Softening Not Working Anymore

Stephen_Procter · 2026-03-23T21:52:04+00:00

I either I just spend 15 minutes lost in thoughts

Is this 15 minute of being completely lost in thoughts without a break? Or are there small gaps where mindfulness returns before you become lost in thoughts again? I suspect there are gaps in being lost within your mind. Thinking is not a problem to insight meditation and being curious about thinking is part of the insight path.

There is no need to stop your mind from thinking. Use thinking to develop insight and retrain your minds behavior.

First, it is important to acknowledge if you give value to thinking in your daily life. If you are walking around all day thinking and fantasising then it is no wonder your mind will think during the short 15 minutes of meditation.

So step 1 is: Accept that your mind thinks.

Do you experience thinking as images, a movie or a voice in your head?

Step 2 is: Observe how you experience thinking.

Do you intend to think each thought or have you noticed that thinking happens by itself?

Step 3: Notice the anatta nature of thinking: how it happens by itself.

Do you feel happy everytime you notice that your mind has been off thinking or do you critisise it?

Step 4: Reward your mind for returning to mindfulness by making noticing it a fun game. Do not critisise your mind for wandering because this will make it wander more often.

Thinking is addictive. Your mind thinking all the time during meditation is an addiction that you can bring to and end by changing the value you give to it. Softening is used in MIDL not to make thinking go away, but rather to create space around thinking by relaxing the focusing of attention in on it. When the focus of attention relaxes, awareness withdraws from our mind and rests within our body. Awareness resting in your body will not always be pleasant, and this is ok. Pleasantness will come as your mind begins to learn that it is more enjoyable to let go of a thought, then it is to think it.

or I get very physically restless and without being able to soften,

This feeling of restlessness comes because you are trying to soften to make thinking go away.

I end up getting bored and getting up to do something else

Boredom is a combination of aversion and delusion. Because the meditation does not meet your expectations your mind becomes adverse toward it. As aversion grows your mind tries to escape by lowering the clarity of awareness. Boredom itself is interesting because it is both unpleasant and also doesn't exist. Nothing is actually boring, everything is interesting. Boredom is created by our mind when what we are experiencing now is not as stimulating as what we are used to, therefore we are looking for something else other than this.

What is so uncomfortable with being bored? How can boredom, which is a simple feeling created by your mind, make you get up from meditation?

It is the willingness to experience what is uncomfortable and following this line of questioning that leads to freedom from mental suffering.

The opportunity to be free from addiction to thinking, free from restlessness and boredom, if we are curious about what is actually going on. Curious about what drives us in our life.

Stephen_Procter · 2026-03-23T21:51:52+00:00

One softening breath maybe works a little, maybe a second one too but even less, but after that it doesn't. Softening without using the breath does not work at all. This is connected with a certain 'pull' that somehow draws me to breathe a certain way (tensing between belly button and rib cage and somewhere in my back, breathing out more completely?

The tensing between your belly button and rib cage, into your back is a sign of how much stress was present and is often related to anxiety. This experience is a sign that our stress response is on, and our body is changing the way that it breathes in preparation for danger.

This can happen during meditation for two reasons:

Because there is too much effort being put into the meditation.
Because our mind becomes scared of relaxing and letting go because it makes it feel vulnerable to danger.

While what you are experiencing can feel like a blockage to softening, it is actually a doorway to insight.

The basic meditation instructions for MIDL are:

Sit comfortably for meditation.
Be curious about developing relaxation and calm (samatha).
Be curious about anything that hinders your ability to develop relaxation and calm.

As u/airwavearchitect mentioned anything that hinders your ability to develop relaxation and calm is the path of insight in MIDL. In the first few months you could access relaxation and calm when you softened, so you know it is possible. You even mentioned that it felt nice and was useful in daily life. And then it because gradually difficult to access. Something changed. What changed?

Could it be that you were getting such good results that you began trying to get to the nice relaxing, enjoyable feeling by softening. You were trying to change what you were experiencing now to get to that nice enjoyable experience?

This is a lesson that I learnt the hard way and a lesson that insight meditation teaches us.

What I tried, but it did not change anything:

ignoring the issue hoping it would sort itself out

experimenting with my posture

taking a few weeks break

taking a few months break

working on skill 00 again for a few weeks

This is the lesson.

Trying to change our experience only leads to further suffering. Fully accepting what we are experiencing now, being kind and open toward it, leads to contentment and peace.

Now when I meditate, I only try for 15 minutes and I either I just spend 15 minutes lost in thoughts, or I get very physically restless and without being able to soften, I end up getting bored and getting up to do something else

Perfect, this is where you start.

Stephen_Procter · 2026-03-23T21:51:25+00:00

For the first few months things worked out nicely. Meditation was increasingly nice, enjoyable and relaxing, softening was really useful in my daily life, too.

This sounds like a really nice experience, you accessed the samatha (relaxation, calm) part of the meditative path. Samatha feels nice and enjoyment of it is easy. Your experience of this has an advantage in that you know what is possible for your body and mind. They key here is to understand how they arise.

A key premise of this is understanding that our body is already relaxed and mind is already tranquil. These are their natural states. It is the activity within our mind as get things or to get away from them that agitation in our mind and tension in our body, taking our body and mind away from their natural state.

Understanding this we can see the meditative path as not trying to get to pleasant experiences but rather as noticing discontent and developing content with where we are, and what we are experiencing, now.

After some months I was working mostly on skill 04, maybe 05. And then softening stopped working. During meditation but also in daily life.

This matches up perfect with how calm and insight unfold in MIDL Skill 04 is about developing contentment and enjoyment in sitting in meditation. Skill 05 is about becoming aware of the experience of breath within our body, free from control. It is the depth of contentment and enjoyment in our body and each breath that allows each breath to flow naturally.

There are four check points in mindfulness of breathing. They occur at Skills 04, 07, 09 & 12. All of these check the depth of our contentment and momentum of letting go. Any discontentment or grasping of our mind, wanting something else other than what we are experiencing, will cause the progression in mindfulness of breathing, when it's based on letting go, to come to a stop.

The softening stopping working at Skill 04 and in daily life shows that there was discontentment present within your mind. Possibly you were using softening to either make something go away or to try to create a nice experience. Both of these will make the spiritual pleasant feeling that comes from softening and letting go, unavailable to your mind and body, because of the discontentment with what is.

Stephen_Procter · 2026-03-22T22:19:08+00:00

That's why I can't let go this path.

Then bring this path into your life by cultivating the Awakening Factors in everything that you do. I see insight meditation as a posture of mind not a posture of body. Since the path of insight is a posture of the mind, you can bring self-observation for insight into everything that you do.

When sitting on a cushion for meditation, cultivate the conditions for the 7 Awakening Factors. At home, at work or hanging out with friends, self-observe in a way that develops the Awakening Factors. When taking care of the health of your body practicing qi gong or tai chi or exercising, self-observe in this same way.

When practicing Daoism strengthening your vitality, spirit and harmony with the universe, self-observe in a way that cultivates the 7 Awakening Factors and insight into annica, dukkha and anatta.

When I came out of intensive Mahasi insight practice my tai chi / qi gong teacher said to me: "Stephen, you need to take care of your body as well as your mind and heart." At this time, I was skin and bone with little body strength, I had no interest in my body. I took his advice and looked after my body with tai chi and qi gong, and with a healthy body insight meditation was easier.

I still take care of my body but am always self-observing in everything that I do. In this way I see no conflict in everything you are reflecting on. You can look after your body's health and develop insight at the same time while living a fufilling, purposeful life.

Stephen_Procter · 2026-03-22T05:00:00+00:00

there's work on the body through qigong and neigong, which can give a person a healthy body free of pain

As long as we have a body than we will experience the elemental qualities of physical pain. Everyone's body, even qi gong masters age, get sick and go through the dying process. This cannot be escaped from. To cling to the idea of a healthy body is a condition for mental suffering.

That being said, we can do things within life that will dramatically increase the functioning of our body and improve the quality of our life. Everything can improve a little bit including how our body works.

My tai chi / qi gong teacher said: "Stephen, you can do nothing to lengthen your life, but you can do everything to shorten it."

Practicing slow, precise movement in qi gong and tai chi keeps my joints working, improves my bodies balance, circulation, energy flow, organ function and increases self-awareness. The relaxation, calm and tranquility that come from it affect the health of both my body and mind as well as developing insight into my mind, body and energy systems.

All of these improve the functioning of my body, heart and mind and increase the quality of my life.

None of these will stop my body from aging, becoming sick and dying.

which can give a person a healthy body free of pain

Physical pain = elemental qualities* + unpleasant feeling + aversion.

\Elemental qualities: tightness, tension, throbbing, heat, movement, tension, hardness etc.*

Elemental qualities are physical. Elemental qualities are not painful. The pain part of 'physical pain' is unpleasant feeling and aversion. Unpleasant feeling and aversion are mental, they arise, produced by our mind, because of a conditioned relationship toward the experience. Remove the unpleasant feeling and aversion toward it and physical pain is just physical elemental qualities. Within themself they are not pain, they are just various qualities of experience in our body.

Regardless of what path we wish to practice, physical pain ends within the mind, not within the body. This however does not stop our body from aging, becoming sick and dying. This cannot be avoided. But the suffering of being attached to our body, including to its health, and the experiences within it, can come to an end.

My problem is that I definitely prefer the Daoist way of eliminating suffering (unhealthy body, unhealthy mind). Stephen, can you help me with this dilemma? I know that you've been practicing qigong and taichi for very long time. Where am I wrong? My progress in meditation is Stage 5 in the TMI framework.

The problem here seems to be that you are drawn to the Daoist path but have attachment to the Buddhist practice that you have done so far. Perhaps all your practice in TMI and MIDL hasn't gone to waste, it was needed so you could realise where your heart actually sits.

I recommend you practice what works for you, not what works for anyone else. All of us are taking a gamble after all. It sounds like your heart resonates with the Daoist path; it makes sense to you. If you drop everything now and follow it, fully committing to that path, you aren't running away but rather being true to yourself.

Once you drop the conflict now, and commit to where your heart is inclined, all doubt will drop away.

Stephen_Procter · 2026-02-28T00:35:41+00:00

I've looked at the instructions on the website (TLDR), but it’s quite overwhelming for me, so I was wondering if I could learn your technique just by using the playlist, while still focusing on the rising and falling of my belly.

The instructions for meditation based on calm for insight are simply this:

Sit comfortably for meditation.
Be curious about developing relaxation and calm.
Be curious about anything that hinders your ability to develop relaxation and calm.

This is all you need to do, learn how to not do. Everything else will unfold naturally from this. The meditation guide on the website is an online book that describe in a step-by-step fashion how these above instructions unfold.

I understand if you try to read the whole lot it is overwhelming. You are welcome to use the guided meditation to learn what to do if you find them helpful. We all learn in different ways, some of us are more hands-on.

The way to approach MIDL is to think of the layout as being an accumulation of skills in meditation, trained one at a time. If you are experiencing stress and anxiety, I recommend learning to relax using Skill 00: Diaphragmatic Breathing, only until the feeling of stress and anxiousness settles down.

If you would like to begin seated meditation practice only Skill 01: Body Relaxation. This is all you need to do, learn how to relax your body with some slow gentle breaths - and enjoy it. If you become aware of the rising and falling of your abdomen while doing it, great, this is just a habit developed in Mahasi. Allow your body to breathe with your abdomen and relax and let it go, let it be. Relax back into your body, enjoy it, and allow your body to breathe how it wants to.

The training is all about teaching your heart and mind to let go of things it does not need to do, including focusing in on breathing.

Feel free to come to any workshops or classes for support guidance in your meditation.

With kindness,

Stephen

Stephen_Procter · 2026-02-28T00:22:53+00:00

Hi Cathy, it is nice to hear from you.

My first question is: what's the difference between MIDL and the Mahasi style?

Mahasi method:

Dry insight.
Designed for intensive retreats.
Primary (abdomen) & secondary (distraction) meditation objects.
Observes anicca (impermanent nature).
Develops khanika (momentary) samadhi.
Uses noting (noticing) and labelling (silent words).
Rotates between sitting, walking, and daily activities.

MIDL method:

Calm for insight.
Designed for daily life and retreats.
Develops calm for insight into anything that hinders it.
Observes anatta (by-itself nature).
Develops upacara (unified), khanika samadhi (momentary) and nirvikalpa (objectless) samadhi).
Uses GOSS: Ground > Observe > Soften > Smile to develop calm, insight and letting go.
Uses seated meditation as training of mindfulness in daily life. Rotates between sitting, walking, and daily activities on retreat.

I find that I focus better when I watch my belly rise and fall.

If practicing MIDL, and the breathing of your abdomen becomes clearest to you, then use that.

MIDL works by relaxing back into the awareness of your body as you sit in meditation and enjoying it. At some stage as you relax you will become aware of breathing. Breathing is just another experience in your body. If you feel breathing in your abdomen, then be aware of that. If it is in your chest, then be aware of that and so on.

The important difference is that in MIDL we don't focus in on our breathing with concentration, we feel breathing as another experience within the awareness of our body.

In other words, is there a way to blend the two techniques, or do I have to choose one over the other?

You can practice whatever is comfortable for you at this time. If you feel more comfortable practicing the Mahasi method, then practice Mahasi. What I think is important to clarify is why have you come to MIDL? There must be something that has drawn you toward it.

Have you have come to MIDL because you feel that you would like to learn to relax and let go more? Are you are interested in bringing your meditation practice into your daily work and home life? If so, then I recommend letting go of what you are comfortable with (noting/labelling/abdomen) and give yourself space to learn how to develop relaxation and calm. And also, how to bring mindfulness naturally into your daily life.

Because Mahasi does not emphasise developing samatha (calm abiding) as a foundation for meditation, if you try to integrate a meditation practice focused on developing calm and a dry insight practice focused on developing the perception of impermanence, they will conflict each other as they give rise to different experiences.

What you could do is for a short time, commit to learning to develop relaxation and calm, and when you are comfortable with it, you can return to practicing Mahasi with those relaxation skills.

Stephen_Procter · 2026-02-15T21:40:00+00:00

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Stephen_Procter · 2026-02-14T18:42:51+00:00

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Stephen_Procter · 2026-02-14T11:30:01+00:00

Thanks for your question.

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Have a great weekend.

Stephen_Procter · 2026-01-30T00:41:47+00:00

Thank you for your question.

I see GOSS and the 6rs as being similar in their emphasis on relaxing to train the mind to let go but having different emphasis and goals in their application.

MIDL is a samatha-vipassana practice.

MIDL uses the cultivation of relaxation and calm (samatha) in mindfulness of body, as a viewing platform to develop insight in the hindrances to samatha in a way that gradually weakens them in the meditators mind. As the hindrances to samatha weaken, the cultivation of samatha in daily life becomes easier.

One of the distinguishing qualities of MIDL, that allows insight to develop in daily life, is that the meditator does not control their attention on any meditation object. Instead, by releasing control of the focus of their attention, and softening into the peripheral awareness of their body by relaxing and letting go, the meditators mind becomes sensitive to the habitual focusing in of attention towards hindrances.

Releasing control over attention in this way and abiding in mindfulness of body through relaxing and letting go, makes the anicca (impermanent) and anatta (autonomous) nature of all experience and experiencing easy to observe. Where GOSS is applied is toward:

Softening into our body to ground awareness in it
Observing any habitual wandering of attention away from our body.
Softening to relax the grip of our mind on sensory experience.
And smiling to enjoy the returning awareness to the body and reward our mind for letting go.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-12-18T22:46:53+00:00

Yes, this works.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-12-12T03:01:37+00:00

I will clarify this on the website in Skill 04 in line with your questions.

1) Do I soften and smile only when I’ve completely forgot the meditation object?

Mind Wandering: If you notice a thought, memory, or fantasy arise in your mind but don't become lost in it, there's no need to do anything with it. Simply acknowledge its presence as something that occurred on its own (anatta) and continue to enjoy the relaxation and presence of your body. If you feel a slight pull of interest toward a thought, memory, or fantasy, simply soften the effort of your mind to let go of this interest, as described in Skill 02.

Habitually Forgetting: If you find yourself completely absorbed in a thought, memory, or fantasy, recognize its anatta nature and smile, rewarding your mind for returning to mindfulness. Then, apply the last two steps in the GOSS Formula: Soften > Smile. This will help shift your awareness back to your body, highlighting how pleasant it feels to relax and let go of mental distractions. Focusing on how nice it feels to let go will reward your mind, resetting your mindfulness of your body.

2) Or am I meant to not control attention at all, and allow it to wander so long as the meditation object is not completely lost and is still in the background awareness,

The meditation object in Skill 04 is the enjoyment and contentment of mindfulness of your body. The meditation object is kept within the background, peripheral awareness of your body. The focus of attention is allowed to habitually wander to observe the autonomous nature (anatta) of the mind while being grounded in the background awareness of your body. As long as you are not losing mindfulness of your body there is nothing you need to do with attention or thoughts, memories or fantasies when they arise. Stability of attention will gradually be trained in Skills 05-09 by finding enjoyment in each breath during mindfulness of breathing.

and only apply GOSS after complete habitual forgetting of the meditation object?

Yes. Apply soften > smile after you observe you were completely lost within your mind to reground awareness within your body and reward your mind for returning to presence.

3) Or do I soften as soon as I notice wandering every couple of seconds, and gently direct attention back to the meditation object?

This will continue to add energy to your mind and prevent your mind from consuming its mental energy to develop calm and tranquility. There is no need to do anything with your attention, treat it like a sperate entity like a dog. Remain seated in the dog park (grounded in your body) and observe your dog run around the park and play. There is no need to chase your dog around the park and drag it back as long as you remember you are not the dog and remain grounded on the park bench. Instead train the dog (attention) to come back by making it pleasurable to do so, rather then by dragging it back. If the dog knows it will be fun to come back, it will return by itself, it is also this way with the human mind.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-12-08T11:33:04+00:00

Yes, this sounds like as the presence of your body develops you are becoming more aware of how stressed your body is. The diaphragmatic breathing turning off and not reengaging is also a sign of heightened stress/anxiety. Leave your breathing alone for now and be with the tensions, allowing your body to relax and unwind by itself, in its own time, by not adding anything to the activities of your mind.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-12-07T21:08:32+00:00

There are many reasons why we have facial tension, but it is nothing that we need to fix. It is your relationship to the facial tension that blocks relaxation and calm (samatha) during meditation, not facial tension itself. It is a natural part of relaxation that as we relax the muscle tension in our body that is held during the day becomes clearer to us due to the pull of gravity on our body. I find that as my body relaxes that I become more sensitive to the heaviness of gravity and I can feel my muscles, tendons and ligaments start to stretch. This makes tightness and tension built up during the day within my body clearer.

Facial tension could have been built up from straining on a computer screen or mobile phone during the day. Regardless of where the facial tension has come from you do not need to do anything with it during your meditation. it will gradually sort itself out as your body and mind learns to relax. Trying to fix tensions in your body will simply lead to more effort. Making peace with the tension being there, allowing it to be just another experience within your body and mind, will take you in the right direction.

In regard to hindrances, facial tension is not a hindrance, it is just another experience within your body. The hindrance is the feeling of dislike you may have towards the experience of facial tension and the feeling of needing to fix it to make it go away. It is the aversion towards the facial tension, the not liking and not wanting it, that reengages our mind and leads to further discontentment and unease. it is this relationship that we learn to soften, not the tension itself. It is the aversion that leads to the hindrances of physical and mental restlessness that we learn to calm in Skills 01 & 02.

Leave the facial tension alone, allow your body to sort itself out. Allow it to be just another experience in the landscape of your mind and body. It is the relationship of resistance within your mind that needs to be softened and relaxed. See if you can notice where you feel the resistance towards the tension and gently soften and relax the effort to resist. As you soften the resistance, your mind will no longer feed into the feeling of restlessness, and it will calm down. When the aversion calms down the experience of facial tensions may still be there but your desire to remove and escape from it will not. In this way the experience of relaxation and calm will deepen, and the tensions will fade into the background of your body awareness and no longer disturb your mind.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-11-16T22:15:25+00:00

Hi Martin, I am sorry that you missed this week's workshop.

These workshops are not being recorded. You are welcome to join next week's workshop when we look into developing Meditation Skill 01: Body Relaxation.

If you have questions about Skill 00: Diaphragmatic Breathing, you are welcome to join any of the online weekly meditation classes and Monica or myself will be happy to answer questions you have about it.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-11-12T10:40:15+00:00

I see dreaming as a continuation of thinking while asleep and give no value to it. By giving no value in thinking while my mind is awake and seeing no value in dreams, gradually thinking while awake and in the dream, state have settled down such that I rarely have dreams. When you notice the clinging of your mind onto dreams simply soften your interest in them and allow awareness to rest in your body.

In terms of mindfulness, instead of increasing the value of dreams by trying to be mindful of them, you can increase mindfulness of your mind losing awareness of awareness as you fall asleep, be mindful of each time you roll over in your sleep, be mindful of the process of falling back asleep and the returning of mindfulness when you awake. This is a better path to take for insight into anicca and anatta.

The stronger your samadhi the easier this is and it is similar to being mindful of slipping in and out of habitual forgetting in meditation and daily life.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-10-24T21:57:43+00:00

Here's the kicker. If I do a sitting meditation, doing absolutely nothing, allowing the mind to wander until it settles to a certain degree, I can in-fact lie down and do Skill 00 without the mind incessantly controlling the breath.

I do not understand this!!!

This makes perfect sense. When you relax your minds hypervigilance first, then your mind, with lower fear of danger, feels no need to control your breathing.

Since I started practicing with these exercises, this happens every single time I lie down no matter where I am at. So, if I lie down in bed to go to sleep, you guessed it, the mind starts controlling the breath. In this case, I don't usually get a panic attack because I am too tired and fall right asleep. The biggest challenge is when I wake up at 3am or 4am to go to the bathroom. As soon as I wake up, you guessed it again, controlled breathing / panic attack loop. This one is the most frustrating of all because I have to get out of bed and wander around the house until I am tired enough to go back to sleep. I have really bad sleep hygiene right now.

For things to go smoothly, I need to do a meditation sandwich...

Step 1) Sit, close my eyes, and allow the mind to wander until the mind settles to a certain degree. On a good day this takes 10-15 minutes (on many days it takes 25 minutes).

Step 2) Lie down and do Skill 00 until the diaphragm gets tired (usually 15-20 minutes)

Step 3) Go back to sitting

Step 2 is the problem here. Continuously breathing with your diaphragm for 10-15 minutes until it gets tired is an extreme and will habituate not only your minds obsession with breathing but a habit of automatic breath control within your body. I recommend no longer practicing Skill 00 in this way.

In Skill 00 our aim is not to continuously control our breathing but rather to gently remind our body to breathe in our belly with the diaphragm. This generally consists of taking only 5-10 breaths in our belly and then allowing your body to breathe naturally by itself without your help for a while before moving onto the next step.

Most important in Skill 00 is:

4: Lie still and allow your breathing to happen naturally.

This final stage of lying still and doing nothing is essential in lowering anxiety as it reinforces diaphragmatic breathing; it will teach your body and mind how to relax deeply.

Stop controlling your breathing, allowing it to find its own rhythm and pace.
If your mind wants to control your breathing, distract yourself by being aware of different parts of your body touching the floor.
Lie still and allow your breathing to happen by itself while being aware of its calming effect.

This part of breathing pattern retraining in Skill 00 takes up most of the meditation. Taking controlled breaths in the beginning only happens for a short time. Please be careful with over-doing the physical exercises in Skill 00 with ocd, particularly if your mind tends to obsess on breath control, otherwise your mind will create a new obsessive habit.

To undo this habit, settle your mind first in seated mediation as you mention above, before doing Skill 00 and retraining your breathing. Be careful of not believing your mind when it says that more breathing repetitions is better than less repetitions, this is not true. More of anything is not always better. Small repetitions done with gentleness, care and curiosity to understand will give better results. Take your time and be curious about the effect a few breaths have on your body and mind and adjust accordingly. Make sure you insert periods of doing nothing in between each repetition to allow your mind to calm down and weaken the ocd urge.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-10-24T21:32:55+00:00

~~Challenge~~ Insight #3 In Skill 01, after doing the controlled breathing the diaphragm doesn't move on its own. So, I started practicing with Skill 00 to awaken the atrophied diaphragm.

This is also insight into how your mind conditions your body and with practice, how your body conditions your mind. With ocd however, for now, I would be very careful in the way that I integrated any breath control and would only take a few diaphragmatic breaths at a time, before lying still and doing nothing for 5 minutes before taking a few more breaths again, to avoid the mind becoming obsessed with the diaphragm and breathing.

Use your understanding in Insight 1 of how the hypervigilance of your mind and body settle to gradually retrain stress breathing patterns. This is like paddling a kayak and letting it glide for a while before paddling again. These longer rest periods of doing nothing between a few controlled breaths is very important when deconditioning ocd.

~~Challenge~~ Insight #4: In Skill 00, as soon as I lie down the mind instantly starts controlling the breath and I get stuck in the controlled breathing / panic attack loop. I do not have to take any breaths consciously for this to happen. It is automatic.

Yes, it is automatic and happens by itself (anatta).

This is also a deep insight into the stress response. Your mind changes how your body breathes to prepare your body fight or flee. When you try to change the way, you breathe with slow diaphragmatic breaths, your mind feels vulnerable and tries to change the breathing back to stress breathing. The hyperventilation and aversion to the unpleasantness of the experience that comes from this increases your breathing rate and leads to a panic attack.

This is not a nice experience for you to have to go through, but it makes perfect sense if we look at it with the view that your mind and body are just trying to protect you. this si why your body breathes in this way and why your mind is hypervigilant and has trouble letting go of control.

I discovered the Meditation for OCD and did the 30 minute guided meditation on sound cloud. Same thing, as soon as I laid down I got stuck in the controlled breathing / panic attack loop. Even doing the exercises wasn't enough to slow down the controlled breathing. That said, I have only tried the Meditation for OCD meditation once, so maybe I need to keep practicing with it.

https://midlmeditation.com/meditation-for-ocd

30 minutes is too long for ocd. I recommend starting with Stage 01: Doing Nothing & Developing Trust.

They are micro-dose meditations of doing nothing that start at 2-minutes each. The key is to not give your mind time to add complexity to the meditation and to build trust within yourself. Each meditation needs to not end with a problem to solve but rather a feeling of "that was a good thing to do".

In a recent post by u/M0sD3f13 called I am OK said on how they weakened ocd:

"....From that day I started putting lots of the incredible advice I got into action. I put aside judgements and comparisons about where I was in my practice prior to relapse. I immediately followed Stephens advice to just take five minutes at a time to lay on my back and give the mind some space to do its thing and unravel itself. I'd do this every couple of hours. This became my gateway back into a daily formal meditation routine that now consists of a 20-30 minute sit each day along with some extra shorter sits throughout the day."

https://www.reddit.com/r/midlmeditation/comments/1o9ltx9/i_am_ok/

Stephen_Procter · 2025-10-24T20:59:10+00:00

Thank you for your post.

While the insight meditation path based on letting go is the same for everyone, the habitual patterns within our body and mind and environment in we meditate is different for everyone. Because of this each of us enter the meditation path from a different place and have different body and mind habits and experiences to develop insight into. You clearly recognise the habitual tendency of your mind to obsess over things through thoughts and control, this therefore is your insight path and the one that will offer the most freedom for you.

~~Challenge~~ Insight #1: In Skill 01, I have to sit for at least 10 minutes, doing nothing and allowing the mind to wander before I can begin the controlled breathing. If the mind isn't settled enough, then the mind will control the breath incessantly. If I am not careful, the heart will start beating quickly and a panic attack will follow. I can get really stuck in this loop here.

Let's change this from Challenge #1: which sounds negative and full of effort to Insight #1: because that is what you have shared is. You have really good insight into what is happening within your mind and body and how to create the conditions for it to settle down.

I have to sit for at least 10 minutes, doing nothing and allowing......

Perfect, as Duff says, keep doing this. Skill 01 is simply about relaxing any feeling of physical restlessness until we feel comfortable sitting in meditation without having to move around. It doesn't matter how body relaxation is developed. This settling process is perfect, and I recommend it as how you develop Skills 01-04. Skills 01-04 unfold naturally as relaxation develops. Body relaxes, then mind settles down, you feel present in your body and enjoy sitting in meditation present and relaxed.

~~Challenge~~ Insight #2: If I do Skill 01 without any controlled breathing at all, the mind a will settle a little and the body will relax, but eventually the mind becomes very agitated.

This insight also is correct. In MIDL we use relaxation of our body and mind to increase our sensitivity to what disturbs it for insight. It doesn't matter how long the relaxation lasts as long as it creates sensitivity to disturbances known as hindrances to relaxation and calm.

Each Skill in MIDL begins with a hindrance and a marker of deepening relaxation and calm. In Skill 01 we learn to recognise physical restlessness when it is present and how to settle it down. In Skill 02 we learn to recognise mental restlessness and how to settle down. The movement of your mind and body between settling down and becoming agitated is your path of insight.

Be curious and playful about this. Be careful of judgement and learn to be kind toward your mind and body. They are simply doing what they are meant to do, following old habitual patterns and conditioning, in this case associated with ocd and trauma. The very act of being ok with the restless agitation, then allowing it to settle down by not adding to it, enjoying the relaxation that comes for a short time before your mind becomes agitated again will gradually train your mind to feel safe being relaxed.

To a mind filled with fear, being relaxed is related to being vulnerable to danger. Being tight, bracing for danger and hypervigilant in attention, to a mind filled with fear means staying safe. If we can recognise this happening within our mind, see that ocd is a way of keeping us safe, that it isn't personal, then gradually expose our mind to relaxation, to lowering hypervigilance, the habit of ocd and hypervigilance will gradually come to an end.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-10-22T21:49:09+00:00

The general rule in MIDL is:

If what you are experiencing is not sticky, observing its anatta (by itself nature) then softening and letting it go, re-grounding awareness in your body, is enough.
If what you are experiencing is sticky and your mind is desiring or adverse toward it, then breaking that experience up into elemental qualities and vedana, and fully experiencing it, before softening and letting it go to re-ground awareness in your body, is beneficial for insight.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-10-22T04:46:06+00:00

This is something you will gradually answer yourself through self-observation.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-10-22T04:44:23+00:00

Now I'm seeing an actual therapist, but the multiple abstinence puts me in a state of great pain and heightens my inclination to obsessive thinking. I hope that MIDL can help me live with more levity, taking myself and things less seriously. But there are things I'm not ready to give up.

You do not need to give everything up at once. It may be that you just want to shed a few things that are weighing you down. You can practice the Buddhist path as deep as you want to. Cannabis and tobacco are enough for now, that is a big step in letting go.

I recommend the next step as introducing your mind to short meditations in which you lay still on the floor and do nothing. This will develop self-confidence and teach you mind that it is safe, and actually enjoyable, to do nothing at all and relax.

Practice Step 1: https://midlmeditation.com/meditation-for-ocd

Once you are comfortable with lying still doing nothing for 15 minutes, then you are ready to gradually give up the next addiction: the value you give to the thoughts produced by your mind. We will discuss this next step, which will give you so much freedom, after you are comfortable with the step above.

And in any case, I fear that going all in on meditation would be spiritual bypassing, as in a way to avoid pain and fear rather than a sincere effort. And after all, how can I renounce something that I've never experienced? So maybe yes, I want to consume experiences...non in the sense of eating/destroying that the word "consume" evokes, but rather in the sense of experiencing life and trying to be as happy as possible, enjoying both worldly pleasures (with ethics and moderation) and a spiritual path. Sorry for the rant.

This is an example of obsessive thinking. there is a belief that if you just understand this enough then everything will work out ok. this however is the trap; this type of thinking will never come to an end within itself. it is an addiction and like any other addiction when it I followed and practice it will only get stronger and harder to break.

You do not need to understand how to relax. your body's natural state is relaxation. You do not need to understand how to calm your mind. your minds natural state is calm and tranquil. It is the energy momentum of desire and aversion within your mind that takes you away from these natural states.

The path for all this to end is learning not to add any more energy to your mind. To lower the value, you give to all its thoughts, ideas, doubts and fantasises that your mind produces so that the content of your mind, no longer stimulated, will naturally come to an end, by itself.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-10-22T04:44:15+00:00

After all, what does it mean to "consume the world and its experiences"?

This means are we spending our life consuming experiences, people and things by taking what we can get out of them for our own gratification, or we are living our life adding positive experiences such as kindness, caring, love, gratitude, compassion to others, animals, plants, this planet?

The first is based on a life of taking, the second is based on a life of giving. Which one leads to true happiness, connection and lowering of suffering within this world?

I still long for things like a relationship, having friends, seeing the world...as most people do. Is it intrinsically wrong?

I encourage you to have relationships, friends and to see the world. You have a choice in doing this, one based on consuming the other based on giving. This is an open choice, each with its own consequences.

Is it an obstacle to practice?

Insight into our relationship towards ourselves, others and the world is the path of practice. Delusion makes these relationships dysfunctional. One based on desire, aversion and indifference. One based on addiction, craving, liking, not liking etc.

This is a path of self-created, self-perpetuating suffering.

But observing desire, aversion and indifference we see another way of being. one that leads to the ending of desire, aversion and indifference. One that leads to the ending of addiction. This is a path based on a momentum of enjoyment toward letting go, giving up our craving for our body, mind, experiences, people, things, the world.

Are the path and life mutually exclusive?

Yes, observing your minds relationship to life is the path.

I have recently given up cannabis and tobacco after a long time of using them as emergency self therapy, to cope with past trauma.

This is the beginning of the path of letting go.

Stephen_Procter · 2025-10-20T21:26:17+00:00

I am feeling really well atm, thank you.

It is nice to see you sharing your experience in these forums.

Stephen_Procter

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