Your decision to downsize, in my opinion for what its worth, is a sound and good one.

Happiness does not come from all the stuff we have. As you yourselves have discovered the “dream home” did not create the dream but a burden of anxiety.  That’s the thing with stuff,  more often then not, instead of enjoying it we live the fear of losing it.

I’m 55, sole bread winner, prone to depression, and getting tired – ready to re-tire. Ready or not the next sage of life is before us and the questions start to arise, what do we want it to look like? Do we continue to strive and push… how much do we really need? What is truly important. Its understandable as we grasp and hold on to the illusions of the past, how things should be even suspecting that we don’t really want those things that we fall into depression.

There is no reason for regret. Nothing stopping you from pursuing a new dream house, but you already know that you wont, its not what you or your family needs or wants. The dream “home” your seeking in the second half of life isn’t about brick and mortar and stuff.

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd – The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.” ― Fernando Pessoa

There are many levels to our relationship to the word love. In your question you appear to be asking when is it we experience Love True – true as in an experience without doubt or need of measurement?

I would have to disagree that the experience of understanding another so well that you see their problems as your own as being ‘true love’… though it might be an attribute of the experience. I don’t think it would not be enough by itself. The danger being that such an experience of loving another in that way might end in co-dependency or some such phycological quagmire.

Rephrasing the question – when do you know you are loving someone truly and being loved truly?

My best guess is that we experience being loved truly when we are truly seen, truly witnessed by another.

I see you, (I am seen) all off you (all of me) as you are (as I am) the good the bad and ugly and accept all of it, all of you (all of me). Who you are matters, (who I am matters), what you do matters, (what I do matters) … so I hold you accountable, (you must let me be accountable) … for if I did not (if you do not) I do not see you, (you do not see me) and nothing you are, (nothing I am), could matter, have meaning or purpose… and that would not be love true.

I’ve always liked the following quote from Shall We Dance

“We need a witness to our lives.  There’s a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, (love true) you’re promising to care about everything.  The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day.  You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.  Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.” – I love you true

Some questions for you

Can happiness exist without the possibility of sadness? (Enter the problem of opposites, duality and consciousness.)

What role does the ego, sense of self, play in becoming consciousness and the awakening to experience?

What is unconditional Love? How are the attributes of accountability, responsibility, discipline, purpose, meaning related to the experience of being Loved and Loving – Unconditionally?

If the condition of being unconditional a condition of unconditional Love, is it still Love?

What is Love?

If Life is Love, and the reality of Life is that Life eats Life,… are pain, sacrifice and death are also attribues of Love?

You might Josephs Campbell work helpful – Pathways to Bliss.

The longing to die is often a longing to change, mistaken as wanting to die because change requires “dying”

It is also important to remember that it takes a strong and healthy ego to let the ego go. The ego plays a necessarily role in our interactions. Thus you don’t want to kill off the ego but your attachment of your sense of self with the ego. – You are not your ego, its simply a tool that allows one to make conscious and express experiences.

No theology, apologetic, dogma…. MUST be adopted to develop one’s self/spirit. In fact, Buddha often admonished his disciples not to blindly follow his teachings but test them and verify them through their own experience like a goldsmith tests the purity of gold.  I would go so far in saying that part of the journey will require one to move past and even reject all the dogmas and such. one must leave god to find G_d

The question you ask – do you have to fully accept this theory to develop myself – suggests that you may be miss-understanding the words ‘spiritual development’ so it might help if you state what you mean by those words.

As for the Law of Vibration – I suspect there is something to it – based on my own experience

I always liked the idea of string theory, where it is the vibration of the “string” determines how they interact and create matter.  I’m not sure if that applies to the Law of Vibration or not however I like the picture it creates…. Have you even done the experiment with a magnet and metal filings – how the magnetic field of energy a-lines the filings into the pattern of the field – all the filings vibrating in the same direction, each filing influencing the other to create the pattern… Or have you been at a concert were the music a-lines everyone and you have the experience of being connected to everyone, everyone “vibrating” in the same direction, experiencing the same ‘energy’, emotions….

“Every thought, emotion or mental state has its corresponding rate and mode of vibration. And by an effort of the will of the person, or of other persons, these mental states may be reproduced, just as a musical tone may be reproduced by causing an instrument to vibrate at a certain rate − just as color may be reproduced in the same may.” – Kybalion

You may be interested to read hermetic book Kybalion – you can download a copy for free, just google it.

Coming up with a list of character traits and life choices/realities of a potential partner that would place them on a deal breaker list takes a great deal of self knowledge as well as a mature expectation of Love.

My experience lead to a realization that relationships tend to be experienced on two levels. The level of the stuff of life, jobs, family, hygiene, taking out the garbage… and how such stuff is negotiated, shared, compromise, boundaries, what is acceptable and what is not…

The other level is spiritual (might not be the right word) a sense of being that comes from being seen and known. The sense of self that by being with the other is inspired to do and be more, to expand, to support, encourage, to be present, to be seen as we are the good the bad and the ugly and loved, to be witnessed and to witness. This level is not intended to be lived in 24/7 but touched on and available especially when the stuff of life becomes troubling.

You might think that if you have the second Level everything in the first level would work it self out however the stuff of life will get entangled and confused getting in the way of the ability to connect with the second level. As Well Life demands growth, and if life requires that one person becoming requires taking a job in Canada and the other take a Job in France LOVE may require the relationship to end regardless of, and because of, Level Two.

Having a good understanding of what one expects and needs from the stuff of Life to Grow, to experience meaning and purpose (even though meaning and purpose are subjective, such attributes our attributes of the experiencing love – not a paradox) should be part of go or no go… but not held to rigidly. The stuff of life is always in flux and as you grow older growth tends to move inward … eventually a mature sense of self is not all that impacted by the stuff of life and relationship given greater space

Hi Patrick

Your statement “and now I’m where I am at because of it” was interesting.  Reminds me of the saying “It takes 1,000 ‘atta boys’ to erase one ‘you’re an idiot” and I wonder why we fixate on the negative?  It also reminded me of the saying that “You can’t change others. You Can Only Change Yourself”, which if true, suggests we hold the power to who we are… unless we give it away.

Have you seen the movie “Inside out”? In the movie a part of the psyche refused to accept ‘sadness’ which created the suffering. After watching the move the question I asked myself was how often did I have to learn the lesson that trying to avoid “bad” feelings only creates trouble. I actually cried