[PussyRiot]

I really like this thread. I haven't meditated for weeks and I am a lot more tense. I recently gave up mood stabilisers and I would like to do meditation instead. I have tried different meditations and been to various groups and there are so many different techniques. I can't do the visual ones about breathing out and imagining smoke coming out, and then breathing in and imagining loads of light coming in and all that. It just makes me too self conscious and I worry about whether I am doing it right and this just ruins the meditation. When I haven't done it for a while and I try and do ten minutes, I have probably only actually meditated for two minutes of that time because the thoughts are difficult to stop. But after a while with practice I can go longer.

I would like to try mindfulness meditation or just focus on a sound or maybe a candle or something. I have been to a few buddhist groups but often the actual 'philosophy' involved is something I don't really wish to pursue i.e meditation where you focus on a particular deity or whatever, so I need to keep it as simple as I can.

Any advice on what you do would be helpful.

Glad you started this thread. I do believe that with regular meditation, the need for medication is greatly decreased.