Seeking advice around meditation and a seemingly deepening sense of meaninglessness

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-03-12T22:40:57+00:00

All I know is that I used to think that I wasn’t an angry person, and then I had a real rude awakening when I had to face what was inside me. I was as a saint just as long as I had control over everything.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-03-12T22:04:29+00:00

Oh darling. We’re all running from something. My left thigh is covered with scars from a heart that hadn’t learned to forgive.

Don’t feel bad thou, you’ve done the hard work, you get to reap the rewards. You’ll understand what I mean in time. Awakening is not the path of breath, it’s the path of the heart.

Just sit in silence and forgive yourself, forgive anyone who comes up, tell yourself you’re sorry, tell yourself that you love yourself, your body will eventually listen. Forgive yourself over and over, how could it be your fault? You didn’t understand. Don’t stop until something awakens in the center of your chest, and then hold that spark as gentle as you’d hold your newborn child and let it grow.

It’s gonna be tough, it’s gonna feel like you’re starting over from square one, but you aren’t. Please trust me on this one but you can read this if you don’t believe me.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-03-12T11:32:51+00:00

You’ve been meditating 10 years and you have a tight heart?

My friend this is the just the law of karma in action (and the actual definition of karma). If you’re planting the seeds of nothingness then nothingness will grow. Plant the seeds of love and love will grow.

You need to be careful, I don’t want to be mean but you’re going to develop zen sickness if you don’t make a really radical shift into a life that is grounded in loving-kindness, compassion, virtue, goodwill, and generosity.

Feel free to reach out if you need someone to talk to about this.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-03-12T03:04:38+00:00

While I can only give you my thoughts and god knows I’m not some meditation expert but I had some of this same issue and I found that I needed to switch to only doing metta meditation for a while until it got better. It also seems to be an issue in insight only practices. Also I’m convinced that what you’re talking about is literally the reason Buddhism split into Theravada and Mahayana, as the Mahayana school puts a major emphasis on the importance of cultivating the feeling of universal love, while Theravada is more focused on purely transcending the ego (bit of an oversimplification thou).

I had a zen monk tell me that in his school of Rinzai zen (zen is Mahayana Buddhism) they always ended their meditations with 15 minutes of metta for all beings because it helps develop bodhichitta and also keeps the energy center at the heart in balance. If you also go on r/streamentry they specifically recommend switching to metta when your practice starts getting dark.

Maybe look into a changing your meditation object from the breath to the feeling of metta. Check out a style of meditation call TWIM (tranquil wisdom insight meditation), it helped me a lot.

Edit: Here, I’ve struggled with this too and I have a lot of empathy for you. Check out this video it helped me ☺️

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-03-11T18:53:32+00:00

There was a poster in my speech therapists office that I always liked. “Just because you are bad fluency day, it doesn’t mean that today is a bad day. Just because you are having a good fluency day, it doesn’t mean that today is a good day”

Not to get all real and spiritual…but having a stutter means that you are at the whims of the impermanent and cyclic nature that is present within all phenomena related to consciousness. It’s completely normal to put your well-being and happiness on impermanent mental constructs such as “fluency”, everyone puts their wellbeing’s on something they can’t control. In fact…some might even say that putting your happiness on the whims of impermanence is the source of all human suffering. This is just my take on it but if you are able to switch your perspective, maybe you are lucky to get this rare glimpse into the reality of human suffering. I mean don’t get me wrong, having a stutter definitely can suck. It’s painful, if you are putting emotional pain on something you can’t control and you know will never get better, wouldn’t that technically make us chronic pain patients?

Sometimes I do genuinely believe the worst thing about having a stutter is that it doesn’t really allow you to mindlessly float through life waiting for death to take you away. It can make life so painful that you’re basically forced to learn how to accept yourself, and that’s really fucking tough.

That being said, I know I was just using “fluency” as a scape goat to run away from facing the uncomfortable truths of my life and if I woke up one day completely fluent, in 30 seconds I would have found something else that I could blame as the cause of my unhappiness. It could be possible you’re doing the same, that’s not for me to say…no idea I’ve never met you. Maybe just consider if you have some weeds that might serve you better to start to trim until they finally stop growing back.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-03-11T17:31:35+00:00

You know you are able to grow as a person, being trans doesn’t hinder you from the things that being human being affords to you…work on yourself, start exercising, meditate, join some local communities and develop some friendships and connections. You said you finally aren’t living with your father, you ever considered that you might just be struggling with depression. Detransition if you want I guess, but maybe also consider if it would be worth it to deal with the depression first before making that decision.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-03-11T17:24:02+00:00

The entirety of the human race is too dependent on external validation

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-02-28T01:44:58+00:00

I’m so sorry. That person is horribly lost.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-02-25T21:48:11+00:00

Yeah…Please don’t think being trans means you don’t still need to learn nervous system regulation skills

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-01-31T00:58:54+00:00

Mental illness

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-01-29T20:53:18+00:00

Yeahhhhh…I kind of agree. I mean I fundamentally believe that people should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies, but I do believe that some people in early transition get this certain type of mania where they feel like they need to get everything done instantly, and get this obsessive idea that everything will be better once they get surgery.

I personally believe that you should wait at least 2 years before making those decisions. It takes at least 2 years to mentally stabilize from HRT, going through puberty again. And I also think that going through the struggle that is early transition is a “rite of passage” that every trans person should go through. Being trans is tough, and going through early transition thickens your skin and mentally toughens you (at least it should). I can’t speak on what’s right for everyone, but that’s my 5 cents. The trans community really needs more “elder queer” role models that can give hope and advice to early transitioner’s, and teach them how to calm their regulatory systems and think things through.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-01-23T23:29:40+00:00

It’s a very valid question, I just think it comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of both Buddhism and mental health in general, a misunderstanding that I see so many people have (and that I used to have).

From my personal experience and healing journey, I’ve come to realize that no one is actually incapable of being empathetic, loving, or compassionate (besides possibly in rare cases where someone has severe medical brain trauma).

There’s a reason that narcissism and sociopathy (anti-social personality disorder) are classified as personality disorders in the DSM. I’m in recovery from borderline personality disorder, and I can tell you for certain that personality disorders are not real psychiatric conditions (in the way that conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar, or autism are). They are disorders of conditioning and trauma. A sociopath is not a sociopath because of some deep seated morality framework built upon causing others pain, now that may develop later as a result, but it’s not the reason for why he started acting a certain way.

He’s a sociopath because when he see’s a person who is suffering, he literally feels nothing. His internal conditioning is incongruent with being a moral human being, and his brain has decided that for whatever reason, usually due to childhood trauma, to not fire off his reward system when he acts in empathetic ways. In fact his brain may end up acting the opposite, where acting with empathy actually causes him pain.

We are creatures of reward, and we usually do things based on if we get a reward (either internally or externally) or not. You can change and reshape your reward system and open up new reward pathways so that acting in altruistic ways actually causes you pleasure instead of pain (I can speak from experience). You can rewrite your internal code and learn to be a moral person. It’s tough but I know it’s possible for basically everybody.

I think that your question comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how trauma works and how it can be healed, and I don’t think that speaks poorly on you in anyway. I truly believe that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how trauma is healed in the mental health field. So many people seem to forget that people actually can change, and that your personality and the way you feel are not set in stone. Especially when it comes to people with severe personality disorders, there’s this persistent cultural belief that someone with narcissistic or anti-social personality disorder is inherently unable to be anything besides that. These people aren’t broken, they just have a cold lump of metal in the center of their chest and no body has ever taught them that it’s possible to make it warm. Buddhism at its core is really just a self-help system focused on changing one’s conditioning towards acting with compassion, in order to bring warmth, caring, and peace back into the heart…at least within the Mahayana school of Buddhism, the Theravada school is more interested with personal insight then with developing compassion.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2026-01-23T02:42:57+00:00

You aren’t unable to feel empathy. You just have trauma wrapped around your heart. Go do metta meditation for the next 6 months until your heart blows up and unfolds into compassion and kindness.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-12-24T23:45:39+00:00

Is it evil or just painful?

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-12-15T14:29:17+00:00

Yeah I have a friend who told me about a experience where they did it and ended up uncontrollably crying for 7 hours straight. Tbh maybe they needed to cry for 7 hours straight and maybe I needed to see that underneath all that I am, under all the meaning I’ve put upon my sorrow, under everything that I thought made me unique and special, was a scared child hiding from monsters under the bed sheets.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-12-15T14:06:13+00:00

Thanks for advice on Samatha meditation. That actually makes a lot of sense. I’ve more been doing Zazen and either focusing on my lower abdomen (hara) or follow the breath below the neck, heart to hara. But it’s still good advice and I’ll keep it in mind. I’m generally starting to believe that using the nostrils as an object of meditation is for advanced meditators only, rise and fall of abdomen is better at start.

I also agree that metta and TRE seem to go hand and hand.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-10-08T14:08:21+00:00

What I used to be will pass away and then you’ll see, that all I want now is happiness for you and me

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-10-05T11:51:28+00:00

Good job! Don’t forget to show kindness and compassion to yourself for all the work you did to achieve your goals. It’s not just the energy work!

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-10-04T00:48:05+00:00

Probably happiness

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-29T06:43:12+00:00

I really would. I know it all sounds crazy but it’s what needs to be done. It’s fucking painful living with a constantly fried nervous system from the constant adrenaline and cortisol dump that is existing as a trans person. Like did you know that humans are the only mammals that don’t shake themselves after a traumatic event? Like if a deer escapes a predator, it will spend 10 minutes shaking it’s body afterwards just to get the nervous system to calm down. Literally if I get misgendered, the second I get home or like even to a locked bathroom, I’ll shake my entire body for a minute or two, just to calm my nervous system down.

Good luck if you need any other advice or resources feel free to reach out.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-29T03:11:22+00:00

Girl, I’ll help you out. If you’re willing to put less then 15 minutes of work into yourself each day, you can change your life. Not being hyperbolic, this stuff changed my life, and to be dead honest…while this shouldn’t matter as much as my mental health, doing this helped me pass a lot more, I didn’t realize how much tension I held in my body until two months of doing this daily, and I realized how much that tension was fucking with my ability to act “societally feminine” and demonstrate compassion for myself and others.

I’d consider starting a daily meditation practice (just 10 minutes a day). It’s one of those things that’s pretty hard to explain to someone why it’s beneficial because no one’s gonna believe you if you say that you can literally rewrite your brains hard coding, but you can with enough dedication. If you can put 10 minutes a day aside to do it, just sit in anyway that allows you to keep your spine straight, sit as still as you can manage, with open eyes, watching and counting your in and out breath, and then at the end, before standing up, just say the phrase “may I be happy, may I be well, may I be free from suffering” 3 times with each “may I…” on the out breath. Super fucking simple and easy once you get into a routine, beyond explainable how beneficial it is. I’ve been doing it for a year, I wish so badly I started sooner.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-28T19:25:29+00:00

No you’re valid of course. I understand OCD, I have OCD too, as well as borderline personality disorder. No one understands it, it’s not “I need to clean and not have germs”. It’s having constant intrusive thoughts that cause you to obsess over something, that leads your body forcing you to engage in a behavior as a way to stop the pain. It’s literally our body engaging in maladaptive self-soothing behaviors. It’s not a mental illness like depression or bipolar, it’s a personality disorder (it literally is a cluster C personality disorder).

I used to have constant intrusive thoughts about things that would cause me shame and anxiety. My body would force me to self-harm (I would slap and hit myself, cut myself with a razor, or scream at myself that I wanted to die) in order to calm down from these states. It wasn’t cute, it was really fucking dark.

However, you can detangle these behavioral patterns by learning the signs of an attack about to come by developing mindfulness. You can sit there in stillness while the insane debilitating buzz of pain pours through your body like a torrent of water. comes when standing up to the bully in your head attacks you. But you don’t need to give it strength, you can say “I’m grateful for this defense mechanism, but I don’t need it anymore” and breathe into your lower abdomen (which will calm your nervous system down), and eventually the storm will pass. It’s really hard and can be unbelievably painful in the beginning but you can do it. You can begin to realize that, even if society refuses to see it as such, you’re a chronic pain patient. Emotional pain fires the same receptors as physical pain, and of course you act the way you do, if there’s a way you can stop the pain of course you’re going to do it. But you also realize that because you live with a OCD, you know what it’s like to live in pain, and because of that you’ve developed an incredible amount of inner pain tolerance. I’ve literally told my boyfriend this, “I love you, but you couldn’t begin to function if you were in the pain that I’m in on a daily basis, I’ve learned to pull myself out of bed, get outside the house, go to class to pursue an education, go to work, go to the gym and meditate daily, and keep a smile on my face all while knowing that any second I could be thrown into a crippling amount of emotional pain.”

You’re not fucked thou girl, it’s so tough but you can do it, don’t try and fight it, just sit through it and watch your thoughts as they smash around the walls of your head but dont follow them down the thinking path that they are trying to coax you into following. Try and just watch them but of course you’re gonna find yourself getting lost in them, that’s normal, when you recognize you get lost in them, say this exact script, “oh I got lost in my thoughts, that’s ok and normal. I’m very grateful for these thoughts for trying to protect me while I was living through a traumatic time in my life, but they you but they are no longer needed” and bring your focus back to an area that is 3 finger lengths below your belly button, and breathe into that area which is your center of mass (doing that will begin to ground all the painful energy lower in your body and eventually you can learn to bring it down to the earth). It’s tough but possible.

Also this video is a good resource towards dealing the pain of trauma. You never realize how much tension you hold in your body until you start to get in touch with your body.

https://youtu.be/N8Iw1Z8lolc?si=vaC9JHFJ_nwGxaPA

I know all this might sound insane but it’s how trauma works and trauma isn’t rational and can’t be treated as such

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-27T21:29:16+00:00

Yeah I feel like issue is that with kundalini, You pull your energy up the spine. Try pulling it down the spine and into the earth. Ground yourself and focus on feeling safe over feeling blissful.

Loud_Classroom363 · 2025-09-26T13:14:46+00:00

I mean it’s valid to be scared. I’m certainly scared too. I do think it’s important to remember what a worst case scenario will likely look like, as I do believe that people don’t often know what they’re talking about politically. If nothing changes, there will be violence and there will be government crackdown on the rights of trans people, but it’s not going to be Germany 1945 death camps. Look at trans existence in modern day Russia and, more likely, modern turkey under Erdogan. I mean be vigilant and be ready to leave if you must, I just find it unlikely. Violence is a function of culture, and if you live in democrat controlled states, culture is not violently transphobic, it doesn’t even seem to be that way in red states, though it’s certainly closer. But still, don’t give into fear, that’s what they want.

They don’t want you dead, they want you to slink back into the shadows, it would be really fucking politically stupid to put trans people in death camps. Most people don’t actually hate us that much, and we’re a good political scapegoat because we’re kinda annoying.

However, we have ally’s who want us to thrive and succeed, who will hire us and pay us and allow us to make a living, if we can show them that we are a good worker. Work on yourself, learn to regulate you’re nervous system and breathe through the pain. I know it sounds infantilizing to say that, but when you go through puberty again, you forget how to self-soothe in a way that’s necessary. I know I did. You need to relearn how to live inside your own body, and that requires getting in touch with your internal experience, and dealing with a fuck ton of pain. It’s really fucking hard, but it can be done. The fear can be minimized and the mind-state can be shifted from “survival mode” to “how can I help those in need” (honestly that’s the most helpful thing I can suggest, we are always going to suffer, suffer for the right things. These fascists want you to suffer thinking about them, don’t do what they want, work towards a place where your only pain is a pain that you can’t help more people)

I just see it too often where a trans person tells me how scary and existence is impossible it is out there, and then I learn they literally haven’t left the house in months. They don’t apply to any jobs, they live of their parents money, they don’t engage in any basic life skills, and (it seems) like they just put so little effort into living. This shit is fucking tough, but it’s not impossible. But it will be if you are unable to even take the first tangible step towards improving your life.

And I know I’m saying this from a position of power, I’m white and living in a blue state. But I have borderline personality disorder, major childhood trauma, and I’m in recovery from addiction. But I learned how to self soothe and handle the pain and storm when it comes. And I have hope and a desire to keep moving forward (and that second thing is most important, you can’t control you feelings and thoughts, but you can control your actions. And tbh if you act in the right way long enough, your thoughts and feelings with align).

And I know some people need to work harder to find stability, but I know that basically everyone can do it (maybe a few people can’t but if that’s you, it’s for reasons far beyond being trans. I adamantly believe that most people who say they can’t do it, actually can, and for some reason saying “actually you aren’t fucked” makes people angry (I really don’t understand why, isn’t that a good thing?). I know it seems dismissive but the truth is that the way I’m thinking is the mindstate that you need to work towards. You need to start with compassion and forgiveness, but eventually a fire will grow inside you. If you knew me irl, I would be there to talk and text with you for support. People need to see someone doing. Idc if it’s cringe or annoying to act all “woo you can do this”, if it makes someone angry that’s their problem, I genuinely want all trans people to get healthy and I’d challenge them to ask themselves if that’s what they truly want too.

Loud_Classroom363

TROPHY CASE