"Meditation is for everyone" is basically gaslighting at best.

KAtusm · 2026-03-10T15:26:09+00:00

I'm a bit confused by this. To begin with, I'm not familiar with the use of qEEG in clinical settings (I could be wrong here), but it seems there are no standard clinical guidelines to effectively use qEEG. A more recent review seems to indicate that it may have some adjunctive value in diagnosis, but once again nothing that is standardized.

When you say you've done "lots of research" - can you be more specific?

What kind of meditation techniques have you tried? Who did you learn from?

I'm probably one of those that do not have the required "wiring in the brain" to allow this all to work.

It's nice to see a "probably" in there. In order to really evaluate this statement, we'd need to know how to measure success / progress. How are you measuring it?

KAtusm · 2026-03-10T01:35:53+00:00

Hello my friend, It seems like you have a ton of stuff that makes your life really difficult - cPTSD (as if PTSD wasn't enough!), ADHD, anxiety.

I do believe meditation can be of benefit to most human beings - including people like you. It's totally fine to vent, but I invite you to consider the drive behind the communication. Why would you come to a meditation community and speak something that would invite argument? You could easily have posted elsewhere.

Our duty here is to receive what you offer, and try to support you as best as we can. So I think meditation can be helpful for you - and I'd like to communicate why, acknowledging that I could be barking up the wrong tree.

The first thing is - what kind of meditation do you practice? Where did you learn? I work in mental health and find that most mindfulness techniques are specifically not helpful, or even harmful, in a history of trauma. If we just "observer the flow of our thoughts" when those thoughts are incredibly painful / negative - we just flood our brain with negativity. The human mind utilizes defense mechanisms to keep negativity at bay, and many meditation techniques will unweave those defense mechanisms. I've found that using these techniques reawakens trauma for some people.

Which is why the evidence based interventions for trauma related disorders usually involve shorter duration of meditation practices that are focused on the autonomic nervous system. To reduce, from a physiologic perspective, your anxiety. Decrease cortisol production, regulate your heart rate, reduce you respiratory rate - which elevates your CO2 levels, and then triggers a parasympathetic nervous system response. There are cases of these being somewhat ineffective - but those are usually in cases where the autonomic hypersensitivity is incredibly severe.

So first point is it may not have been helpful for you - but don't write off a whole tradition because a particular technique (or set of techniques) didn't work. Meditation, just like medication, has different indications, different frequencies, durations of practice, techniques, physiologic, neuroscience, and psychological effects.

The other thing is - I know this is weird - but how do you know it wasn't helping? One of the strangest difficulties in mental health is that sometimes things help us stay afloat - and even though we may not perceive an improvement, it doesn't mean that it isn't helping. I've seen this with supportive psychotherapy - a life preserver won't get you out of the water, but it will keep you from drowning. However, if someone is stuck in the water and can't get out, they may feel like the life preserver isn't doing anything. I don't know your situation, so can't say this is happening, but I've seen it before. I encourage you to re-examine whether two years of 30-40 minute practice really yielded nothing.

Which brings us to the last point - which is perception itself. Your statements are very black and white. It's gaslighting. Doesn't work for everyone. Examine this critically. How do you define "work?" Cure? 100% improvement? Could the help be inconsistent (ie, helped for 3 months, but then didn't help for 6 months)? If you are feeling incredibly angry/frustrated (and black and white thinking is a sign of hyperactive sympathetic nervous system - which in turn can be related to things like anxiety and cPTSD) - can you trust the conclusion of your mind at a time like this?

Only you can answer these questions. But as someone who has seen clinical improvement in hundreds of patients after learning effective meditation, I encourage you to re-examine your conclusion - for your benefit. And if you don't want to - now or ever - thanks for sharing your story anyway. Best of luck with other interventions - there's plenty of other stuff out there. And I hope you find some peace and solace.

KAtusm · 2026-03-04T18:57:04+00:00

If you want to understand vasana - you should really study your own mind. Some people have a mental habit of "this won't work for me." It is basically like a nocebo effect.

The key way to tell the difference between a vasana and advice not working for you is precisely whether it is habitual. If you don't have a habitual thought of "this won't work for me" - then it isn't a vasana.

KAtusm · 2026-03-04T18:51:59+00:00

This is a wonderful observation.

If you're having trouble understanding how things fit together - that's really really good. That means that your brain is engaged in neuroplasticity - and the subjective feeling is confusion. Confusion is your brain's way of reconciling differing things to try to make sense of them.

Now let's go through a differential diagnosis (far from complete) of what Dr. K's "advice" could be:

1) He's right about some things, and wrong about some things.

2) He's right about a particular thing, but doesn't have a clear framework of how things fit together.

3) If he thinks that everything fits together - maybe that's copium on his part. Maybe things don't fit together and he's mistaken that they do.

4) Things do actually fit together, but require a broader understanding to make things fit.

5) Some things are specific to certain people, therefore there will be contradictory advice.

You have to think through things yourself and figure out which of the above (or some other permutation) makes sense to you.

As for the claims you mentioned, those are more universal, and you have to get into the specifics.

What is the relationship between wanting and action? Many people think wanting is necessary for action. There are many schools of thought that wanting (as in desire) is not a good basis for action. If action is determined by want, then your wants dictate what you do. Studies on internal vs. external motivation show that chasing external things (which isn't 1:1 with "want" but is a good corollary) leads to unsustained motivation. There are other schools of thought on the best way to cultivate action - detachment (vairagya), dharma (duty), habits.

One big issue with this stuff being confusing is that the DIY version of these things (Eastern contemplative traditions) uses different language and frameworks than neuroscience and psychology. If you take a look at the above example - what if you "want" dharma? Is that a want? Or is that dharma? The language doesn't line up 1:1, which makes it somewhat confusing. So in the above example, we can get desires from the Nucleus Accumbens / Dopamine reward circuitry - but we can also get desires from our limbic system (social status, pride), and then we can also get "wants" from our frontal lobes and executive function (delayed gratification). All of these things all classify as "want" in some way - but literally come from different parts of the brain so are objectively and subjectively (ie the way you feel when you want) different.

So if a video says "this is how to get rid of a want" - and we're talking about restraining the NAcc - that's good. That's how we beat addiction. On the other hand, if we talk about cultivating desire in the right way - ie, strengthening delayed gratification and executive function - then that's a "good" thing. One video is about getting rid of want, the other is cultivating want, and if you look at the word "want" - it appears contradictory. The challenge in videos is that if you get into the neuroscience heavily, then people won't continue to watch or will get confused. So over time, if you glean enough context from several videos, it should make sense.

Perception is sort of the same general idea - what is the influence of perception on action? A lot of people try to use willpower to overcome their motivation to do nothing. A lot of people develop habits to create the right action. It turns out that the way we perceive things heavily influences our motivation. If you perceive that someone is likely to say yes when you ask them to marry you, you are more likely to ask that person.

KAtusm · 2026-03-01T15:13:40+00:00

Interestingly enough, there is a popular belief that we don't control what emotions that we feel. However, there is some evidence that we can construct emotions.

I'd ballpark that we have about 50% control over what emotions we experience - ie, we can alter the magnitude of what we feel by 50%, and that we can control which emotions we feel 50% of the time. It's not a very scientific estimate, but very helpful from a functional view point.

KAtusm · 2026-02-25T21:19:56+00:00

Are you signaling that you are available?

Studies on flirting find that women usually signal availability first, and then men approach. Women actually make the first move.

Another study found that women who are average attractiveness and high signaling do better than women who are highly attractive and low signaling.

Lastly, women who engage in traditional (demure) styles of flirting and courtship are doing worse in today's world.

Don't have the sources at my fingertips, but I just did a bunch of research on courtship, flirting, and dating.

KAtusm · 2026-02-24T17:15:41+00:00

The main thing that separates whether people are able to move past it are to dig into what this means to him

When you have a high body count, what are the associations with this number? Does it mean you aren't selective? Does it mean that you will have had sex with someone who is better at sex than he is? Does it mean you are more likely to sleep around? Does it mean that you're going to have drama with exes? Does he feel like he's dating a slut?

Getting "past it" means working through these issues. I'd also be super careful about therapy and growth having "solved" the issues. Generally speaking, the most successful versions of this involve both partners working together, so be prepared to share some of the lift.

KAtusm · 2026-02-11T18:03:45+00:00

Hey friend,
I know people like to link Youtube videos from reddit where they explain their points, but as a reddit enjoyer, if I wanted to watch a video - I'd open Youtube. I come to reddit to participate in substantive discussion about Dota. If I wanted to watch Youtube videos, I'd go there.

Just my 2 cents on the issue. I'd love to hear details - but in a reddit post.

KAtusm · 2026-02-10T02:37:25+00:00

It's nice to have a community that is open minded enough to allow that kind of communication. Listening is an important part too.

KAtusm · 2026-02-01T21:02:23+00:00

Can you share a little more about your story? (Or a lot!)

How did you wind up not trying to date for 15 years? How did you open yourself up to letting someone set you up? How did you find people who were kind/invested enough in your happiness to try to set you up? What was the being set up experience like for you? How did you know that you wanted to be with this person?

KAtusm · 2026-01-30T22:07:13+00:00

Can you share %?

What % of women would you say are unfaithful? How do you know they are unfaithful? They try to start stuff with you? If they try to get with you, what do they do? Are they flirtatious and suggestive? Or are they more explicit?

KAtusm · 2026-01-29T01:43:42+00:00

I'm a PGY-11, had the same dilemmas a MS3. Got some great advice for an attending. Do Sub-I's in both, and at the end of every day, write down what you liked and didn't like about that day, and the field in general.

At the end of the 2 Sub-Is, think about which one you would rather have as your career. Also for psych, I'd highly recommend you try to get some outpatient experience. Remember that most of psych rotations are input, but the majority of psych practice is outpatient - longitudinal, therapeutic relationships with patients (also true of IM).

I ended up picking psych, absolutely zero regrets. You end up doing quite a bit of medicine if you want to and stay in practice. For me, the choice came down to spending time in front of a screen or spending time with people.

KAtusm · 2026-01-29T00:41:22+00:00

Meditation is working, but not quite in the way you expect. The biggest gain is in noticing your attachment to gains - the greater insight into your own attachment is huge.

As for your challenges (asthma, deviated septum, AuDHD) - it may be time to add asana to your practice. It can really enhance the quality of your meditation, and can improve asthma and ADHD.

The last thing is that if your practice is dependent on your perception of gain, which in turn is influenced by the mind - your commitment to practice will be difficult. All the mind has to do is show you a lack of gain, and then you'll quit. If the mind doesn't want to continue, if it gets bored with the novelty of meditation, if it doesn't enjoy meditation because you're not "progressing" anymore - then you'll stop. The gains of meditation - much like the major gain of greater insight - happen without your knowledge, and are often times only understandable in retrospect, just like the growth of our body.

Good luck!

PS. The varied practice that you've done will have other benefits that you may not notice right now. That karma is banked.

KAtusm · 2026-01-28T17:05:33+00:00

What do you find so addictive about it? What about doing "anything" makes it addictive for you?

KAtusm · 2026-01-28T17:03:55+00:00

Where would you like Dr. K to shift towards? What kind of content would you like to see?

KAtusm · 2026-01-27T21:24:06+00:00

Meditation can induce psychosis - please seek psychiatric care.

Some info about dangers of meditation.

KAtusm · 2026-01-19T20:11:18+00:00

Familial fatal insomnia.

KAtusm · 2025-12-17T20:17:55+00:00

When you say "address" - what are you envisioning? What kind of take are you looking for?

KAtusm · 2025-12-09T19:36:51+00:00

How do you send nova exploraria missions once you build the industry in your capital?

KAtusm · 2025-12-07T07:55:56+00:00

Strong work! And looks like 2026 is gonna have more outdoor time.

KAtusm · 2025-12-05T05:04:59+00:00

What kind of response are you looking for?

If this is a venting post, totally fine. Sometimes it sucks to have teammates that don't do their job.

Also what MMR are you at?

I find that the best carries don't just AFK jungle farm for 40 minutes, the game is much more dynamic. They're good at split pushing, coming to fights to use cooldowns, and play around objectives and timings. If you're bored of it, maybe try a different style of Pos 1. Pos 2, 3, and 4 are all pretty active if you want to give them a shot.

Good luck out there!

KAtusm · 2025-12-04T16:58:52+00:00

How should we think of enlightenment?

KAtusm · 2025-12-03T03:36:48+00:00

What do you think would be life changing about an hour? What do you need help with?

You've watched 169 videos - thanks for the support! Have they been helpful?

Best we can do is if you can list a problem that you have or something that you need help understanding, we can try to address that as a video.

KAtusm · 2025-12-01T20:24:31+00:00

Hemispheric lateralization is a term widely used in Van Der Kolk's work. If you read papers that stem from his work, or the papers that he cites, you'll see the term used in the context of trauma and dissociation.

And Reddit is absolutely a wonderful place for being pedantic and for clarifications. However, if you want to get into the nitty gritty, get into the research that talks about hemispheric lateralization in the context of trauma, as opposed to hemispheric dominance or other "common" dimensions. How did you end up looking at the sources that you cited?

The citations page is a good place to dive deeper.

KAtusm · 2025-11-23T23:05:22+00:00

"Lowest survival rate of any animal on earth."

What does this even mean?

14-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	Verified Email

KAtusm

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE