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Lucy thank you, I never want to stop trying, stop learning, stop growing…
Yoga is a very personal experience and is mainly focused on concentration and the breath and that is where the poses begin. After you focus on your breathing and thoughts the physical poses come with time. Not sure if your yoga teacher was thinking of yoga as some kind of competition but I have fortunality been lucky to have very good yoga teachers who taught me that everyone can practice yoga. Unfortunality the limitations I experience I put on myself because I am competitive. I am my own worse enemy. I feel like the victum but follow the lead of my oppressors even though I know they are wrong. When I think about it, how messed up is that? lol.
For you I think you can find a much better yoga teacher. One who truly knows the foundation of a yoga practice.Lucy I don’t think I would be good communicating one on one with someone right now. I don’t feel as if I am dependable enough. For me communicating on a forum pretty much anonymously makes it easier “for me” to be honest. I have said things here I have not even told members of my family. I would actually like to continue posting on a more public forum until I am ready to communicate with someone directly which I don’t feel I am ready to do right now. I absolutely welcome you to post in this thread and would love to converse with you if you feel you want to. I am the opposite, I feel I can put it all out there to a lot of people I do not know personally but have difficulty having private conversations. I will retreat and hold back the way that I am right now.
I look forward to hearing more about you if you choose to post more.
Lisa
Have to continue on a new post…my phone. I know I need to change my views about men but how do I do that? It’s like I am waiting for someone to prove to me that I am wrong. I am also not sure I have been completely honest on this thread about what I think because what I think might be actually reinforcing my ideas about men. I don’t think I am good enough so do I focus on men who would feel that way as well? That really makes me sad.
Thank you for the kind words Anita. I feel very lucky to have found this forum.
I agree that I have to get to the foundation of what I need to do to feel like a whole person. It will be very hard to not look for it from other people because I have been searching for that all my life. I have to start over.
Thank you Anita for encouraging me to post more. I appreciate it. I wrote move on with this thread because I felt I was taking up too much of people’s time, yours included. What I have talked about in this thread fro7m my input is really what I have been going over in my head for years but I have new perspectives.
I feel as if I should be actually doing something about my problem. That has to happen. I have had wonderful input from everyone and though I do accept a lot I am not sure if I really feel it all. I feel I need to jump in the pool to see my reactions and think I would better understand myself.
With all my feelings about men I truly think my biggest obstacle is going to be how I feel about myself. I am super critical of myself. I feel as if I have the abilty to look very good because I have before and if I can keep my stress level down I can get into shape. My almost insurmountable problem is not feeling I deserve anyone. It is so ingrained in me to think I am not part of the human race and feeling like I come from another planet. I feel so poorly about myself that if anyone pays attention to me now I wonder what is wrong with their judgement. My self esteem is not good.
Another obstacle is getting myself hopeful by starting another project to improve my life and then giving up and abandoning it….and then becoming angry and depressed…
Lucy, I do not think there is a private message option as I have tried to do that as well. I know it is a lot to read. I tried to explain the way my life has pretty much gone on since birth so it took a bit of time.
How did we grow up different? I am sorry that you grew up in an unfriendly environment and that you have felt lonely. I think being an adult can only get someone so far in overcoming feelings you carry with you for a long time. I am happy for you though if you can resist negativity. Sometimes, actually a lot of the time I feel like a failure because others were able to overcome things I was not able to overcome. I can’t tell you how many times I have watched or read about someone who seemed to have the same problems as I have and the announcer or the author of the book says “and she has been married to”….or “and her children”….and then I don’t listen or read anymore because they are really not like me at all. It feels like no one out there is like me.
Survival was my only option in life. Nothing else was there for me. I used to be very active. I also practised yoga and always felt amazing after the class. Meditation is very difficult for me. It’s easier with other people because I feel others will see me not meditating so it pushes me into doing it. When I’m alone I give up after 1 minute. Something always distracts me and I have no one to answer to but myself. I believe in it though but I can’t do anything for myself unless I know I am being critiqued however subtly. I know ut works wonders for anxiety and I applaud you for being able to do it.
I want so badly to be able to help people but sometimes I wonder if I am able to give anything to anyone. Thank you for posting in my thread and I will certainly try to help you as well. Feel free to post in this thread if you like anything that you need help with. If I can not offer good advice I’m sure others can. Whatever you like.
Anita thank you for your patience.
I have a difficult time equating my feelings with “hate” when it comes to men. When I think of hate I think of something or someone you want nothing to do with.
I know that people are not thinking “oh she’s just defending herself” when I say some of the things I say but it truly is how I feel. I feel as if I am defending myself or other women when I give my opinion. I am always on guard but I truly felt one man unfairly criticised a woman and I truly thought that others who have not liked what I said were trying to intimidate me or spoke to me in a way that made me feel as if I was not valuable. I do not go up to random men and be difficult with them although on occasion thanks to my PMDD I can be quite rude to men and women, especially if I feel they have relationships. That’s when my loneliness turns into jealousy and anger. I do not single men out when I feel like that. When I am rational like I am right now I feel no irritation at the men and women passing me by in the cafe right now. I am jealous of relationships but it doesn’t result in me blaming them for being able to have them when I feel I can not.
I understand what you are saying and I hear many people use the word “hate.” I think I just view the word differently than most but that is the case for a lot of things. I don’t feel I hate men because I feel I wouldn’t want a relationship with one so badly if I did. I found it difficult to answer because I didn’t want to continue being argumentative with you when you are trying to give me advice.
I do agree that I probaly give off a vibe of stay away from me or I can be overly assuming and judgemental about the intentions of some men. I do agree somewhat that I can be prejudiced against men thinking they are all the same to some extent. I especially feel that when my emotions are running high or I feel hurt.
As someone who didn’t feel heard growing up I always live in fear that if I do not say anything then no one will when it comes to things I think are unfair. I am extremely stubborn which is why I admire extremely stubborn women and men as a matter of fact. They don’t sway. I view their stubborness as strength.
I know to have a relationship I am going to have to start to sway or be open minded but it is so hard. I was bullied in a lot of ways when I was a child and I use to cower and hide until one day I turned around and looked directly into someone’s face and said very pointedly, “I’m not afraid of you.” I came to view all men as either ones who wanted to use me, intimidate me, or mock me. They weren’t always like that but they were a good amount of the time so they were my role models for men. My grandfather who I do believe liked me and didn’t want to hurt me could be very old fashioned with his views so even if he was a better role model who would I have found like him when I should have been dating years ago? He was from a completely different generation.
I found myself drawn to men on television who were different from the men I knew growing up. I didn’t have crushes on “bad boys” or men who everyone else was having a crush on. My crushes were on men who I thought were physically attractive although they might not be to a majority of people. I was more interested in the way they acted and interacted with other people. I was fascinated with their emotional intelligence and gentle way they had. I loved their talent and their strength as well. I am not saying that all the men I grew up with didn’t have moments like that, they just had too many issues that overpowered who they could have been.
I also feel I didn’t have a female mentor of any kind growing up. I “felt”my aunts abandoned me to get married and have their own children. My real mother was never really able to overcome her issues to be a strong influence on me and my grandmother who was very practical and had a very difficult childhood was just glad to have a roof over her head.
I know I am rambling but I do agree that I am a big part of the problem as to why I have never been able to form a romantic relationship and also why I have difficulties with friendship and people trying to help me. I have more than a few issues and working all the time for little money is exhausting and I feel I do not have the time or money to get the help I need.
I still think that I can turn it around and find a way out of my loneliness. I just don’t know if I have the tools or the directions on how to make it work. I know I have to move on with this thread though and start actually doing something about my problem. Thank you again for being patient with me.
Lisa
Monk I would like to be open minded about my situation, I try to be open minded and I do read what people write and work it out. I am bitter and I do generalise when I am particularly upset. Am I prejudiced against all men? I don’t think I am, I don’t know. There have been a lot of men I admire whom I have never met but my personal experiences with them have not been so great. Even in the ones I admire I look for those flaws which do seem universal in the hope that I am proven wrong. I do believe that all people are individuals and the more individualistic a man is, meaning following his own path and not what impresses the world, is what I admire.
I have seen skeleton sledding. I am a huge Olympics fan. I would imagine it taking a lot of focus. I understand what you are trying to say about not losing focus.
I have tried to visualize myself with a man and creating the life I want but it’s very easy for me to lose focus because of my endless issues. In this particular area of my life I have been reading about “love avoidance.” Of all the things people do who have this problem, sabotaging relationships I am the queen of.
I will write down as you advise after visualizing myself with a man in a life I want to be a part of and keep telling myself that I can make it happen.
My reactions to men for me I have always felt have been in psychological self defense over feeling rejected or feeling guilty rejecting someone else. Acceptence overall in society is very important to me and I am overwhelmed by that.
I know the “men hate me” is what I think in my mind because I always thought that one man would come along and be different from most of the ones I encountered in my life but it seemed they were not interested in me and I slowly became more and more resentful, especially talking with the men who married women I knew.
I wouldn’t feel stupid at all visualizing something so wonderful. My only concern would be easily losing my focus and crashing right back into depression and bitterness again.
Thank you for the advice.
When you said the “feel” of it I thought of an older film called “Joe Versus The Volcano.” It wasn’t received well by critics and true it has flaws and can be downright silly sometimes but the core message is lovely and very meaningful. In fact I think the message is the star of the movie and overpowers everything…the acting, the comedy, the romance, the story.
Watching it is like looking into a snowglobe of something that is happening somewhere else and for a while you feel better. It’s kinda like Joe looking at his lamp in the movie, without giving away too much of the story.
Another great film is Amelie. I love that one but to find these stories you really do have to look to books and films.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.