and feelings were all moving through space together with me.

The same emotions that would normally trigger panic attacks or anger still appeared, but something fundamental had changed. The usual bodily panic response never came, and anger no longer overwhelmed me. At the same time, I didn't feel like I was suppressing anything. I could approach emotionally difficult situations calmly and rationally while still fully feeling the emotions themselves. I experienced emotions as events occurring within consciousness rather than forces that defined or controlled me.

The most remarkable change, however, was my ability to perceive multiple streams of experience simultaneously without feeling overwhelmed. Thoughts, traffic sounds, the sensation of my clothes, the movement of my body while folding laundry—everything existed together as one continuous lived scene.

I never felt like my attention had to switch between different stimuli. I was extraordinarily present without effort, meditation, or deliberate concentration. It felt as though my brain had simply switched into a completely different operating mode.

Another striking aspect was an overwhelming appreciation of the uniqueness of every single moment. I don't mean this in a spiritual or mystical sense.

Rather, I directly experienced the fact that no one else in the world occupies exactly the same perspective as I do. Even someone standing one meter away sees the world from slightly different angles, hears different acoustics, notices different details, and simultaneously inhabits an entirely different inner world.

I didn't merely understand this intellectually—I experienced it directly, and it filled me with an incredible sense of wonder. Suddenly I couldn't understand why I had always sought adrenaline or novelty just to "feel something," or even how boredom was possible when every moment is, by its very nature, completely unique.

This state lasted for about five days. It was stable and remarkably consistent.

I knew exactly which way of thinking seemed to bring me back into it—for example, imagining that I was "hearing my ears from the inside" rather than hearing sounds coming from the outside.

Even when derealization appeared, I experienced it merely as a kind of perceptual filter laid over reality. I no longer identified with it. It became just another experience that I could calmly observe.

Then, after about five days, everything abruptly collapsed.

I developed dizziness, nervousness, fatigue, poor concentration, and my methods of becoming present suddenly stopped working. I couldn't return to that state anymore, despite doing exactly the same things.

The state has never returned.

However, I also don't feel like I went completely back to where I was before. It feels as though something fundamental remained after the experience, as if my baseline way of experiencing life improved slightly.

To this day I have no idea what actually happened, or how something could begin so suddenly, remain stable for several days, and then disappear just as abruptly.

Was this some kind of temporary change in brain function? Did I accidentally discover a particular attentional process? Did I somehow enter an unusual meditative state? Or is there another explanation entirely?

I'm curious whether anyone has experienced something similar or whether there is any psychological or neuroscientific framework that could help explain this kind of experience.

I should have probably added [Serious]. I’m tired of my internal voice thinking about anything or at worst being negative.

How do I turn it off quickly without having to got to a camp or dedicate years of study?

Hi, I’m a 23y/o and i lost my spark in nov, 2024 where one fine day i felt like quitting my freelance career. And i listened to my gut and quit.

My intuition asked me to build a business and quit my freelance career so i tried building 3 businesses (each for a couple of months) and failed miserably. Also built a YT channel and failed.

Now my intuition is asking to build my YT channel again and go all in. Honestly i want to do it but i fear being judged by people and i feel like i don’t have any energy to do anything in life.

I don’t want to do a 9-5 cus i hate it. My heart yearns to build businesses and being self employed.

My life was going great when i freelanced and made 6 figures but everything came crashing down like a domino effect and i feel like the biggest failure of all times. I get suicidal thoughts but ofc i won’t act on them.

I also feel really bad for my parents, i feel like the worst kid and I feel like I am betraying them. I have never felt happy in the last 1.7 yr and idk what to do next.

I rot in bed all day and I’m on the verge of depression

I’m literally in the worst phase of my life and i just don’t know how to get out of this rut.

Any advise?

I want to start meditating, but I'm getting mixed advice. One person told me to just focus on my breath and bring my attention back when my mind wanders. Another person said to view my thoughts like a passing train and just let them go.

Which way is the "correct" one? Or am I supposed to combine them? Thanks!

Hi all, need some guidance please. I used to live in future fantasy and past very much but could focus on my things whenever i wanted to. But then i got to know that this is overthinking and we don't need to stay in the head all the time so i started noticing and monitoring thoughts all day which can't be undone now. Also, what is the true meaning of being mindful like should i be mindful all the time and should not engage with my thoughts at all?

I went through a rough time after I started to notice that i really do Overthink and my mind chatter doesn't stop at all.

If you just stay mindful of the activity by returning your attention to the activity again and again so won't you be disconnected from the world outside? I live alone because of job so if i just stay mindful of the things i do then how do i stay connected with my family and friends? Thoughts like fantasizing future of my family, career dreams and random thoughts about family, friends or whatever appears is mind keeps me connected to them and i can feel the love and connection to people.

But lately, after i started noticing and monitoring then i don't know what kind of thoughts are ok and when to stay mindful. I need some guidance on my way of looking at this.

As the title says, how do I stop thinking. No matter what I do I always end up thinking over what I'm doing. I hate it. I hate my mind. How do I stop thinking?

Ever since I was approaching 18 I hated the thought of time going by so fast and I feel like I'm going to die soon. I no longer feel years as years, I now feel them as days or weeks or months, they feel like they go by so fast. I don't think I can accomplish anywhere near what I would like in such a short lifespan but my only saving grace is that I am convinced of my religion so I don't believe in permanent non-existence but I still don't feel ready and mature enough to leave this world behind so soon. I feel like years should feel like they take longer to complete but instead they go by so fast and humans don't live very many years. I don't consider 70-80 to be that many for a lifespan. Some redwood trees are a couple thousand years old, we only get 70 to 80 years and we spend half the time sleeping, most of the time working and the first 20 growing up and maturing and the last 30 decaying and getting sick until we die.

I notice that when I intentionally think of something (for example, my mother’s face or a specific movie scene), I can reliably bring up the image in my mind. This makes it feel like thoughts are my under control.

At the same time, many meditation teachings say that thoughts arise on their own. Can some meditation practitioners help me understand this. I feel like I can choose my thoughts but most meditators say thoughts appear spontaneously?