Musing about Meditation (Patreon)

Hey folks. This has been something i wanted to bring up for a few days as i guess it does kind of relate to this patreon as it is part of what i do, what i discover while working on my art etc. This isn't exactly an essential post and more just me wanting to write something, so if you feel you aren't in the mood to read then that is absolutely fine. You're not missing anything essential. :)

Like some of you remember at the end of March i was in a pretty bad state, to the point where i absolutely just had to take a break and couldn't even finish the pictures i was working on at the time. Now in general i tend to be fairly analytical when it comes to my thinking and so i sat down and tried to figure out what i could try to solve the issues i was having. The frustration with my art, some issues with my competitiveness , the pressure of it being my full time job and so on. Basically several issues that made work somewhat of a spiral of not reaching the goals i wanted, feeling bad about myself and then carrying that into the next picture, rinse and repeat. 

Meditation was one of those solutions that i wanted to try. Now i attempted it before, but basically always broke off within a week or so, just simply by forgetting it or not feeling like it really provides anything valuable. This time however I actually managed to go pretty much without missing a day since that vacation at the end of March, and especially recently i think i'm starting to majorly notice the effect that is setting in. That is simply having more control about emotions and the states of my mind that i didn't think i had control over before. Not to say that i was a raging hulk beforehand, i'm pretty calm and collected as a person i would say, but nonetheless i've now had several instances where i realized those feelings were creeping up and i could just kind of...turn them away?

I don't really know where i'm going with this or what the point of this post is supposed to be, but as a way to get this off my chest as nobody else i know practices meditation and so i've just kind of been doing this on my own for almost 2 months lol. And if you are reading this and haven't done it before, or tried before and failed, then hey, perhaps give it another shot! The type i took up is mindfulness meditation, so pretty much the common one nowadays, and i'm about the least religious or even just spiritual person you can imagine. I don't believe in a soul, an afterlife or anything outside of the realm of the sciences. So this recommendation is coming from a standpoint that requires no special belief or anything of the sorts. Your goal is simply to become more acutely aware about what you are experiencing in any given moment.

Of course with that said, i don't know if meditation actually has the impact that i think it has on me. There were a few other things that happened right around that time in March, so it is very likely to be the case that they have an influence on me right now as well. But i do like to think that at this point i've experienced enough moments that simply ended causing less suffering than they would have otherwise, to be able to say that it does have an impact. One way or another i'm very curious about how i'll progress with it in the next month or two and see how it all develops.

And of course if there are people here who do have experience with meditation, then i invite you to tell me and others who might be reading about it, as i'd be curious about what other people think, have experienced etc. and what other sides there are to it other than my own.