Hi Javier

So many people have trouble asking and accepting help. Myself included. Like you it feels like something I’m just not capable of doing. Even when I do reach out their are parts of me that hold back. So frustrating getting in my own way. In my case I don’t think its my mind that won’t let me accept help but a deep routed fear of being vulnerable, rejected, asked to do something I don’t want to… so many fears. At the root of all the fears that I can’t and wont be Loved.  To live in the pain and loneliness of not taking the risk to love and be loved OR living in the pain of the fear of taking the risk and having it confirmed.  I am not a brave man.

I envy everyone, I’m jealous of peaceful and carefree they look. I’m not sure how to cope, how to live, how to get inner peace.

One thing I am sure about is that very few people are as peaceful and carefree as the look. Jealousy is a waist of time. No one gets to ‘know’ how another is experiencing themselves and Compassion only asks that we be kind, to others and ourselves, and not assume. A sure fire way of remaining stuck is comparing ourselves to others and thinking ‘if only’. In a odd way I think it gives us permission, a excuse,  to remain as we are even as we work so hard to grow and move forward.

Now I’m afraid that there are no options left

My gut tells me that the way out isn’t up but down and through. To feel what one feels without labeling or measuring. Sometimes we reach a point where all the self help and analyzing becomes a way of avoiding feeling what we feel. We keep on seeking to avoid finding.

I think of a person caught in a riptide our undertow, the more they struggle the more likely they will tire and drown.  The key to getting out of such a situation is to remain calm.

There is a time for all things. Up to this point reading through your post I picture someone who has and is trying everything except being still. If the problem comes from the mind, allow the mind to be still. That dos not mean having no thoughts but the practice of not attaching oneself a thought. Labeling , measuring , judging it, if only… our thoughts… Thoughts flow you are not your thoughts. Once can be still within the tempest of ones thoughts.

This year I start my meditation (and before I go to sleep) with the following from TS Elliot

I ask of my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing;
Wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing;
There is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for I am not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall become the light, and the stillness dancing.

And Or

Be still and know that I am G_d
Be still and know that I am
Be still and know
Be still
Be

Sometimes it helps… In the time of waiting and stillness I float. The tide takes me where it will, but I participate, to tired to fight, I notice that calmly moving a little this way or that, I have influence on the direction…

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by Peter.
• This reply was modified 3 years ago by Peter.