Great question Dom

I think this is one of the most important questions. If you find yourself able to say Yes to life as it is, how do you stay engaged in life. A attribute that is helpful is being able to hold what appears to be opposing ideas at the same time. Getting comfortable with Paradox

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. F. Scott Fitzgerald

How to remain engaged in life and Accept (say yes) to the life (the moment) as it is?  How to “be grateful for the thing you wished most never happened” – Steven Colbert   How to “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” – Joseph Campbell

My understanding of Buddhism engages the idea of Detachment. This is not indifference which would lead to the issues of stuckness your concerned about. Detachment is the practice of acknowledging/accepting the moment as it is without attaching a sense of self (ego) to the experience while living your truth and engaging in that moment. Can you hold the two seeming opposing actions of accepting the moment while living your truth to engage that moment?

This is action coming from a place of humility, honesty… vice anger, revenge… If one is in a brutal relationship the task is to see the relationship as it is and as Anita mentions changing what you can. Love may require that relationship end. Accepting the situation as it is in that moment does not mean you don’t stay in that situation. Accepting may be recognizing that you can’t time travel to undo the moment. Accepting is Seeing the situation as it is and acting on your truth as you know it to be in that moment.

Perhaps the problem comes down to how we define the word ‘Accepting’ ?  If accepting is a surrender you will likely end in indifference. But if acceptance is seeing things as they are then your in a better position to recognize what you might influence

As you said everyone journey is unique… well it should be – As in the Arthurian quest each Knight enters the woods where no one else has entered before.

In the task of Individuation often involves coming to terms with our mother/father complexes. Often influenced by our relationships with our parents however the idea is to learn how create healthy boundaries with regards to how we nurture (mother archetype) and discipline (father archetype) ourselves. You might say take on the responsibly of parenting ourselves. Many people are uncomfortable with such exploring as ‘blaming’ ones parents how ever the task involves seeing ones parents as unique individuals who like all people  sometimes succeeded and failed. its not about blame but becoming conscious of the lessons learned and the sorting out what you wish to keep and what you need to work on. You appear to have started this process.

Though I was never a ‘player’ I suspect there is much you learned about yourself through them. Perhaps the beginning of defining Love – What Loving and being loved might mean at a deeper level. You use the word crush interchangeable with the word love begging the question where the experiences of a crush a experience of love?  How deep did such experiences go?

I would challenge you with the concept of ‘Self Love’. Many people use the words without defining what ‘Self Love’ might look like for them. Perhaps they have a vague imagining of loving oneself might feel like but nothing with regards to what it might look like. What would loving your self look like?  How would you know when you got their? If you did Love your self how would that influence your relating to others? What is the connection? Answering these questions and the questions they create will lead to a deeper relationship with the concept of Love.

The statement Love your neighbor as your self  was not a command its a statement of fact. We can learn much about ourselves and how we Love ourselves in the ways in which we love others.

We forget that the words we use are not the territory.  In your journey time and time again you will be ask to look past the words to what they point to.

Hi Fiest

You seem to have a good handle on how to proceed. I just wanted to add that most people assume they understand what hope is and how to hope. More often then not it gets entangled with existential angst, ego, control, desire for certainty, fear of uncertainty, desire to have life conform to our demands of how it ‘should’ be… Hope confuse as a kind of passive wishing.. waiting for that ‘something’ other then what it is.

Hope is paradoxical. It is neither passive waiting nor is it unrealistic forcing of circumstances.

Hope is like the crouched tiger, which will jump only when the moment for jumping has come. To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, yet hope is not desperate. Those who hope unskillfully settle down for self comfort (verses self care) or for violence; those whose hope is skillful see and cherish all signs of new life and are ready every moment to help the birth of that which is ready to be born.

To Hope is a state of being, an inner readiness. “and yet it would not be wrong to say that the tree hopes for the sunlight and expresses this hope by twisting its trunk toward the sun” – Erich Fromm

The Practice of hope is a art.. perhaps related to the idea of Zen’s doing by not doing…  keeping ones eyes open while continuing to engage with life.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by Peter.

“Most people think of love as a feeling, but love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present.” — David Richo

Hi Jordan

It might help if you define what you and your girl friend mean when using words like soulmate and love. From the what you wrote about your girlfriend who describing Joe as her friend but not having any ‘passion for’ she is likely defining soulmate and love differently then you are.

I am worried that her love for me is not pure. I always thought of love as what’s in the love stories… I really want to understand whether my girlfriend is someone who I can trust completely.

You have answered your own question – you do not trust your girl friend. You want to know if her love is pure and if you can trust her completely and then go that her love is not pure and that you don’t/can’t trust her.

I’ll be honest I had difficulty reading past your concept of love as being ‘whats in a love story’.

Between the lack of trust and romanticized concept of relationships and love I don’t think your ready for anything deeper without out allot of personal work.  Your story reads more about a desire to have control over someone then loving them, writing down our thoughts is a tricky business so if I’m wrong I apologize.

I do not mean to be cruel. This idea of a ‘pure’ love doesn’t mean much to me. I think its something that people just say without defining for them selves what it means to them. And trust comes from having healthy boundaries and sense of self, trusting yourself. If you don’t trust yourself you will never trust another. The idea ‘completely trusting’ to me imply s having boundaries that are so ridged that any trespass will be enough to knock them down, or so week that they don’t exist.

We see things as we are not as they are. If you want this relationship to work you will have to trust her and get over her having any male friends. If you can’t do that , that’s fine, this relationship is not for you. That boundary, that choice/issue is yours. I will say this In partnerships where one gives up (asked to give up) their friends to make the other feel better about the relationship… its not love, its fear and possibly control, not relationship.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by Peter.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by Peter.
• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by Peter.

Hi Katie

Now I am in a place where I so strongly want to move out of this depression but I feel like I am not sure who I am anymore

The thought that came to my mind when I read that was a question I’ve asked myself when feeling/thinking the same way. Who would I be without this depression? The feeling being that in some perverse way I had attached my senses of self to this experience of depression. The truth being that depression provided a kind of safety net, even a odd comfort, a excuse to remain as I was/am..

My experience of depression has always been rooted in existential angst. Unskillful dwelling on meaning, purpose, loneliness. Eventually I suspect their is a tipping point where the body reacts and depression becomes chemical. Reading your post Its not clear where you are on the scale. A bit of both perhaps, each feeding the other? Have you ever talked to someone about your depression? Medication could help and give you the space to deal with the question of who you are.

I wish you all the best… you are not your depression, you experience depression…

Your Welcome Sky

I’ve found the rule of charity helps in the process of letting go. In the past I would have let a experience in which I imagined the others intentions negatively overwhelm my inner dialog for days. That’s the thing with such inner dialog is never about the person that hurt us, we aren’t actually talking to them, were talking to ourselves through a imagined them.  Such dialog teaches us more about ourselves then about who they may or may not be.  The rule of charity allows us to recolonize that and let it go.

I like your very possible explanation. no victim or villains just people.

Hi Bell
In relationships we will attempt to heal past relationships. Nothing wrong with that however most of the time its unconsciously so it can prove troubling.

My take on what you wrote is that there is some work for you to do.  You may find the book ‘How to be a adult in relationships’ a helpful guide in identifying what ‘stuff’ belongs to you and what ‘stuff’ doesn’t.