cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/17394234
Meditation
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024
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Autism
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Meditation wasn't super helpful for me, guided meditation required too much sustained focus and was cognitively fatiguing to stay on track. I have dysphantasia so that doesn't help when you're told to picture things or imagine things as part of meditation, because imagining something requires me to talk to myself in my head, which doesn't feel meditative, it feels too similar to ruminative thought patterns. Doing the "quite wandering mind" style of meditation was risky because I already experience maladaptive daydreaming.
But I discovered "somatic regulation", which is something I kind of already did instinctively when I was getting really stressed or overwhelmed.
When stressed I'd tap my teeth together in a pattern, drum on my chest, hum, wiggle or do fidgety little things, often not even consciously.
Now that I understand what this does for my emotional regulation, I set time aside every day to consciously and mindfully do things that look and feel absolutely ridiculous. Like lying on my stomach and rhythmically slapping the tiled floor, focusing on the sensations rather than trying to clear my mind, or guide my mind.
I started mid last year, and it's been the only form of mental health self care that I've been able to remain consistent in, and I've noticed a drastic decrease in how often I feel overwhelmed, stressed and anxious. I'm also able to identity when I'm starting to get stressed much earlier than I used to, and more quickly identify a way to reduce it. I've always struggled to identify emotions in the moment, but I feel like now my mind-body connection is stronger. It's easier to tell when my headache is because I'm hungry/thirsty vs stressed or tense. Before I used to just guess, try everything and hope something worked, then look back with hindsight thinking "guess that was a hunger headache because relaxing didn't help but carrot sticks did". Now I'm more likely to know what I need.
Edit: just realised this post was in the Autism community, lol, I need to learn to read things more thoroughly, I was talking about stimming without saying the word "stimming" because I'm so used to getting flak for that in the NT subs I post in.
Yeah, that's meditation. There are so many types of meditation, there's almost certainly something that will work for everyone. As long as you're focusing inward, not really trying to be cognizant of the things running through your head, it achieves the goal.
Personally, I like fixed point gazing, which is exactly how it sounds. Find something, stare at it. Resist urges to blink or look away. Eventually your eyes will water, you'll start to get bored... Keep going until you just feel like stopping.
I've heard of some meditation for people with ADHD, where their mind is always trying to run. Go, sit in a crowded place like a food court, and try to listen to every individual sound. Not like, conversations and their meanings or anything, just the sounds of the words. Eventually their overactive mind will just start to wear itself out.
My point is, there's no one "meditation" - as long as you're setting the time aside to focus on self reflection, you're doing it right.
That's super interesting! Thanks for sharing. I never thought of stimming to be meditative, but the gist of focussing on one perticular thing seems the same. I don't stim, but I might just try it out.