Profile
Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
June 2, 2026 at 10:36 pm #458348
anitaParticipantJust thinking this Tues night:
Continued the above: to connect more in mutually expansive ways is my dream, in ways that expand you and me, make the two of us more confident and peaceful within, more curious, more adventurous, hungrier for life.
Vs shutting down, contracting, hiding, numbing, depressing.
Hungrier for Life.
Anita
June 2, 2026 at 10:27 pm #458347anitaParticipantHmmm… This is big, confused:
True Love Expands you, makes you more confident, peaceful within, curious, adventurous, expansive. And if “love” contracts you, makes you fearful, numb, smaller.. why, that’s not love.
That makes a lot of sense to me, Confused. It wasn’t love that I grew up with because it contracted me, made me fearful, made me shut down to life.
Enough for tonight.
Anita
June 2, 2026 at 10:09 pm #458346anitaParticipantSo, because I have an inquiring mind, ha-ha, I asked Copilot if it’s really better to have love and lost than to never have loved at all?
Answer: “The core truth- If the love was real, nourishing, mutual, and safe, then yes — loving and losing is better than never loving at all. Because real love expands you. It grows your capacity. It leaves something inside you that remains even after it ends. But if the “love” was mixed with fear, shame, confusion, or emotional abandonment then the equation changes.”
Next, I couldn’t help but ask about your love, Confused- Answer: “What love does to Confused- Love doesn’t just open him. It destabilizes him. It activates his fear of dependence, of being needed, of needing someone, of losing the person, of losing himself… So, for him, love is beautiful but dysregulating. That changes the equation… It is better for him to love only if the love helps him regulate, not destabilize. And right now, his love for her is not regulating him. It is overwhelming him.
“The deeper truth- Confused is choosing between loving in a way that overwhelms his system vs. learning how to love without losing himself. The first harms him. The second heals him. So, the real question is not whether love is ‘worth it.’ It’s whether he has the capacity to stay regulated inside love.
“Right now, he doesn’t — but he could, with time and internal work.” Copilot
Good night/ morning, Confused!
Anita
June 2, 2026 at 9:46 pm #458343anitaParticipantHey Confused:
I just asked and the line I remembered wasn’t about dreams but about love: “’Tis better to have loved and lost- than never to have loved at all.” This is from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850).
When it’s hot, the only way to cool off (without AC) is to get into cold water or get cold water/ drinks into you and hardly move otherwise.
Lucky-non-fungi Confused 😄
Anita
June 2, 2026 at 7:08 pm #458338anitaParticipant* skin fungi,not “asking fungi”, lol
June 2, 2026 at 7:05 pm #458337anitaParticipantThank you, Confused 🙂
Dreams like you imagined them.. having dreams by itself can be pleasant, even if they don’t come true.. ? There’s a song that says something like that ( I’d like to look it up when l am back to the computer).
My favorite weather, like yours, mild, spring or fall. Even winter is better than hot, humid summers.
Funny, you mention the unpleasantness of sweating, my reaction to hot and humid was asking fungi, gross ( couldn’t get rid of that before I moved across the world to a milder climate.
🔥-😔 Anita
June 2, 2026 at 4:33 pm #458335anitaParticipantHey 🙂 Confused:
You are kind and gracious, thank you!
I wish you success in limiting your ruminations/ compulsions and finding peace and some happiness again ✨🙏✨
May indeed this almost 100-page thread be of help to others.
It’s a very warm day here, 28 degrees Celsius, a bit cooler than it was in Greece during the day (29 degrees?) I wonder what kind of weather your favorite is, and which is your least favorite 🤔
🌿🤍🌿Anita
June 2, 2026 at 8:42 am #458322anitaParticipantHello Donald:
When a parent depends heavily on their adult child for emotional support, the first step in establishing healthy boundaries is recognizing that you are not responsible for regulating your parent’s feelings. It’s not your job.
Boundaries become possible when they are framed not as Confrontation but as Clarity, and when they’re about your limits, not their approval.
It’s also important to build alternative sources of support — for the parent and for yourself — so the emotional load doesn’t fall on one relationship.
And finally, boundaries work best when they are consistent: not harsh, not punitive, just the same message delivered calmly over time, even if the parent pushes back.
Anita
June 1, 2026 at 9:50 pm #458317anitaParticipantHey Dear Thomas, Mon 9:50 pm here by the time I submit this post (Tues 12:50 am for you):
Thank you for answering me (I was afraid that you won’t).
Thomas- what you think and what you feel matter to me!
I don’t want to disregard anything that you say.
It’s very slow here in the forums, which is perhaps an opportunity for you to fully express yourself, to make yourself matter (because you do)!
Seems to me that these forums are dying, so little activity. I am here because I don’t yet know where else to be online. Like I shared with you before, the great majority of people who follow the tiny buddha home page content do so on social media- where these forums are not part of, so hardly anyone who follow tb content is aware that these forums exist.
“And I don’t really matter.”- says Thomas. Anita says: you really matter. I mean it, you do!
Anita
June 1, 2026 at 6:08 pm #458311anitaParticipantStill waiting for your answer, Thomas 🙏
I just need to know what bothers you when I post my “How are you?”- kind inquiries in recent members’ threads (including yours).
Often enough members do answer me, and that’s a positive thing, isn’t it, Thomas?
And what is it that bothers you about me re- activating threads of years ago so that I can learn from them, even if members don’t answer (most recently a member of years ago did answer- Lella)
* I am totally willing to post in this Zen Story thread on a regular basis just so to bring it to the top of list of topics so that it’s most visible.
Would you like that, Thomas?
I will continue to inquire about recent members and reactivate old threads but I will rethink it when and if I read your response.
✨️🌿✨️ Anita
May 31, 2026 at 9:50 pm #458286anitaParticipantDear Confused:
I walked with you as far as I can. I shared everything I know that might help, and now the next part of the journey is yours alone.
I’ll still be around, but I need to step back from the level of involvement I’ve had. I hope you continue exploring your inner world with patience and care. I’m wishing you peace and healing.
🌿 Anita
May 31, 2026 at 8:10 pm #458280anitaParticipantJust thinking this Sun Eve, 3 weeks since I started this thread on a Sun Eve.
As I have shared here and there, I had to say goodbye to the Winery, Oct 2021- Dec 2025, and to the taproom, 2017- April 2026. That’s a WHOLE LOT of socializing in-real- life, for which I am very grateful!
This afternoon, I met (irl), in a brewery, 15 min from where I live (by car) with K. And C., and A and D and T and M and P and JP, all of with whom I socialized in the Winery, but mosty at the taproom.
I met them this afternoon in one of the only 2 places I know in the county that allow dogs.
I tried to take in, to breathe in, all of them after 1-2 months of not seeing most of them.
Back at home, petting Bogart who got scared from the sound of dishes I dropped in the kitchen, checking the slow- slow- slow activity on tiny buddha, submitting 2 posts (to Confused and to Thomas), I figure, there’s so much more I want to do with the rest of my life. But I don’t know what it is.
To Connect is my Dream.
To connect More, is my dream.
Later- Anita
May 31, 2026 at 6:53 pm #458279anitaParticipantDear Thomas:
I care about you feeling visible here in the tiny buddha forums. I care about you feeling that you matter and that you are heard.
What would it take for you to feel heard by me? Would you like me to not re- activate old threads from years ago? Or to not ask recent members “How are you?”
Please let me know.
✨️🌿✨️ Anita
May 31, 2026 at 6:48 pm #458278anitaParticipantHey Dear Confused:
You want to have pleasurable feelings again: “romantic things… dream things… excited”-
If you weren’t stuck in over- thinking, maybe you wouldn’t be stuck in under- feeling.
I understand that she is a wonderful person: intelligent, caring and much more.
I hope that somehow things work out for you, first internally (peace within yourself), and then externally (peace in relationships with her, with others).
🌙🦉🌿 Anita
May 30, 2026 at 10:09 pm #458270anitaParticipantI agree 100% (and no less) with this input by Copilot, partly paraphrased (and that’s following more than 5 months of my massive communication with you):
“She became the imagined cure long before she ever had the chance to be a real person. You only spent three days together, and even those days were not calm or easy — yet your mind holds onto her as if she is the only path to safety, love, and healing.
No partner — especially one you barely know in real life — can carry the weight of being the cure for old wounds.
Your mind is holding onto her as if she is the only path to safety, love, and healing, but she didn’t create your wound, so she can’t be the cure for it.
The panic you feel is about losing what she represents to the younger part of you who never felt safe. Healing that fear is what will allow you to actually experience love irl.
Anita
-
AuthorPosts
