Bipolar—Marijuana—Relaxation—Meditation
By Jennifer Kiley
10.30.12
Energy flowing through the seven chakras in no partiular order
I have mixed among my writing this post videos that I have worked with in the past while I meditated. I hope you will give them a try to see if they might help. They did help me, maybe they will do the same for some of you.
It just may be time to reconsider my lack of using meditation as a means of relaxation and bringing my bipolar moods under some kind of acceptable control where I would be more able to level them out a bit more evenly. A fellow blogger brought my attention to his own attempts at mediating which drew me to a post I did a while back. I posted several videos of meditation related chanting and relaxing music and natures sounds that once helped me to relax so well that i would often fall into a semi-consciousness and eventually into a state of the most deep and renewing sleep. I needed to meditate at that time to bring down my high level of feeling so stressed out that I needed far too many toxic psych meds I have since removed from my collection of medications that I take regularly. No more psych meds with the one exception of one for anxiety and panic.
No Mind – Piano – Paul Collier
Now in my life I have extended to a great degreee all of the activities in which I am involved. I need to destress or get more sleep. I often forget to sleep, eat or take my health meds. Bipolar highs and lows can lead one to forget to take proper care and attention to some of the rather important necessities of ones life.
Chanting Om II – Splendour of Yoga
I have retrieved some of the material from this post on Meditation and Contemplation to help me and any others who might be interested in revisiting this type of interest in order to relax and release the tensions of their lives on a moderate to regular or daily basis.
Chanting Om II – Meditation Music
It is time to remember and to be inspired if I want to reconnect and start to write more thoroughly on my many projects: a screenplay, my poetry, a resurrected novel, a memoir of a period in my life I am exploring for the profound effect it had on me in a metaphysical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual way, and to return to my activities around the visual arts of photography and short film making. The need in me to do photography has been speaking to me from out of my dreams. The choice was either to paint or to take photographs. Photography has been in my mind for quite a while. I, also, want to return to the creating of collages. They inspire me immensely.
Chanting OM by MUSIC FOR DEEP MEDITATION
All of this has to do with reconnecting with my memories through feelings and thoughts that are buried within me. I want to retreive from my subconscous and unconscious all that is hidden from my conscious awareness, so that I might be of assistance to my muse while I work on my screenplay that relates in many ways to the experiences that have touched my life in a most profound way. In other words, I want to exorcise some demons and clearly understand what I feel and think about a particular decision that I intend to make at some point in my near future. In my screenplay, the answer is revealed to me, but I want to write the story out to see if that really is the intended conclusion.
Chanting Om II – Meditation on the 7 Chakras
Hopefully, they will work in centering me before I colaborate with my muse as we work together. The videos inspired me or caused me to relax or meditate most easily and the tension melted away on most occasions.
No Mind – Gentle Piano Meditation Music
These are all videos I’ve listened to while letting my mind settle down as I was going into a state of meditation. Thoughts would travel through my mind but I would just try not to attach myself to any of them. Just let them go. When I felt my self drifting back to engage in my thinking I would start to listen to my breathing as it guided me back on track to the goal of letting go of my thoughts and emotions and drift into a place where I was free from this space we call reality.
Air – Paul Collier – Relaxing Music
I worked on letting go of the sensations of my body that distracted me. I just kept letting go. Whenever I returned to this reality I would work on my breathing again and let that be my focus. Eventually, without realizing it I was not with my body and mind i had floated onto a different plane of consciousness that I was not aware of. It was more like being set free from all physical connections of the body and mind.
These are very soothing videos to work with to bring one into a state of relaxation so that you are able to let go into your meditation. The contemplation was the act of meditation. A focusing on one thing so that all else slid away. In this instance I contemplated on meditating so that all of the world slipped into another realm away from that which I was actively seeking to find so that I could also let that pass away from my awareness. Some call this attainment Nirvana. Sometimes reachable but also elusive like a butterfly. Sometimes the relaxation of the meditation dropped me off into such a relaxed state I actually drifted into a deep and restful sleep. Which is a perfectly fine end to the crescendo of meditation.
Sounds of Rain and Thunder on the River
My goal this time in meditating is to work on bringing my bipolar under a reasonable level of control. I will not take the toxic medications that are prescribed today. If someday the government changes its mind and allows marijuana to be used with all of its medicinal properties, one of which is in assisting bipolar treatments and a plethera of other treatments. I would consider using a medication such as medicinal marijuana for the treatment of my mood swings and racing thoughts, my highs and lows, my delusions which make me think what I sometimes perceive a situation as real, when in the true reality of the perception, it is not at all the way the delusional part of my mind sees it.
Smoothing Meditation Music – Paul Collier
I am actually getting better at stepping out of the delusiosn while they are occurring and see them from another part of my mind for what they truly are, a total misperception of all the stimuli that is being presented to me and mixing them all up into a distorted view of what does not exist. Reality is usually expected of us to live in this world in order to be accepted. If one allows delusions to rule what we perceive we are more then likely going to fuck up relationships because we will doubt our partner or friends and feel they are hurting us when in truth, what we think is happening is not at all what is really happening. Now sometimes what is happening is exactly the way we perceive it, but when we are in a state of delusion we can never really be sure.
No Mind – Piano – Paul Collier
That is why I feel the government needs to allow bipolars access to marijuana to use in their treatment of bipolar and all other ailments that it can be used to treat. My own doctor is trying to help me to work with the government in my state to try to push this issue forward. She actually can see the benefits of marijuana for my treatments for bipolar, chronic pain, anxieties and all sorts of other physical and psychological issues that I am dealing with.
Self Esteem Affirmations with Music – Paul Collier
So for now meditation and psychotherapy may be the only thing I can use to help myself with the bipolar and then the various doctors I see for specialty treatments. Plus my friends, family and partner, who are there as part of my support system and I am part of theirs, also, quite willingly. J.K. the secret keeper…I hope these are of help in some way for some people who would just like to listen to something that might just be a sound they just might enjoy kicking back and listening to. Namaste!
“Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re “not at all like yourself but will be soon,” but you know you won’t.” ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness ~
I teach meditation through the use of visualised colour. Perhaps it is a book that I need to do next. It really works to help get you in touch with emotional states and helps you cathart what is bothering you and to release it. In that way, it calms, as you let go of what is causing you distress. It has saved my life. It is different to simply calming down, as sometimes, that simply covers over distress with transcendental elegance, but a lovely list, Jennifer.
I agree with you. I would like to learn your way. Right now I am just trying to balance out my mood levels. But what I really need to do is to find the way to express my feelings and thoughts without the frazzledness of my emotions. Lossing control is something I need to get control of and to reforcus how to express myself in a real way but without it being chaotic. Mediation has helped with relaxing. A shot of tequila also helps with that also. So I don’t go to extremes with my mood swings. But to learn a better way is always something I would want to do. I need those methods to come to me when I am in a place where I need to save my life, also. The top picture reminded me of the colours you described in The Coming of the Feminine Christ. That the chakras aren’t just one colour but multiple expressions of colours in the plural and also that a colour does not carry only one particular meaning. That it all depends on every different variation of experiences. I am a willing pubil and always a continuous learner and sometimes teacher. I do need emotional catharsis. I overflow with the volitile form of release. It is not healthy nor good for those I love. J.K. ps. thank you for your wise words and do please continue with your teaching and a book would be a fine idea for all those seeking the kind of release you speak of, myself being one of the people most interested in this book you speak of wanting to write.
Great stuff- meditating really helps me to accept Bipolar and my life as it is. Thanks for sharing the meditations. I work towards self-love, self-forgiveness, and self-acceptance.
You are welcome. The meditations help on some levels. I don’t do psych meds any longer so I need to find a way to even out my moods. But I do need more. What you said about self love, forgiveness & acceptance, I have been trying to do this working in therapy for many years. If you see the comment I made above to “ontheplumtree” I seek methods like she teaches where I will be able to express my emotions in a manner that is not explosive but more natural a release. I have a temper that I cannot always control. I try but I never know what will trigger me. Usually, I am an easy person to be around but I try to know what triggers me, at what triggers my moods. I am learning that but there is so much I need to learn. I write. That works for me on many levels. It keeps me from dangerous behavior toward myself. My bipolar is unpredictable but sometimes I can step outside of it and see when something isn’t what I think it is but that doesn’t mean I can change the feelings. That is what I need to do, For now meditation is helpful. Relaxation is helpful. I think also that the taking of majuana would be helpful to a degree. But what I really need to learn is how to express my feelings in a way that is a release an freeing of my soul. These videos are really helpful on many levels. I hope you find they help you. They do help me. I am so familiar with them that they trigger me almost immeiately when I start to play them. J.K.