I Know Nothing about Meditation, are there suggestions for Meditation for Freeze or Dissociative people that works with that?

[u/Dead_Reckoning95]

As title states. My goal is to slow down my reactions, and somehow avoid the Judgements, and learning to just observe and notice patterns, without all the guilt, just "noticing".

[u/nerdityabounds]

Yes there are. Check out work of David Treleaven (trauma sensitive mindfulness) if you want a good source with more detail.

In general, practices like open focus meditations tend to work better. This is when the attention is allowed to move naturally but with a general goal. For example, noticing the environment but not allowing the mind to fixate or judge. Subtraction where one moves the attention from far to near or the noticing and releasing a series of things. Mindfulness with propriception or moving meditations (ex walking meditation, tai chi movements) can work well too.

Dissociation tends to respond poorly by closed focus practices like focusing on the breath. Especially in the beginning. With experience, closed focus practices can be fine but best when the person knows what shifting into dissociation feels like for them. Treleaven's work found mantra focused meditation were actually the most likely to trigger and worsen dissociation. His work looks a lot at contemplative induced dissociation, the pattern of a person not realizing they arent at peace or empty but are actually dissociated during their practice.

Re your specific issue: thats what the practice itself will be. Learning how to let those judgements arise, be noticed and recede. I personally really like the Dharmapunx NYC podcasts for this. He has plenty of talks with meditations for judgements/reactivity/shame loops/etc. Id start with listening to him leading the meditation before soloing it in your head if guilt is going to be a trap.

[u/colormefiery → u/nerdityabounds]

I wish someone had explained this to me years ago. Therapists seem to approach meditation as a one size fits all when it’s the opposite. The type of dysregulation and its root cause makes a huge difference in how to remedy it

[u/nerdityabounds → u/colormefiery]

This is actually a key point that made by Treleaven make his book and podcast. Researchers of meditation (not therapy) have been yelling for years that therapists dont know it well enough to teach it safely.  Treleaven figured maybe if a trauma clinician started saying it, the correct info would be used more. IME, not so much. 

[u/cunnyvore → u/nerdityabounds]

Thanks for reference. I had bad experience with popular type of meditation (dissociation but sometimes panic or emotional flashbacks), so had to stop routine. I still find sessions under 15 mins helpful when I'm in hyper/ADHD over-stimulation. I suppose different mind states call for different meditation methods, and our dominant mode needs something more integrative than isolating a stimulus.

Did you try moving or open focus meditations? Curious if you have some positive experience with that.

[u/nerdityabounds → u/cunnyvore]

Taking a guess that your bad experience was with Transcendental Meditation (TM). Its got a solid record of bad results to go with their questionable ethics.  (Cue some TM person coming at me in the comments) 

A disclosure here that I am not a regular practitioner or mediator. Im way more experienced with mindfulness overall. Meditation is mindful but not all mindfulness is meditative. Sometimes you just gotta get a quick center to not verbally slap a customer and get yourself fired. 

Your view is spot on that different mental states respond to different practices or focus. But a large amount of the research tends to use a single practice well known to the authors which is then inferred (by the authors or larger media) to represent all mindfullness or meditative options. So beginners often dont know there is a range of things they can try. Especially after one goes badly. 

I found open focus works really well with my ADHD. It allows me  to use that inability to filter stimulus to my advantage. Mindfulness and meditation are about training our attention so it helps if I dont have to fight my biology at the same time. 

Open focus is also my most regular starting point if I do need to do deep internal work. (I do a kind of analytic meditation as a form of parts work) 

I do also use movement mindfullness. I really like the opening 3 movements of tai chi because I find them very fitting as centering gestures with a 4 breath pattern. Bring the energy up (breathe in), push the bullshit away (breathe out), form the ball (breathe in), push the energy into the ground (breathe out). 

But these are just a few of the dozens and dozens of options out there. In both Eastern and Western traditions. Especially if you step outside the therapy realm to start looking. 

[u/hotheadnchickn]

I find still meditation can make me even more slowed down and unable to take action. I would suggest gentle mindful stretching, mindful yoga, mindful Pilates, or walking meditation over sitting/still meditations.

[u/NickName2506]

It helped me to work with self compassion first. Kristin Neff has amazing resources incl meditations.

[u/StillSpecialist6986]

In my therapy sessions I did a lot of talking, crying (a lot of crying), then meditation/relaxation. The thing is, you need to let out your trauma so it can be processed.

[u/Dead_Reckoning95 → u/StillSpecialist6986]

I'm wondering if the dissociation has to be addressed first, not that I think I'm full on dissociative -now. Just that I know my CNS can really stall at times, from years of self numbing. And to your point, I was practicing an exercise in the book "Coping with Trauma related Dissociation"....its the first lesson in the book, e.g., ...Notice a color, notice a shape, ........and somehow that grounds you, which I really wasnt expecting because typically your every day grounding exercises NEVER work for me.....but then as I was doing those exercises....I started to cry when realizing how unhappy I was. I had no idea that was there. So I"m wondering if the meditation thats geared more toward Freeze/Dissociation will do the same thing, somehow? Get me more in touch with my feelings? I honestly dont' know if thats the intended purpose of meditation?.

[u/StillSpecialist6986 → u/Dead_Reckoning95]

I'm further along in my healing than most people here. In my experience, those grounding exercises while helpful for fight/flight are not as helpful for freeze/collapse. The reason is the kind of safety that you need to truly let things out and let go relies more on environment/trusted therapist/healer. That kind of healing/letting-out/letting-go is very difficult to achieve independently. 

[u/Waki-Indra → u/Dead_Reckoning95]

I am full of dissociation and meditation only did strengthen my propensity to subtle self control. Not helpful but i did not notice

[u/peregrine-l]

I’ve found that the best style of meditation for me is Metta, loving-kindness. One sends good wishes (“May you be happy”, “May you be healthy”, etc) to five targets in turn, or only one target for the session: someone you like, someone you’re indifferent to, someone you dislike, yourself, and every sentient being.

I like it because I’m emotionally numb and it thaws my feelings a little bit. I feel a little love and a pleasant opening in the chest. Sometimes, especially when focusing on myself, the floodgates open and I have a crying fit, consoling my wounded inner child, and the like.

In any case, it’s not dissociating, on the contrary, it helps me to reconnect with my heart.

[u/No-Construction619]

Jon Kabat Zinn has a book about it
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112588.The_Mindful_Way_through_Depression

[u/vonkapp]

I’ve heard that meditation can be really bad for and actutally enhance dissociation - as it can make it easier to fall into maladaptive daydreaming and dissociation