Cruzzie,

You are welcome, happy to help! It really sounds like you are going through a lot of emotional uncertainty right now, maybe speaking to a counselor would be helpful for you. A few things to keep in mind: meditation is a journey. It can be about learning to love yourself, to let go of shame and accept your true self, to forgive yourself. We can treat ourselves quite unkindly and meditation illuminates this, but only by seeing this, can we begin to change, so here the practice is to rejoice that you have the insight to see where you are doing something you don’t like, rather than add additional suffering by  criticizing, shaming or blaming. Sometimes it can be helpful to remember what a good friend, boss, or co-worker would say about us to keep things in perspective.

What I would encourage right now is for you to remember that you always have choices, and you are choosing to meditate, and to get meditation books (which I am happy to hear!) So it may be helpful to ask yourself why you are meditating. Is it because you love yourself enough and believe you are worth it? Is it because you want to enjoy life rather than survive it? Is it because you believe it is possible to live a meaningful life with considerably less depression? Have you felt hopeful rather than hopeless? When you know why, then you can remind yourself of these reasons to empower yourself.

For progress, it would depend how you define it (and this is the goal/expectation I was referring to in my first response). From my perspective you are willing to spend time with yourself, which takes a lot of courage, which you are also cultivating. You are persisting even though it hasn’t been easy and have even decided to take initiative and buy books to further educate yourself! You are becoming honest with yourself and asking important questions, to me, how could this not be progress? Ultimately, later on, when you feel ready, it will be helpful to let go of this idea of progress, when the time comes……

Trust the process you are doing great! Good luck!

As someone who has meditated for 2 years anywhere from 1-5hrs/day, (so still a newbie), I always go to Pema Chodron when I am confused and she would say this: Why do we meditate? we do not meditate to feel good (shockwaves) if the purpose of meditation was to feel good, most of us would feel we were doing it wrong most of the time!! The purpose it not to feel bad, however, you’ll be glad to know, but rather an open, attentive, compassionate attitude to whatever is going on. Like a big sky, allowing alot of room, for anything to arise, dwell and pass away. Good and comfortable and pleasing and difficult, painful and unwanted, all of this… So the essence is training in something pretty radical and not the habitual pattern of the species, and that is to stay with ourselves no matter what is happening, without putting on top of it good and bad, right and wrong, pure and impure. So if meditation was about just about feeling good, I think all of us secretly hope that is what it is about!! Therefore a very common experience of the meditator is in a typical day when your feeling bored, restless, when your mind is hurting, you feel like you must be doing it wrong, because it is a difficult experience, so that is the main thing to keep in mind!! It is not about feeling good it is about a compassionate openness, or an ability to be with oneself and one’s situation through all kinds of experience. So whatever life presents you with, you are open to that and this is pretty radical!! To this I would add it sounds like you came to meditation with the goal that it would help with your depression, there are no goals in meditation, it is what it is.  So to ask is this good or bad is dualistic thinking, and a form of judging, because of your goal…. I know this was deep, but I hope it helps, my advice is stick with it, it takes a lot of courage to spend time with oneself!!!! Good Luck!