A definition of the term ‘Spiritualty’: noun – the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. the shift in priorities allows us to embrace our spirituality in a more profound way”

Belief in or not believing in a deity is not necessary connected to one’s spirituality.

I think its important to remember that there are stages to faith and faith is not the something as belief. The examination of Deity and the concept of ‘The Good’ is one such stage

Reading through your post You seem to have equated your expectation of ‘the good’ and projected it onto a deity that is out there… somewhere in space and outside yourself. When you describe the deity he/she/it sounds like an alien being of some sort. If such an alien being existed we would in deed be screwed as we could be nothing by playthings to such a being and it would be highly unlikely that we would worship he/she/it showed up on earth one day.

I would challenge you to remove all associations you might have with words like God, Deity, Faith, Love, the Good… doing so you may discover the map, what you learned to think about such matters, is not the territory and that the journey will lead you in unexpected ways

That old black magic got me in a spell… I relate to that empty feeling of feeling empty. In my case I think coming from the sense of not living my potential. Never putting that potential to the test.

Anyway, my opinion on change is that the only way to “change” the way we feel is to accept the way we feel when we feel it. (Not an acceptance as in a giving up or resignation kind of way but away of experiencing and letting the moment flow to the next.

Most of what you posted centered on fear. F.E.A.R. is almost always False Evidence Appearing Real and you will find that if you honestly evaluate your fears that they are things that never happen. Products of a fixated consciousness that doesn’t takes is eyes off the “evidence”. A step in overcome our fears and fixations it is learning how to direct our consciousness and choose what we pay attention to.

You may also find learning about the role cognitive dissonance/distortions plays in the stories you are living out. It is my opinion that we become the stories we tell ourselves. Or at least they play a very important part in our sense of self.  I think if you look at the stories you are telling yourself that you will find allot of cognitive dissonance. Learning to identify the distortions is a required step to moving forward. Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway

You can’t change your sister however you can continue to work on yourself

You indicated that you must fight to get some peace which suggests to me that you’re aggressively engaging in the issues with your sister.

It is of course an irony that one fights for peace. You can fight as in go to war for peace but wars come at a huge cost to oneself and the lives of others. Or you can fight to find inner peace.

There is a hermetic riddle: As above so below, as below so above. As above so below – we allow ourselves to be influenced by outward factors. As below so above – we influence our outer experience by becoming the change we hope to see. Both truths are at play in every moment. The person at peace is awake to how they are influencing and being influenced. It is possible though not the goal (you can’t change others) that by finding inner peace that you influence your sister to become more conscious of how her actions affect those that love her. I know probably not what you wanted to hear

You also said that “Things always seem easy for everyone else”. I can guarantee you that you are correct in using the word “seems”. We can never know another’s thoughts, experiences, or troubles. The path to peace means letting such judgments go and stopping the comparison we make based on what we imagine other experiences are. Peace exists in the moment that you allow it to exist.

Lastly Hate is a strong word and words hove power so I might challenge you with the idea that you can love a person and still not like what they do. You can love and still hold them accountable for there actions. (it would not be love if you didn’t). This change of perspective may sound as if is semantics but I think its more then that. Only in Love will lead to the experience peace that you hope for.

Every time I have a day where I feel I’m rebounding to my old self something happens to break me.

You are at an age of transition. Moving from one stage of life into another. Life/Love asks of us, sometimes demands of us, that we grow and if we resist we might experience a lack of energy and emotional fortitude. What your experiencing may be related to wanting things to remain the same but different.  (Your family unconsciously may want you to stay the same)

You want to rebound to your old self while at the same time wanting a new self and new experiences so not surprisingly easy to break.

In this stage of life its ok for you to rediscover yourself with the understanding that the validation you seek may not come from your family. It would be nice and in time they might understand however you don’t have to wait for that. Its time to create new boundaries.  No need to rebound to your old self when a new self is waiting for you.  “You can’t step in the same river twice” anyway

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by Peter.

I think your right. The place to start to move forwarded may be with forgiveness and doing so perhaps refrain your story

Forgiveness is an Art – especially when it comes to forgiving ourselves, which is always entangled with our ability to forgive others.  We forgive others as we forgive ourselves.

Very much recommend the book ‘The Art of Forgiving’ by Lewis B. Smedes

Also Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells a story ‘the Crescent Moon Bear’ which is about forgiveness and can be found in her book, ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’ Or in audio CD “Theater of the Imagination”.  (Yes, the book intended target is women but men can learn a great deal from it as well. Especially when one embraces symbolic language and doing so realize that the symbolic words masculine and feminine are not about gender. The symbols are informed by gender but do not represent a gender)

According to Clarissa there are Four Stages to Forgiveness:

to forgo – move forward, don’t let what happened stop you from living your truth

to forbear – to abstain from punishing – holding yourself and others accountable but as punishment.

to forget –  and in do not dwell – We don’t forget what happened to us instead we do not dwell

to forgive – finding a place of being able to say yes to the experience As It Was without attachment.

To clarify when I mentioned the practice.  I was talking about something that we work on in the moment and not only when we set time aside and meditate. Mediation is where we practice the practice while practice is an intention we set in each moment we experience.

When you become aware of your consciousness becoming fixated on the past, memory, fear, wall…. you pull it back, create space, breathe and see it for what it is, the past that does not need to have any influence on the present.

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality”. -Seneca

Memory is a trickster. As you mentioned what you remember is hazy. Yet you are judging your past from the perspective on what you have learned years latter. Your 12-year-old self didn’t know what you know now so judging her by what you know now is unskillful. We all feel regret for some past action or other, but all the regret in the world isn’t going to change the past. The best we can do is that when we learn better we do better.

Its clear you have learned something about yourself from the experience and realise that such actions are not who you are or want to be… so I don’t see the point on remaining fixated on the memory.

I can certainly relate you your experience. I have a good job and work with good people but at the start of each day I feel empty and it’s an act of will to get started. In my case I think the nagging something I feel comes from the thought/intuition that I’m not doing the work I ought to be doing… That there is something I’m missing… probably relational. Only I don’t know what it is that I can do about it.

You said “I just feel as though I’m mum, wife and teacher but I’m not feeling the joy and wonder that I use to feel.”

I’ve been reading ‘The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself’ by Michael A. Singer.  Michael suggest contemplating on the question ‘who am I’. As you do so he takes you down that road to discover you are not what you do, and more then that you are not your thoughts, mind, body, feelings, memories or experiences… The Self, capital S, is the ‘I’ that is conscious.  You are not Mum, teacher, wife but the I that observes the experience of mum, teacher, wife… you are not your thoughts but the I that observes thoughts…

At first, I thought that what Michael was suggesting was at best semantics, however, I started the practice of reminding myself that ‘I am not the experience – I am the I that is observing the experience’. What I am finding is that doing so has allowed me to create some space to detach from the experience and the anxiety I was feeling.  It’s a subtle change of perspective which I trust will eventually lead me to observing what lies behind that nagging something that I’m missing – not observing