what are the greatest hindrances that stop people from progressing in meditation?

I am not ashamed of my time struggling with addiction. It was a part of the large practice to not know myself.

I have used weed, nicotine, and caffeine. My honest feelings now about how these make me feel happens in such a way that feel every mine that I am becoming intoxicated and I can feel the sensation and suffering of it leaving.

Like how my sense of hunger and satiety has shifted so too has my feeling of need that those things are anything but things that become an expression of you. I was severely dependent on drugs (weed, nicotine, caffeine) and was taking psychiatric medicine from my doctor. When I felt a sense of knowing about my real feeling I felt the fears associated with drug use very tangibly. I was afraid I was a fraud of a person to have to use substances to cope with the deep fear that I cannot sustain myself or know myself. This fear drove me to constantly seek external attachment to validate a deep, deep internal attachment to shame. I was worried that the present feeling is only some idea that is fantasy and I am fool.

I sat with it, and believed it. I let myself be true. I let my honest feeling be exposed to the voice that wanted to tell me I was wrong for feeling well in my body, thoughts, and will and that I am a fake.

Then, I asked, who is feeling this? Who is he talking to? Who must answer for these crimes? And I saw it was the part of me that was very afraid that my feelings of authenticity could be inauthenticity. I felt a huge appreciation for my body- that the truth about present feeling is subject to a constant and natural change and all I have to do is notice it. As the nicotine withdrawal settles in, I feel the weariness and irritability pull and dare to invoke a sense of what I might be owed or how I should be respected. I see this as simply the feeling of nicotine leaving me. By being with it and feeling it I can instead not be consumed with a belief that this is too much but feel the very real descent into the depths of what my energy and breath presence can tolerate. My lungs already feel cleaner. The immediate and anxious energy becomes an intensity that draws your attention nearer to the focus of your breath. And then there is relief from the belief the body has about needed intoxicating elements.

Please, ask me anything about my experience and I will try to tell you what I am really feeling if you have any reason to know it. I find myself now loving to hear and feel others when I feel this way. When you have confidence in the self to be itself you can make room to listen to others when they need to be heard and feel their desire for release from suffering as your own. In knowing relief, I feel a somber but lovely hope that anyone may experience something similar. I trust that you want me to be my best self. I hope you feel that feeling for you. I don't want to be ashamed or feel I have to run from what you think about what I think.

/r/zen Thread