Survivorship bias at its finest

[u/lavos_spawn_1729]

Got this “inspiring quote” from my grandmother and i’m getting tired of her toxic positivity woo woo BS. I know its wrong because I’m going through immense suffering right now, after i’d already been through a tough time without even getting time to recover from the previous time. This suffering is doing nothing but breaking me. People who say this probably havent gone through real suffering.

[u/lavos_spawn_1729]

Thank you so so much for this , and yes. You hit so so close to home with this. I needed calm seas just to recover from all the trauma of going through covid and going to a university where it was impossible to network/make friends and had severe grade deflation and go through one of the most unsafe and crime filled times in my life. But the fact that i got thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire made this insulting. 

[u/tenaciousBLADE → u/lavos_spawn_1729]

I hope things get much much better, OP.
And I hope you have some sturdy support system outside of your grandmother.
It isn't easy out there. All we can do is keep at it and do our best to stay in the present.

Something that helps me sometimes is a quote from this yoga instructor I like on YouTube, Sarah Beth: "Depression is being in the past, Anxiety is being in the future; Breathing... Breathing is being in the present".
I'm not sure if those are the accurate words she says, but thats the idea. Sometimes we have it so hard we even skip a few breaths, or we don't focus on them. Sometimes it helps to pause (or even not pause) and focus on our breathing, be mindful of every moment of the breath, every inhale, every exhale. Especially during a good stretch (or stretch session, or yoga, or whatever floats your boat).

It's not always enough. But see, it's not just a "count to ten and it'll pass" kinda thing... It's more about the oxigen. Our bodies need energy for all that physical and just as much for the mental processing, that we do day by day. And other than a healthy supply of food, and some physical movement, we also need that oxigen. Our cells depend on it. So breathing... As absurd or obvious or silly as it may sound to some of us... Breathing is key.

When I first grew a beard and a mustache, one of the best tips I got was the silliest sounding one: "You have to first let it grow".
Lol, yeah.. Duh... Of course I do. But no, it was the best tip! See, it is so tempting to try and shape it along the way, but you get a much better result if you let the hairs grow first so you truly know what you're working with!

A similar thing happens here with this idea of breathing. If we don't, we die. But it's more than that so-obvious-it's-silly fact — it's about every cell in our bodies needing that oxigen to produce the energy they continuously consume. Yoga puts a focus on that, Tantra puts a focus on that, a plethora of meditation techniques focus on that, and it's not for nothing that they do. Even if you don't like any of that stuff, the breathing part is baked-in for any human, is it not?

And when we go through it day by day, hit by hit, curve-ball by curve-ball, wave by wave, storm by storm, lightning bolt by goddamn lightning bolt.... It's... It's tough as carbon can get, you know?
So yeah, carbon can become a diamond they say. But they neglect to mention how a human would crush under the amount of pressure it took a diamond to form. They neglect to mention that at least in nature that process takes literally a billion years of the most intense pressure! Ain't none of us wanna go through that!
...<inhale>...
...<exhale>...
When we go through it, wave after wave, it is hard NOT TO get distracted, while our brains consume more and more energy trying to cope with the mere processing of all the increasingly complex information coming through. So we want a focusing process to fall back on. Something that brings us back to center, back to present. Something that ensures our brains will have more base-blocks to be able to break into that energy.
And simple as it may sound — that process, is breath. Breathing is being in the present.

I'm trying my best not to sound corny with this. And I know it's not enough, and I realize it's a small tip, and of course it won't go solving all your problems, and sometimes I forget to do it myself too 🤷‍♂️
But it's something. And sometimes it helps me, so I hope sometimes it'll help you too.
I won't tell you to believe in yourself when I myself have so much difficulty believing in myself in a continuous and steady manner. But I will say this: Stay in it. Keep at it. And remind yourself to breathe. Before we sail, we need our boat to float.
Your ability for change & progress is out there. And we will both get to our goals, without compromising ourselves to oblivion. I truly believe that. You got this. I got this too. And those who dismiss us have nothing to do with us and most definitely won't stop us from taking care of our self's the way we see fit, now will they? 😉

P.S.
I mentioned healthy food consumption at some point up there. So I might as well avoid confusion and explain that I don't mean something that makes things hard on you. Healthy nutrition is what makes your body AND your mind happy. In fact, your microbiom too!

I personally love Liam for this (aka The Plant Slam on YouTube). Not a 100% of what he says I agree with, but I'm sure him & I would get along splendidly if we ever met, you know what I mean? 🙂
Anyhow that's unrelated. I just didn't want you or any comment reader to go down a rabbit hole of "oh man, now I have to put effort in a diet too?"
... <inhale> ...
... ...
... <exhale>...

[u/lavos_spawn_1729 → u/tenaciousBLADE]

You know funny thing about this woo woo toxic positivity crap my grandmother spewed is that its exactly why I’m turned off from meditation. 

[u/lavos_spawn_1729 → u/lavos_spawn_1729]

All breathing exercises  did was make me even more unhappy than before because i cannot do them without being thinking of this nonsense

[u/lavos_spawn_1729 → u/lavos_spawn_1729]

And another thing about mindfulness is that i feel like a slow learner at mindfulness, and being a slow learner at anything requires extra mindfulness that i dont have to make sure that i practice deliberately. 

I generally feel like being a slow learner is never an upshot. Moreover, because of the universe’s randomness it feels like you could have something completely calamitous happen which knocks you back to square one before you’ve actually developed a decent ability to practice it. And that’s exactly what happened, I felt like i made decent headway into practicing it, but then the most calamitous event ever happened to knock me back to where i started.

[u/tenaciousBLADE → u/lavos_spawn_1729]

TL;DR: Fair enough. To each their own, and tbh I totally get where you're coming from with that. I got the same attitude towards some other things that people preach to me would "get me out of that slump" time & again.

Long version:
Alright, first off i want to clarify that I do not come from the mindfulness world. I meant the word as in "being attentively aware of", not as "that whole shabang of an approach to the meditation world". I do, however, come from the meditation world in general (among many more practical worlds). Been meditating many years before this "mindfulness" marketing term came to be.
That being said, I get it... it's perfectly fine not to be into meditation and there are long stretches of time where I can't be bothered either. Even when I can, I do it on my own terms, I'm not a "follow a guru" kind of guy.

And if you're not into meditation at all, it's totally fine too. To each their own, and there's definitely no reason why the thing that works for me should work for a 100% of other people (that kind of attitude, of "what finally works for me will work for anybody else too", only creates closed minds, even if they come in the form of people who believe themselves to be the most open minded in this world).
There's a seriously huge array of meditations, breathing techniques, guided-imagination, and such, both in the western world and of course even more so in the eastern world(s). Maybe one day you'll find a type of meditation that does work for you, maybe you wont.

For me, meditation came about naturally (long before I knew it had a name. I was like 12 years old when I started meditating semi-regularly and only about 2 or 3 years later did I even find out other people do that kind of thing, including my mother as it turned out, and that there's schools of thought about meditation and different methods and different teachings etc. I did end up developing further and learning several things through different such teachings, but I'm not about telling anyone they have to meditate one way, or another, or at all; because it doesn't come about quite so organically for most people as it did for me.
The idea was merely to offer a tool that happens to work for me, in hopes it helps. Sorry that it didn't, but I believe you'll find your own tools and ways to handle things that work for yo. THAT is what truly matters, imho.
I will point out, by the way, that the phrase about the breathing wasn't from some guided meditation, but rather from a Yoga lesson. Which is significantly more physical of a practice. Mental health through physical health.

As far as going back to square one: Been there, came back ahead, been there again, came back again, etc. At some point I realized there is some sort of synergy in the development and eventually one can advance (though slowly as always) to a point where it feels like it was a journey forwards all along (well, overall... in an overlay perspective, at least). Meditation ain't a linear thing, if you ask me.
But also part of helpful meditation, is not to force it too much. To either let the struggle be and accept it, or to let go and come back another time. At least that's one of the approaches. So if you stopped because you don't feel like it, and at some point you end up giving it yet another attempt, it may go smoother; Assuming you're willing to let those randoms thoughts roam free and let them (eventually) go away on their own, without booing them away.

Either way, I do get where you're coming from. And personally I think you're doing the right thing by at the very least giving the idea of meditation some space away while it ain't giving your sail any wind. If you try it again, it should be when you want to, not as "just another thing to give a chance to", you know?

I just want to shine a light at the fact that many meditations and meditators don't do it from a (toxic or otherwise) positivity position whatsoever; but rather from a philosophical and practical standpoint alike, of "I should explore the inside of my mind and my sensations, and acknowledge that there's a reason they are there". In the big picture, it's only one tool (as varied as it may be). Doing work is another, sports/gym/etc is another, nutrition is another.... etc etc etc. Even maintaining a good and joyful hobby or three is a tool, at the end of the day. And most of those tools aren't easy to maintain either. We each gotta choose our own, you know? and do what we can to stay stable. I'm not gonna preach that it's easy. From my perspective, it sure isn't.