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PeterParticipantYes to all seven.
PeterParticipant“it is hard to know whether they are regretting their decision”… after a break-up there is a part of all of us that, no matter the nature of the break-up, wants/needs to believe/think the other regrets.
Of course such questions about the ‘other’ after a breakup are a distraction from the real work that needs to be done for personal healing. What the other person does after a break-up is not about us. Still…
My observation and experiences is that when it comes to break-ups and how genders respond or react to them the experiences are often interchangeable so it probably best not to generalize and associate one way of reacting as being gender based.
For example my own experience appears to be the opposite of yours as it was my girlfriend that broke up with me and within months found another. On my darker days I imagined if she ever regretted the decision, if she hurt as much as I hurt… but those questions never help. Even now writing about it, I feel an old sense of betrayal rise. Was the love she professed a lie. Is love a lie…
PeterParticipantEvery human being must have boundaries in order to have successful relationships or a successful performance in life.
When we begin to set boundaries with people we love, a really hard thing happens: they hurt. They may feel a hole where you used to plug up their aloneness, their disorganization, or their financial irresponsibility. Whatever it is, they will feel a loss. If you love them, this will be difficult for you to watch. But, when you are dealing with someone who is hurting, remember that your boundaries are both necessary for you and helpful for them. If you have been enabling them to be irresponsible, your limit setting may nudge them toward responsibility.
Henry CloudI found the following book helpful
Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John TownsendHaving clear boundaries is essential to a healthy, balanced lifestyle. A boundary is a personal property line that marks those things for which we are responsible. In other words, boundaries define who we are and who we are not. Boundaries impact all areas of our lives: Physical boundaries help us determine who may touch us and under what circumstances — Mental boundaries give us the freedom to have our own thoughts and opinions — Emotional boundaries help us to deal with our own emotions and disengage from the harmful, manipulative emotions of others — Spiritual boundaries help us to distinguish God’s will from our own and give us renewed awe for our Creator — Often, Christians focus so much on being loving and unselfish that they forget their own limits and limitations. When confronted with their lack of boundaries, they ask: – Can I set limits and still be a loving person? – What are legitimate boundaries? – What if someone is upset or hurt by my boundaries? – How do I answer someone who wants my time, love, energy, or money? – Aren’t boundaries selfish? – Why do I feel guilty or afraid when I consider setting boundaries? Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend offer biblically-based answers to these and other tough questions, showing us how to set healthy boundaries with our parents, spouses, children, friends, co-workers, and even ourselves
PeterParticipantWhen reading your post the thought came to mind of a need to reconcile the objective language and symbolic language when it comes to describing the expected, assumed, actual experience of the world.
For example the idea of Santa Claus being real or not real. The stories are real, the guys dressing up as him each year are real, and more importantly the idea of Santa is real in that it is related to. Does Santa have to objectively exist to be real and only then related to? Our answer to that question say about our experiences being a shame or not.
You might find the book Science and Sanity by Alfred Korzybski helpful as well as the work of Joseph Campbell.
PeterParticipantGreat questions!
”One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.”
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” – JungRelationships are the crucible in which we discover ourselves.
As you noted there is always push and pull in relationships as part of the purpose of relationships is to heal old wounds. Not only wounds created in the present but wounds that a person may have brought forward from childhood most of which are unconscious.
Your girlfriend general negativity in the morning is likely a play she created in which you play a role with the unconscious goal of healing. The role you play within that story will either confirm the fear behind the negativity or bring the fears into the light and healed. Sadly it is often true that due to our limitations that sometimes the pain of a relationship ending must be experienced in order to push someone to heal the past.
When we fall in love, this usually ushers in a special period, one with its own distinctive glow and magic. Glimpsing another person’s beauty and feeling, our heart opening in response provides a taste of absolute love, a pure blend of openness and warmth. This being-to-being connection reveals the pure gold at the heart of our nature, qualities like beauty, delight, awe, deep passion and kindness, generosity, tenderness, and joy.
Yet opening to another also flushes to the surface all kinds of conditioned patterns and obstacles that tend to shut this connection down: our deepest wounds, our grasping and desperation, our worst fears, our mistrust, our rawest emotional trigger points. As a relationship develops, we often find that we don’t have full access to the gold of our nature, for it remains embedded in the ore of our conditioned patterns. And so we continually fall from grace.
Intimate Relationship as a Spiritual Crucible – By John WelwoodLife which is love requires growth and becoming. Even a relationship where two people who have a great soul connection might have to end if the goals of two people point in different directions. That their calling/becoming might require the end of a relationship.
Have you ever asked yourself the question – What’s love got to do with it? You love someone, authentically, yet know that the relationships does not mean it should be one in which you remain together. Life which is love requires growth and becoming.
My observation has been that relationships are experienced multidimensionality – mind, body, and soul. We experience relationship in the day to day stuff of life, – taking out the garbage, cooking, cleaning, working… and then at a deeper level, spiritually, our senses of self and possibility… Both must be present for authentic relationship but more often than not we tend to pay attention to only one dimension and in doing so weight it too heavily. For example money troubles dominate and the spiritual sense of possibly we experience when we were with our partner is forgotten and neglected.
I was asked the other day what is the main attribute I look for a partner.
My answer is someone that does not panic when the love they experience in the various dimensions ebbs and flows.Very much like the book ‘How to Be an Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration’ by David Richo
PeterParticipantHow do I continue to work with the ego, rather than fighting it?
Great question.
I think to answer that question we need to understanding what the ego is and isn’t.In the west we tend to over identify with the ego while in the East the ego viewed as something to be nullified. Both ways I think get us into trouble if we are expected to live in the world.
In my opinion the ego is a valid and important part of the whole that is the Self.
The ego is not the self but a part of the Self, A part of the team through which we become aware, we become consciousness of self and set intentions. We work then do not to identify with the ego nor however do we negate it. (Fight it)Ultimately the ego is the part of ourselves that acts mostly as an observer and means through which we set intention. (The ego consciousness should not to try to control the intention only set it, observe, adjust, repeat…)
Once we stop identifying our sense of Self with our ego consciousness, the ego becomes not the captain of the ship but the navigation and communication system. Communication between the conscious and unconscious, the objective and subjective, the inner and the outer…
It is the ego through which we set our course, retrieve and store our charts/memories and pays attention. Paying attention in a way that is a doing by not doing – not labeling or measuring our thoughts as in I’m a bad person because I am a bad piano player… note the difference between labeling thoughts as bad or good and labeling an experience of some moment of time that we felt as bad or good. When we label our thoughts we have the tendency to label our ego which if identified as the self we become.
By paying attention and observing we learn we are more than the sum of our parts, more than ego consciousness and the labels/measurements we make. We learn to forgive our self’s for our failings and as we forgive ourselves, others.
Life becomes less hectic as we strive and live our truths as we know them to be in the moment, open to learning. We breathe.PeterParticipantYes you would be very welcome
PeterParticipantThe calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others; and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual strength, and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him. The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. – James Allen
Not a great quote.
I think the problem in the quote may be that it is open to a semantic reaction to the words like ‘calm’, ‘tranquil’ and ‘adapt’.For myself those words comes across as passive and as you mention apply to many people I know to whom could not be relay on. A yes man adapts and can be calm and tranquil about it but should he be relied on?
I suspect James Allen was thinking about those people who when your around them you feel yourself becoming calm and assured. However I suspect that that has little to do with there outward appearance of being calm and tranquil, something more is going on.
I’ve been reading up on the principle of vibration which address this phenomena.
These are some people who influence/vibrate from the authentically of their inner being. A authenticity that comes from a being that is a doing by not doing. When you come in contact with such people it’s kind of like when iron filings comes into contact with a magnet which influences all the filings to align themselves.Have you had an experience of being in a concert and it felt as if everyone was connected, all the ‘strings’ vibrating at the same frequency and aligned? Of course that’s music but there are those that have the gift to influence people in the same way, from their being. Some vibrate and influence for good some for ill.
January 19, 2017 at 12:16 pm in reply to: I can\'t hold down a job, I\'m thinking about throwing in the towel about work. #125735PeterParticipantThere really isn’t a name for what I do, so I call it Lifestyle Curating. The issue is, people won’t hire me if they don’t know exactly what I do. And since i’ve quitted every job I’ve ever had
Have you thought about becoming a life coach? It sounds like it would be up your ally and while taking the courses you would likely discover how to deal with your block. Two bird’s one stone.
I imagine that such understanding and coming to terms with your experience would make you great life coach.I very much related to your thoughts on wishing for cancer so that you could relax.
It sounds as if that would be a contradiction, being sick and finding that relaxing, but I understand. Knowing that you’re going to die or have a battle to fight can give a sense of purpose to waking up in the morning. Such a way of thinking or being removes uncertainty about what we should be doing as well as being acknowledged and accepted by others. Such thinking can be very seductive.
When we examine such thinking what were really seeking is acknowledgment, acceptance and certainty. The good news is that these concepts can be worked on.
You also noted a wish to die, but not suicide. That too is understandable as it represent the urge for change.
All change requires a dying, a letting go to make room for what comes next. The life death life cycle. To ego consciousness change can feel like a physical dying and so its resists it even as the inner self pushes for change. Such thoughts turn suicidal when the trickster turns them from a push for growth to one of physical death.
Your soul is pushing for growth and growth requires that we give ourselves what perhaps others were not able to give us, the acceptance, nurturing, discipline… We also need to become ok with not knowing, uncertainty and even doubt. Doubt not to be feared but seen as part of the process. (Fear is to Courage as Doubt is to Faith (faith in life))
“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” ― Yann Martel, Life of Pi
I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life.
It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi-
This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by
Peter.
January 18, 2017 at 12:18 pm in reply to: Life feeling purposeless, decisions therefore feel pointless #125657PeterParticipant“The point is there ain’t no point.” ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men (Horrible pointless movie – which was the point)
The danger of finding everything pointless is not noticing when you slip into nihilism
“The most dangerous side of nihilism, however, is that in the end it becomes happy and satisfied with itself.” But oh so empty.
Have your read Life of PI?
“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”“‘So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?’ Mr. Okamoto: ‘That’s an interesting question?’ Mr. Chiba: ‘The story with animals.’ Mr. Okamoto: ‘Yes. The story with animals is the better story.
Choose a better story.
The only way to overcome analysis paralysis and inactivity is to stop analyzing and get up and do something.
PeterParticipantThese type of thoughts gain a hold of us the more we judge and measure them. i.e I’m a bad person for having these thoughts. It is the labels and judgement that give the thoughts their power (and vibration)
Have you tried the practice of mindful awareness?
In this practice you don’t pretend that you don’t have them nor do you set yourself up for battle when you have them. Instead you allow yourself to notice the thoughts without judgment or measurement. Hello again thoughts… I’m going to move on nowThere may be a time where you might spend time to reflect on why such thoughts arise but if you do again try not to judge or label yourself for having them.
The law of attraction is actually an attribute of the principle of vibration.
To over simplify: Our thoughts affect our vibration and it is vibration that creates our reality.Personal Development of The Art of Vibration:
Mental transmutation (change) is an actual application of the principle of vibration. Perhaps you begin a heart centered way of living in your world. To change your mental state is to change your vibration. By changing your own vibration you will bend and shape your reality. (attract what you want) You may do this by an effort of action and will, by means of deliberately engaging in something that brings you joy and therefore raises your frequency. Essential oils, yoga, mantras, chanting, toning, art, reading books – any of these allows you to begin cultivating and actually shifting your thoughts, your vibration and therefore your entire life into a more enjoyable state.January 17, 2017 at 11:02 am in reply to: Life feeling purposeless, decisions therefore feel pointless #125550PeterParticipantPerhaps if we were to give it a name it would be existential depression, but at its very core i find it more logical
I could be wrong however I think the logical search for meaning and the ‘point of things’ is existential.
As a seeker for understanding and wanting to know why I very much relate to your problem. Philosophically I suspect that all such seeking ends in the absurd to which I give Albert Camus the last word. My opinion after my travel down that road is that all philosophy ends in the absurd.
Similar to Camus I concluded that the question of ‘what the point it’ is not the point and ultimately unhelpful. The point is you, you are the point and that must be enough. It is enough.
If you are going to wait until you know with ‘certainty’ what the point of some act is, you will never act. You are looking for validation externally when meaning, purpose and ‘the point’ can and will only be found internally.
I do not mean to be harsh, however as I have fallen into the same trap as you describe I can tell you the need to understand what the point is misses the point and leads nowhere. There will be no answer that cannot be logically dissected until you have proven to yourself that you were right all along and that there is not point.
I wonder if the problem is not that ‘all is pointless’ but that it has become a excuse not to live your potential. The problem then wold not be about finding the right logic but one of fear.
Fear is to courage as doubt is to faith (faith in this case that there is a point). Do not let a fear of uncertainty and not knowing keep you from life.
If I were able to send my younger self a message I would say that seeking understanding is apart of your nature so must be honored however don’t get stuck in it, don’t use it as a excused from entering into your life.
Have you read the book or seen the movie ‘Fault in the Stars’. Should Grace have avoided the experience of relationship because she saw no point and that life was meaningless?
or may Download Five for Fighting song the Reason
There was a man back in ’95
Whose heart ran out of summers
But before he died, I asked him
Wait, what’s the sense in life
Come over me, Come over meHe said,
Son why you got to sing that tune
Catch a Dylan song or some eclipse of the moon
Let an angel swing and make you swoon
Then you will see… You will see
Then he said,
Here’s a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There’s a reason for the world
You and I…Picked up my kid from school today
Did you learn anything cause in the world today
You can’t live in a castle far away
Now talk to me, come talk to meHe said,
Dad I’m big but we’re smaller than small
In the scheme of things, well we’re nothing at all
Still every mother’s child sings a lonely song
So play with me, come play with me
And Hey Dad
Here’s a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There’s a reason for the world
You and I…I said,
Son for all I’ve told you
When you get right down to the
Reason for the world…
Who am I?There are secrets that we still have left to find
There have been mysteries from the beginning of time
There are answers we’re not wise enough to see
He said… You looking for a clue I Love You free…The batter swings and the summer flies
As I look into my angel’s eyes
A song plays on while the moon is high over me
Something comes over meI guess we’re big and I guess we’re small
If you think about it man you know we got it all
Cause we’re all we got on this bouncing ball
And I love you free
I love you freelyHere’s a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There’s a reason for the world
You and I…PeterParticipantAge has very little to do with being an adult. For me I think becoming an adult involves taking responsibility for who we are and learning how to nurture and discipline ourselves as we strive to reach the best of ourselves.
The following book may be of interest
How to Be an Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration by David RichoJanuary 16, 2017 at 1:50 pm in reply to: Life feeling purposeless, decisions therefore feel pointless #125448PeterParticipantI don’t think I’m depressed, i just can’t see the ‘logic’ in doing things anymore
Depression takes many forms and you appear to be have gotten stuck in existential depression.
What is the point?What I mean is that the danger with existential angst is that we become the stories and thoughts we tell ourselves.
The good news is that you are the cure the bad news is that you are the cure. (If your story was told as fairy tale this would be the point where the hero would be slapped hard. What is this thing call logic when on the quest? )
I have read a great deal on the subject of meaning, purpose and happiness and so can save you time. Unless you are interested in the concepts of meaning, propose and happiness for their own sake you will find few answers. Looking to the concepts/logic for answers of ‘self’ will only make the pit you have dug yourself deeper.
Meaning, purpose and happiness are not matters of the intellect. They are not ‘things’ that can be found, grasped or held… they can only be experienced.
Meaning purpose and happiness exist in every moment, not to be grasped but noticed. I know that sounds trite and suspect that truth is unhelpful as like most of us we long for something objective, something we can own. Yet that is one of the tasks of the hero journey
When does a seeker become a finder? It’s not until you give up the search that you are at a place to find it.
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – T. S. Eliot
We live in a time were only the objective extraverted purpose and meaning are valued and only experience purpose when others acknowledge that we have it. We sit around asking anyone who will listen to tell us who we are, what we should do.
“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.” ― Joseph Campbell
You are your meaning. To ‘find’ it my advice is to stop asking questions and seeking logic and act.
Even if everything is pointless what does that thought of pointlessness matter? Why should that stop you from experience?
You will not find experience you long for in the eyes of another you can only experience it in experience
“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” ― Joseph Campbell
The life that you ought to be living is the one you are living! So Live it! Break out of the self-defeating cycle of analyst paralyses on thinking you must understand concepts like meaning, purpose and happiness in order to have them. Do not seek happiness and be happy.
PeterParticipantThe loss of the future that cannot be, the loss of the innocents of love is painful.
There is a time for all things and I think it’s important to take the time to mourn the loss of the imagined future that cannot be. The experience was and is important to you and needs to be respected.
Such break’s ups also cause one at a conscious and subconscious level to reexamine their expectations to love. Their relationship to love as it were. This appears to be a necessary part of our journey of growth and realization of LOVE.
LOVE may be bitter sweet yet that is what gives it flavor, such a realization keeping the door to trusting love open. The innocents of the experience of love may have been lost, bitter, while the depth of Love opened, sweet.
Despite the post, I have tried hard to stay positive. But, wow, it’s really hard to see the bright side all the time.
There is a time for all things. In general it’s ‘better’ to be positive and look and the bright side of things… However I think that can only come about after we allow ourselves to honestly experience our experiences. Break ups hurt and it’s ok to be hurt, angry, disappointed, frustrated, irrational, confused, relieved… You just don’t want to get stuck in those feelings/memories
I believe ‘trying hard’ to be positive might intensifie the swing into negativity when our act of will eventually fails us as any act of will, will. ‘Trying hard’ when it becomes grasping is a sure way of getting stuck
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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. 