A couple of things.
Early in your meditation career, it's common to get glimpses of what is possible. That's probably what this was. Don't cling to it, but it is a good sign though. These sensations should not be the goal, they are a consequence of achieving sufficient focus. But you are likely to experience much more powerful and persistent feelings as time goes on.

My advice:

• Ditch the apps entirely, timers are great though. The apps are a crutch to get the unfamiliar introduced.

• Keep working on the fundamentals until they don't require any effort anymore. This will take a long time.

• 15 minutes is pretty short. I find typically that 20-25 minutes is when the magic happens and I get "in state": where my mind settles enough to actually start my practice. The "goal" of mediation is to practice this state, so the longer you can spend in it the more adept you will become at achieving it. Currently I only sit for 30 min/day, but the real progress has come when I was doing 45-60 minute sits every day. Alas, I have a toddler and a baby now, and I'm in the middle of opening an office and hiring staff for my company, and time is short. Just work up little by little, adding a few minutes to the timer at a time. It's not nearly as hard as you might think.

• The 'goal' you are aiming to achieve is really roughly three things: Enhancement of your perception to be able to drill into very nuanced and fine details of the object of your meditation, development of continuous awareness of where your attention is (This will click at some point and it's truly amazing, a bit like waking up from a dream, and you can retain this awareness off the cushion when you go about your day) and finally, the ability to shift your attention to the desired object. These are three simple skills, but when you have gained some mastery over them, you have an incredibly POWERFUL tool to reshape your reality. The whole is much more than the sum of the parts, since there is a lot of synergy there. (eg. with enhanced perception, and awareness of your attention, you get increasingly nuanced views of your own mind when you make your attention the object of your meditation)

There are many pitfalls along the path to these skills. One of them is clinging to the flashes of unreal joy, or the feelings of pure bliss and calm, or the unusual perceptions of the senses like phosphenes where you start to perceive a light coming from inside your own head. It's hard to remain indifferent to these experiences.

And also, let me warn you: The experiences of a meditation practice are not all sunshine and rainbows. At some point you are likely to experience things like weird muscle spasms, or head aches, electric shocks along the spine, and almost certainly if you keep at it long enough, you will relive a lot of old unresolved traumas and/or pent-up emotions. These are part of the process, and I don't know why they happen from a scientific perspective, but it's truly fascinating to experience.

I wish I had a good explanation for some of the weirdness that will occur. I still contend that it's all neurology, but the first time I saw light appear as though from the top of the inside of my head, coupled with a feeling of just... divine bliss, it was hard to remain scientific for a while. I've also made a lot of mistakes along the way. One of them was using meditation as an escape, and clinging to the wonderful feelings. That was actually a disaster for my personal life. I became so angry when people would disrupt my calm withany tiny incongruousness and I was hard to get along with for a while.

If/when you experience these things, come on here and ask about them! There's still quite a few experienced people who've gone through the same thing, and helped me out when they came up. Just try to filter out the people that are very new to their practice. Another pitfall of meditation is the feelings of grandiosity that result from realizations of small things along the path.

EDIT: I almost forgot! I highly recommend The Mind Illuminated. It's only $16.79 on Amazon right now. Reading it was a definite turning point in my practice. It helped me recognize and get over some major obstacles. (For instance strong & subtle dullness was a problem I didn't realize I had until I read the book, and man, getting rid of that was a real game changer. It was such a natural feeling and comforting trap to fall into too.) Honestly, it was such a life-changing book for me, that I'll buy a copy for the first person to DM me their address just to increase the probability that my recommendation encourages someone to read it.

Vipasanna does provide clarity, in the sense that only through vipassana, can you see things clearly (what your anxiety actually is, for example). Samatha is used for calmness, and acts as foundation for deeper vipassana insights.

If your mind is already very busy, I'd highly suggest you practice samatha meditation. This can be done by counting the breath, observing the breath, looking at an object with eyes open - all is done to train your attention to always go back to the object of meditation (i.e. breath, object). Once you've calmed the mind, and have built a foundation for your practice, I'd then proceed to starting a vipassana practice.

As /u/LeBroney pointed out, The Mind Illuminated is one of the best guides to start a shamatha practice. Bonus... he adds in some vipassana towards the later stages - best of both worlds!

If you haven't already, check out The Mind Illuminated by John Yates. It's a stage-by-stage method so it's easy to determine which level you are at and what you should be doing to improve. It has a good community on Reddit as well.

To be clear, the claim is not that the technique will not work at all, it is that you will eventually get to a point where your lack of ethical conduct and the hindrances will hold you back from having success with the more advanced practices. (Though if you don't actually care about the advanced practices then this might not be a hindrance to you in practice.)

You don't have to trust anyone's opinion on this, of course. Part of the beauty of meditation is that it is fundamentally empirical. If you don't think that leading an ethical life is necessary to develop highly concentrated states of mind, then try for yourself and see what happens! However, it is helpful to be aware of the problems that you might face before you run into them because otherwise you might spend a lot of time stumbling around trying to figure out exactly why you are having trouble.

If you want a recommendation for a book that is all about technique to train your mind to enter highly concentrated states, The Mind Illuminated is a pretty thorough one. That book tends to focus on breath meditation, though (although the material does apply to other forms of concentration training), and if you just want something to make you feel better in the short run then my recommendation, as I said before, is that you should read up on loving-kindness meditation.

Lots of good stuff in u/spit-evil-olive-tips 's response.

My start came kind of in two parts.

Originally, I took a class at the Seattle Insight Meditation Society (SIMS). They do a 6-week Monday night class, and for me that little bit of structure was enough to get me sitting 15mins every day those six weeks. SIMS teaches very mellow Westernized Buddhism. (The philosophy, not the religion.) The next one in April is taught by Keri Pederson, who I like a lot.

That class got me enough "mindfulness" that I quickly got some starter skills for working with emotional stuff--learning to observe it just as a thing that was happening without being wrapped up in it. There's a difference between "I'm angry" and "I notice anger in me": with "I'm angry" you identify with the anger, you're wrapped up in the anger and the anger owns you. with "I notice anger", you're kind of standing besides the anger and there's still room for you to decide what to do now that you've noticed having anger. It doesn't immediately work all the time, but it gives some liberty and that grows over time if you practice.

And my understanding of the point of meditation is in that direction: lots of meditation seems to be about concentrating and watching your breath and even reaching special concentration states that are cool. But the concentration is a skill you build to use in the service of observation, and the long term goal is to observe very clearly what's happening in the moment, to be "present", to not be ruled by your emotions and thoughts, to get new freedom in how you act and live and feel.

I needed a second start because that bigger picture wasn't enough to keep me going from day to day.

The second boost came from the book The Mind Illuminated. It's a hands-on learning manual teaching breath concentration, and does so in a really practical, staged fashion. It says, "Try doing this stuff. You'll hit these hurdles. This is what you do to overcome them. When you can manage to do X, move on and try Y." Etc. It's written by a neuroscientist and presents a model of the mind that helps you make sense of what you're trying to do; it explains the peanut gallery. And you don't need to read the whole book, you can just read the first few chapters and get started. There's a subreddit for support and questions. And there are legit teachers who teach online using skype (zoom).

What kinds of meditations did you try on the apps and what happened? Was it boring, or did it "not work", or did you not see the point, or...?

Hey, so since we’re both ADHD I’m going to preface this with what I think is the most important thing needed to get into meditation; excitement about getting into meditation. I highly, highly recommend looking around on your own, watching videos, reading information on studies, whatever. Just finding whatever speaks to you and excites you and go with that.

Other than that, I recommend starting with a very small amount of time (just a few minutes), commit to doing it daily and after that, just take it easy. Meditation is supposed to be relaxing. A treat for yourself. So if you can make the time to do it every day, try and enjoy the process for what it is. If you can buy into it, be excited/curious about it and be patient with yourself, you’re golden no matter which way you decide to take.

So, I went the route of the Headspace app while listening to the Headspace audiobook for extra context/guidance. For whatever reason, Andy Puddicombe’s style of teaching spoke to me and got me excited. It just clicked and I bought in. So if you want to try going that route, awesome. The one drawback is that Headspace has a monthly fee after the introductory meditations.

What I just got recently and what I wish I had at the very beginning of my meditation journey is the book (The Mind Illuminated)[The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501156985/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_vzjrEb5XW4FJC]. It’s a fantastic “guidebook” for meditation and helps you learn to setup a practice and to sidestep common problems people run into. I highly recommend it.

This is currently the biggest source of happiness for me, takes time and patience but so damn worth it, you unlock some pretty amazing things within yourself

Check out The Mind Illuminated if you like meditation.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501156985/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_THI4EbFR5GRZC

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985 This is the book I used. It explains the whole process.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003AKZBL0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0

This books a nice compliment, it demystifies a lot of the distorted thinking that I believe people get caught up in in this area, and also tries to explain what "enlightenment" is and why you probably don't even want it.

You should check out this book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501156985/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_oapIFbR9JVF3R

I can't recommend it highly enough. I hope the reviews on Amazon do it justice.

The Mind Illuminated by John Yates

I think you might have graduated from Headspace. Check out this book (https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985/) and the companion subreddit /r/themindilluminated .

I was there, I know what you’re talking about. This is the book that straightened me out and continues to keep me meditating twice a day. The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501156985/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_1DkdEbAAT73X4

Hi! It's this book: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985

It's possible to go incredibly deep with only breath meditation. But you need good instructions and lots of practice. Check out the book The Mind Illuminated. There's also a subreddit: r/TheMindIlluminated

The Mind Illuminated, the book upon which this subreddit is based.

What you're describing is a normal process, meditation is a skill and like any skill it takes practice to get somewhere.

This is probably the best book there is about meditation - The Mind Illuminated

Easy to read with clear instructions, it's more like a course even.

I'm gonna disagree with some of the other people who responded, and rant a bit.

This is an attitude/view problem. If you approach meditation the same way you approach chores, then of course if will feel like a chore. You're approaching it in a transactional way: "If I do this activity for X minutes a day, I will derive Y and Z benefits from it". Sure, you can approach meditation like that. But in that case you're actually less likely to derive those benefits from it, you're certainly not going to enjoy it, and the only way you will stick with it will be via willpower and discipline.

Instead of a chore, try to approach it as an investigation. "I curious about how I feel right now. I'm curious about what's going on inside me right now. I'm curious about the sounds around me.". Have you tried investigating in depth what breathing really feels like? Your breathing body is keeping you alive right now. How the fuck does your body know how to do that? What does every step of the in-breath and out-breath feel like? How do different parts of the body feel when I breath in/out. How does it feel (in the body and in the mind) when you vary the length/texture/etc of your breath. You don't need to do anything, just explore how this feels right now. You're alive, you have a conscious experience of being alive, against all odds and for a very limited time. WTF does it even mean to be alive and conscious. Why not try and see what that feels like?

A practical point: say you sit for 10 min a day. Why is it a problem to sit for 10 min and not do anything? Can you make yourself a nice glass of lemonade (or a cup of tea in the winter), and enjoy it for 10 minutes without having to do anything else? If so, what's so special about lemonade/tea? Can you just sit, and relax without them for 10 minutes? What's so horrible about being a friend to yourself and allowing 10 minutes of non-doing in your life? I think it's worth investigating why we do what we do.

Some more practical stuff:

1. meditation can actually be enjoyable when you do it right and when you approach it the right way. If the way you're meditating doesn't do that for you, try meditating in a different way. There are many many ways to meditate. When you find a way that works for you, you won't have to force yourself because it will be enjoyable and interesting.
2. that said, it will be a chore sometimes. Sometimes you'll feel cranky, bored, tired, wired, horny, angry, hungry, worried, terrified, distracted, etc. That's normal, and that's not a problem in itself. It's only a problem if you make it into a problem.
3. Get good instructions. That mean no doubt ("Am I doing this right?") and it means knowing what to do when hindrances come up (see point 2.)
4. Find a meditation group to sit with and talk about your practice. Sitting with other people is a great way to motivate yourself. You might even befriend some people. I take it from your post that you're not interested in doing this in a traditional/religious settings. That's not a problem, there are a lot of groups that fit your profile. Even COVID is not a problem, there are many open and "secular" online meditation groups in all time zones.
5. If you like structure, check out The Mind Illuminated. It's probably the best meditation manual in existence, and very very light on woo-woo. Skill building/troubleshooting is approached in a staged way, enjoyment is emphasised as the most important component of the practice. And it has an entire chapter devoted to building a consistent sitting practice.

Anyway, those are some ideas that helped me. Take what's useful, throw the rest away :)

I was about to make a comment saying exactly this, so I'm just going to add to your comment. I think The Mind Illuminated actually has a chapter that describes perfectly what you're going through OP. It's called "The Dark Knight of the Soul" and it's usually one of the last hurdles to overcome before "enlightenment".

[samatha] [vipassana] A New International Awakening-Oriented Group is Opening: ha'Mind Muar (The Mind Illuminated)

Hello, friends,

I invite you to join our international TMI group, "ha'Mind Muar" (pronounced "moo-ARE"; Hebrew for "The Mind Illuminated").

The group is dedicated to meditating and training the mind as outlined in the book, with the explicit goal of reaching liberation from all suffering, also called "Awakening" or "Enlightenment."

We hold free-of-charge Zoom meetings every Sunday as detailed in this timetable, meditate, study, and share our experiences. If you're willing to place Right Effort and work diligently for your liberation, we'd be happy to have you with us.

What Will We Do?

• Achieve mastery of The Mind Illuminated
• Climb The Elephant Path all the way up to Stage Ten
• Explore Buddhist wisdom
• We'll go, go, go beyond, go completely beyond – to Enlightenment!

Oded Raz (that's me) leads the group. I've been working as a professional teacher for well over two decades, took part in Dharma Treasure's Teacher Training Course (Passaddhi group), and received personal guidance from Culadasa himself since 2017. After teaching the Hebrew TMI group for about 16 months with great results and highly positive feedback, we now begin our English journey together.

Should you wish to join us, kindly email me at [email protected], call or send a Whatsapp message (+972-52-4341771).

Website: https://www.muar.org.il/t-en

May we all living beings be happy! :-)

Depending on who you talk with, mindfulness will have different meanings. Regardless, you shouldn't dismiss mindfulness while cultivating your attention.

In the book "The Mind Illuminated", Culadasa distinguishes between attention and peripheral awareness. They both build on each other. To cultivate attention, you must reinforce peripheral awareness, because peripheral awareness is the process that "notices" that your mind has wandered. Mindfulness is achieved by the optimal interplay between attention and awareness. You have to cultivate both in meditation.

It seems that what you want is some meditation practice with more structure. If that is the case, check out the book The Mind Illuminated and /r/TheMindIlluminated

The /r/streamentry beginner's guide could also be helpful.

When I fell, it was due to PMO. I was feeling all these negative emotions pile up, and I tried to escape them--not realizing that they needed sobriety and retention to process.

For meditation I would put a timer for 1 hour. For the first 5 minutes I would breath into my belly as far as I can go (there was a lot of tightness to begin with). After a lot of the tightness faded I began to do the same but breathing into my lower back. This expands the amount of oxygen you can take in, and will make it easier to stay present.

I would highly recommend reading the The Mind Illuminated for a complete breakdown of how to meditate in a simple step by step, scientific way. This book helped me tremendously as it gives your mind things to concentrate on in the beginning and from then on, meditation becomes much more natural. https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+illuminated+mind&qid=1580755769&sr=8-1

Am am not religious. But I'm religiously spiritual. ;]

Here. It covers posture, relaxation and "intention and the breath". After you've read the instructions, set an alarm in 10 or 15 minutes, even though the document recommends 45 minutes. And do 1-2 then 3 and repeat 3 all the time until the alarm goes off. Ignore step 5 since there isn't any writings there anymore. I can recommend the book TMI instead.

There are things from Buddhist meditation in there too. A good book for learning to meditate is The Mind Illuminated by John Yates.

I checked out both the audio and text versions for free from my public library.

I practice sitting meditation as outlined in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985/ref=sr_1_1?crid=BPBZ4ELU4UL2&dchild=1&keywords=the+mind+illuminated&qid=1593805051&sprefix=the+mind+il%2Caps%2C217&sr=8-1

Whether you are into the more spiritual aspects or not, this author lays out step by step guide to sitting meditation where the breath at the nose is the object of focus. I highly recommend it if you want an in depth guide, but it is a very dense book and the first couple chapters are probably the only thing most people need to gain daily benefits.

I also like running, walking, and biking and I will use those as a form of meditation as well. I will spend certain portions of my run/ride focusing on the feeling of my legs or feet. During busy days I find that it is helpful to just say 'stop' and then try to focus on all the details of that moment. This often happens in the bathroom where there is less going on anyway!

There are many ways to do it depending on your life. Find things that are already a bit repetitive and make them intentional meditation time (doing dishes, chopping vegetables, etc)

Regret is a bitch my friend. I suffer from this as well, and I've been meditating my way through it. I'm in a similar boat as you, but I'm 47 now and jobless thanks to this damn pandemic, and taking care of two older adults, so I have to try and find a decent job from home for now (I live in Florida.)

This is not to minimize your situation. You only explained your situation briefly, and I'm certain it's gnawing at you, or you wouldn't be posting here.

I'm learning two things in my meditation. Gratitude and dealing with regret. Regret is basically just wishing things would have turned out differently, and often, there's a lot of self blame involved, and we tend to beat ourselves up because of choices we made, areas where we may have acted differently, or been less lazy, etc. Here's the thing though. We don't know if we would have made different choices that things would have necessarily turned out differently. Or even better, really.

Learning how to reframe our state of mind, to be thankful for what we do have, and to learn to process our regretful feelings, to confront them, instead of always pushing them away can help.

I don't know if you've ever considered of meditation, but this period of time we're all stuck in is a great time to start. Many of us have extra time on our hands. There are lots of free and paid sources out there for this. Headspace the app is pretty good. There are others that are free and non subscription based. One can always google Meditation for regret to get started. Two good books are Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics and The Mind Illuminated.

The first is great if you're like me and honestly ask yourself how in the hell you could meditate with the way your mind wanders along constantly, and the second is a good introduction as well. You don't need to believe in religion or woo-woo to practice meditation, and it 'can be very helpful. There are many scientific studies showing its efficacy.

Finally, don't forget to talk to someone, there's no shame in counseling or talking to someone, it's only self-improvement after all, and we could all use some more of that.

Good luck to you. Don't be so hard on yourself, and remind yourself, like I do, that life isn't a race where you're trying to compare yourself to everyone else. Lastly on that regard, go easy on social media, watching what appears to be everyone else doing better than you are can get you down, it's not a representation of actual reality - trust me.

I highly recommend reading this book: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985 The author is a neuroscientist and a Buddhist practitioner with 30 years of experience.

This has been good so far:

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985

This is a link of you stating you rarely meditate: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/comments/hwxlw9/have_any_of_you_developed_siddhis_or_spiritual/fz2s410/?context=3

Here is a link to the book which you'd have to purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1RMZTSV0WPLX7&dchild=1&keywords=the+mind+illuminated&qid=1595607144&sprefix=the+mind+ilu%2Caps%2C271&sr=8-2

Acompanho dois livros na minha prática.

O The Mind Iluminated, do John Yates. Nesse livro ele divide o processo de "iluminação" em dez partes e em cada uma tem objetivos a serem feitos e assim o estágio ser "dominado". Entre cada capítulo dedicado a um estágio tem um interlúdio que discute com mais profundidade a teoria, comparando estudos recentes de psicologia com as tradições budistas. Tem um sub, o r/TheMindIlluminated onde meditadores se ajudam pra ir passando dos níveis.

Outro livro Seeing That Frees do Robert Burbea. O livro explica os objetivos da meditação, explica bem os conceitos de samadhi, dukkha, etc. Também ensina a meditar, só que é menos sistemático do que o TMI.

E se posso sugerir outro sub, queria sugerir o r/streamentry, tem muita coisa proveitosa lá.

Some things I did in this situation:

• I got out of the house as the very first thing I did every day. Having novel environments is fantastic for keeping your mind varied instead of just stuck in the same mental rut.

• I journaled / wrote little scifi things that were in my head every day. They weren't very long — just a few handwritten pages in a pocket notebook. But doing that every day gave me a surprising amount of productive reflection.

• I meditated every single day. I started out at ~20min and worked my way up to an hour. The period where I did this was one of the mostly densely powerful periods in my life for learning more about my mind and getting better at being purposeful with it and my life in general. If you don't know how to meditate, I recommend The Mind Illuminated, especially (but not only) if you're a logic-brain type of person. PM me for a copy if you can't afford it.

• Read! Read anything at all. Self-improvement stuff when you're feeling up for it, fun fiction things when you're not. If you're into scifi and like short stories, I recommend Queers Destroy Science Fiction. Again, PM me if you can't afford it.

• Do exercises like Fear Setting.

Another reading rec:

• Replacing Guilt

I also recommend trying to keep a morning routine, if you can. I've had more trouble with that one, myself, but I've seen its value.

Ah, IMO for someone more familiar with western philosophies, Western writers do a better job of explaining and intellectually prepping before you use that initial understanding to read the more 'traditional' writers.

Since the resources can be overwhelming, I'll break it down into smaller chunks:

A) For getting motivated and figuring if you get "sold" to the promises of the practice, read this: https://dharmatreasure.org/wp-content/uploads/Enlightenment.pdfand see this video series:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0A6Rw7KnvANotice how this is basically what the ideal Stoic sage is.

B) If further interested, read the theory:

1. "What the Buddha Thought" PDF - Explains the more seemingly "weird" concepts (Rebirth, dependent origination) in scientific, western terms.https://s3.amazonaws.com/dharmatreasure/20130322--what-the-buddha-thought--handout.pdf
2. "What the Buddha Taught" Book by Walpola Rahula - Traditionally, the go to intro book for westerners, however I think complementing it with the above PDF makes it more clearer and useful for westerners. http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/What%20the%20Buddha%20Taught_Rahula.pdf

C) The actual practice (the most important thing!):

1. The Noble Eightfold Path - by Bhikkhu Bodhi https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/waytoend.html
2. Meditation : The 3 parts of the noble eightfold path actually usually need a resource on its own, since that is a really profound practice in itself.
   a) The Mind Illuminated - by Culadasa - I really recommend this book. It is a bit more comprehensive and dense than other resources, but if you are a bit more into technicalities, this would get you to pretty much all stages of awakening on its own. https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness/dp/1501156985
   Join the subreddit: r/TheMindIlluminated2.
   OR
3. Meditation b) If you aren't really into the comprehensiveness of the above book (still recommend it though), read this PDF Five Ways To Know Yourself - by Shinzen Younghttps://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/FiveWaystoKnowYourself_ver1.6.pdfand check this video series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StBTuX0tqU8

I'll quickly talk about listening comprehension, then below share some links to content that are in the ballpark of Nihongo no Mori N3.

​

> I feel like I have reached the Intermediate Plateau where I don't sense any improvement even though I put in the same amount of effort.

You're also making the same amount of progress! The issue is that our growth is linear in terms of what we learn, but there is more of an exponential jump from content aimed at learners to content aimed at native speakers.

Personally speaking, I didn't do anything special. I felt discouraged when I couldn't follow a TV show at the end of my second year abroad, gave up and decided to focus on reading. All I did for two years was read... literally just reading stuff, nothing fancy. Several dozen books. Somewhere along the long I was on YouTube for some reason and realized that I understood stuff now -- so I watched a lot of that one guy and branched out.

So... learn more Japanese! And listen/watch lots of stuff, if that's your thing.

Just know that listening comprehension isn't a black|white thing. Language is a very holistic skill and there are lots of reasons you might not understand something you hear. Taking some time to figure out what's creating fuzz for you will help you to better focus your efforts.

I wrote a post about that, but the TL;DR version is that practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

I’m sure there are more, but I discuss six reasons you might not understand what you hear:

1. Pronunciation Issues (II): Because you don’t sufficiently understand how Japanese phonemes can mutate and/or how the sounds of spoken Japanese get mapped to written Japanese, your ears provide less reliable information than your eyes (reading) do.
2. Knowledge Issues: Even if you had a pair of perfect ears, you still wouldn't understand everything you heard. You’ve also got to know the word in the first place, the nearby words providing context and the grammatical relationship between all those words.
3. Register Issues (II): Japanese sounds “shift” in fairly predictable ways to become more formal or casual, and until you learn these patterns, you’ll be thrown for a loop when you hear them. There are also common sound shifts that occur in different accents.
4. Processing Issues: Sometimes the issue isn’t that you don’t understand something, just that you can’t process it quickly enough or that you can’t retain all of what you heard. If you can take multiple listens, all of these issues will work themselves out without further aid. (if not, you're dealing with something other than a processing issue)
5. Matching Issues: Japanese is a high-context culture (II) and omits several words/parenthetical bits of information. This leads to situations where you understand what’s being said, but you aren’t sure who or what it’s referring to or feel that it came out of the blue. This ambiguity causes confusion as you go on.
6. Focus Issues: Disappointingly often, I find that I don’t understand something for reasons that have nothing to do with Japanese, but because I’ve been spacing off. Experiment with listening at different times/places or while walking. I also meditate (II / III), and I like it, but I figure you’ve already got your own opinion about that.

Listening comprehension isn’t a multiple choice test where you’re simply right or wrong. Each of the above issues contributes a bit of blurriness, and if there is too much blurriness, you won’t be able to make out what you’re hearing. (another post with 13 reasons you might have missed something, by someone else)

So anyhow, if you can understand Nihongon no Mori, here are a few other things you can experiment with:

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Stage 3: Learning about Japanese… in Japanese

You can artificially limit the amount of words you need to know by focusing on content that’s within a very specific area. (I’ll update this list periodically, but please leave suggestions!)

• Nihongo no Mori
  Japanese grammar points get introduced in simple Japanese, with lots of terribly/wonderfully scripted actions to help drive the grammar’s meaning and usage home. Particularly great for someone who knows a bit of Japanese but is struggling to break into audio Japanese content. (However, the playlist I’ve linked to assumes you know nothing).
• Benjiro’s Beginner Japanese
  In each episode Benjiro skypes with someone in Japanese and, on the right side of the screen, he writes down key phrases/vocab you might want to learn.
• Learn Japanese Pod
  Several hosts discuss a variety of scenarios in a “no textbooks allowed” approach. After talking in Japanese they break down key sentence structures and present key vocab.
• Learn Japanese with Manga
  Naoto creates a lot of cool content, but I especially like this one that I linked to. He plays through video games, and on the left side of the screen he has taken the time to organize a running grammar/vocab dictionary of the games dialogue so you can learn while watching him play.
• Let’s Talk in Japanese
  A podcast where a Japanese teacher speaks in… Japanese… about a variety of topics. What I think makes this particularly special is that, as a teacher, Tomo is well versed in the JLPT and releases “graded” episodes, from N5 to N1. Episodes are quite short (5-20min) and, in the few that I have listened to, Tomo speaks in very clear and well-articulated Japanese.