I’m so scared that I’ll spend the rest of my life not doing what I want to

The source of the fear you’re experiencing in the present is coming from an imagined future.
The purpose of fear is to get our attention so that we might deal with what it’s pointing to.
As this fear is coming from a possibility that hasn’t happened yet you can change the story and start working toward your hopes by turning them in to goals. Avoid living in a imagined Future and return to the Present.

Dreams and hopes that never become goals are fantasies.

It could be that if you are focusing on the feelings that the fear creates is what is keeping you stuck.
Fight, flight or freeze. In this case the fear of a imagined future seems to be keeping you frozen. As this the fear is about a future that has not happened yet you have space to create a plan and respond (fight) to the fear and not react (freeze)

Examine your fears and let them teach you and they will dissipate.

Fear is more often than not False Evidence Appearing Real. Mediate on the stories you are telling yourself and take your eyes off any false evidence. Live now

The car goes where the eyes go. If you focus on the fear you will create it, take your eyes off the false stories and instead focus on where you want to go (goals).

Read an interesting article about justice and the difference between nature’s justice and the justice of mankind.

The laws of justice are manmade tools needed to create stable community while Mother Nature does not concern itself with concepts of the good and the bad or justice. The rain falls on the just and unjust.

Build a house on a side of a mountain that falls into the sea due to an earthquake that kills everyone inside is Life as it is. We might label such an experience as bad or karmic justice but it’s not. The needs of life and nature to endure, for the world to spin, trees to grow, fish to swim will always come before an individual need. Nature is not personal.

But it gets complicated.

Why did the person build the house on a side of an unstable mountain? Karma?

For me Karma as in the filters through which we will experience life

Paul puts it this way “For the good that I desire, I do not do; but the evil that I do not want, this I practice. … I desire to do; but the evil thing that I desire not to do, is what I constantly do.”

The buildup of karma (this life or past lives) enables us or prevents us from experiencing the world in a way we might measure as ‘good and want to experience it. For Paul to overcome this dilemma/karma he will have to do a lot of inner work.

We know but don’t always understand that pain and suffering can give birth to a great good and that a great good can also give birth to pain and suffering. What then is this thing that we measure as the good or bad?

When we step back and see life as it what we label and measurements as the good and the bad disappear. Karma then isn’t a tool of punishment or revenge but a tool of growth and awakening consciousness. Karma is personal.

Karma is personal yet we tend to project it outward because we want justice we want people to be held accountable for what they do but in a way that we can ‘see’. This might actually create “bad karma”

“First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye”

Karma is personal, about the individual and their growth, a individuals becoming (the all is one, the one all). Every path is unique so the measuring of good and bad with regards to karma does not help much. All experiences push towards becoming.

That said your path of becoming requires you to live your truths authentically as you know them to be in communities based on man’s concepts of justice.

At one level labels of good and bad disappear on another level you must act in a world with discernment of the good and the bad is required and struggled with. It is not a paradox.

We lie because of fear and insecurity.

As mentioned I very much relate to what your saying.
Sometimes I feel as if the hole I dug for myself is just to deep to get out of.
I wish I had read the books such as David Richo when I was in my twenties however I suspect I would not have had the experience to understand them at the time. Sadly “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Soren Kierkegaard

I worry at 50 that I’ve learned the lessons to late and spend to much time mourning the future that might never be.
“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.” – Kierkegaard

I don’t have any magical words of advice however I see a lot of myself in your posts so maybe can act as a warning.

Always remain open to possibility its the only way something wonderfully unexpected can happen.

I think Joseph Campbell said it best
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

“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.”

I believe, no am certain, that Joseph statement to true. I have so far been unable to put into practice what I know and so turn it to wisdom… but I guess I still hope, I think. I’m actually not sure anymore.

Follow your passion for writing, without labels and judgments of how that should look, and my feeling is that the life that is waiting for you will be amazing.

We must work for that which no work is required. do by not doing.

Perhaps something that you made yourself, a letter or picture that symbolizes where you hope to move towards?

During this time of reconciliation work you mentioned I am reminded of the symbolism behind the Christmas tree.

The evergreen representing the promise that life continues even during the cold long nights of winter when all might seem lost. Winter a time to move inward, reflect, sleep, reconcile and restore our energies that, when the time is right, leads to spring.

We decorate the promises of the tree with lights and ornaments many of which represents those that have past and our fondest memories, some bitter sweet yet more meaningful because of it. The ornaments shining and reflecting in light revealing new perspectives.

Underneath the branches of the promise of the evergreen renewal and reflecting memories of hope we place our gifts. Gifts wrapped in paper so that we might wonder what possibility lies within. Perhaps the ritual reminding us that there are hidden gifts, new possibilities, a new birth… that are still to be discovered within ourselves and those we love.

Enjoy your Christmas and being together with those you care about in embracing all the imperfections of the season. That would be a great gift for anyone.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Peter.

It just occurred to me that my problem may be that I don’t understand the concept of “letting it go”. LOL

If you figure it out and could bottle it you would be a rich man.

What does Letting go mean and what would it look like. I ask myself those question daily.
Would it be forgetting? Sometimes I wish it was and that I’d wake up one day and magically be a different me which is really a wish to be someone other then me.

Sometimes I wonder if perhaps in that moment between sleep and waking as consciousness of the sense of ‘I’ returns and we dress our ‘selves’ in our personas, expectations, fears, dreams… that I might just let go of the past and dress differently… but I don’t. Or if I do it’s in small ways.

How do I let go of the past? You don’t its past, you can’t undo it, you can’t step in the same river twice, there is nothing to hold onto.

What are your holding on to? Memory. Recalling a memory of the past is always the present

How do I let go of memory? Many people try to forget… drinking, drugs, sex….. but that method is not recommend.

How to come to terms with memory? Acceptance.

Each experience, those you might label as being bad or good has brought you to this point in space and time. You survived you are here. You are not living in denial, you made mistakes, you also had successes. Others have influenced you and you have influenced others some in ways you judge in positive ways some in negative. Good and bad both have pushed you into becoming.

Perhaps you begin to see that you are more than the sum of the memories you have of your experience and how you label them, just as others are more. Perhaps acceptance and letting go is being open to learning so that as you learn better you do better. What more can we ask of anyone? Of ourselves? Perhaps that is how we love ourselves and loving ourselves others. Maybe that is a place to start (and end)

Ravens sit on Odin’s/SELF shoulders. One is called ‘Thought’ the other is called ‘Memory’
Ravens are tricksters and co-creators of the world. We create our world though or thoughts and our Memories. Words and Memories Tricksters.

The universe/god/nature/life/SELF… demands growth and the Trickster plays the role of shaking things up, things are not as they seem, illusions, the mother bird that pushes chicks out of the nest.

Consciousness is limited in what it sees. To function the ‘I’ discards millions of bits of information every second to focus on just a few. Yet we assume that our memory of an experience is exactly as it was, even the why of others peoples intentions, and then use those memories to create the stories we live.

Accepting that we cannot know all the facts about why and how what happened a window opens to forgive ourselves when we got it wrong.

Perhaps forgiveness is letting go? Not a forgetting but a honest yes to what happened and how our experiences have influenced us, moving forward, learning better so we might do better and then the grace to allow others the same.

Recommend the book ‘When the Past Is Present: Healing the Emotional Wounds that Sabotage our Relationships” by David Richo

My real deal right now is that whenever I try to do so, there is like a voice in my head saying “it’s all useless: you will die one day”. Sometimes, it strikes me while I do everyday things and totally stops me in my will.

I very much relate, you are not alone.

My experience has been that the car/self goes were the eyes go. If you’re driving on ice and start to lose control of the car and can’t take your eyes off the tree on the side of the road that you fear you’re going to hit. You are going to hit it. Professional drivers know that to avoid the crash they must look ahead to where they want to go, the body reactions, if they trust/let it, will do the rest.

My strategy has been to notice as soon as possible when I’m looking at such questions as “it’s all useless”, acknowledge it without labeling, and then look instead at where I want to go. It’s a practice and I’m not always successful however those moments don’t last as long

Have you read the book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green or seen the movie
When it comes to exploring thoughts on existential angst that you are experiencing it does a pretty good job.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Peter.

I very much recommend the following book.
Art of Forgiving: When You Need to Forgive and Don’t Know How by Lewis B. Smedes

A problem you face is that you can only imagine what you think the impact your ex_husband actions are having on him. Right now you’re telling yourself the story that his actions have had no consequences however that is not something you cannot know as consequences tend to show up unexpected ways.

We can become the stories we tell so be careful not to fall into a story of bitterness. The car goes where the eyes go so a when you notice yourself thinking about what your ex may or may not be experiencing, acknowledge it and set your gaze onto where you want to go.
It is a practice so no labeling self judgments.

If your ex’s does not deal with his karma/filters he will inevitable repeat the same experiences over and over again perhaps believing that a new relationship will fix things without him have to make any meaningful changes.

It is true that some people are blessed/cursed with no thought for self-reflection which may be the path your ex is on but I suspect is not the path that you are on. Self realization is a difficult process. I believe that consciousness is a result of a confrontation with the problem of opposites, our expectations of what should be good, what should be bad, what is fair…

In a way you are in this moment experience the tensions between fairness and injustice perhaps asking yourself the question (if unconsciously) what is relationship what does love have to do with it, what is love, what is my relationship to relationship and to love… all which can lead you to greater self-understanding and individuation. If your ex does not experience this tension he is unlikely to grow and that you might say might be labeled as a negative consequence if you believe growth is important. (Karma/life demands growth)

With regards to karma and being reborn because of our intentional bad actions
Labels like bad and good in Buddhism tend to disappear so I’m pretty sure karma is not about our concept of punishment or justice.
As for believing in reincarnation… I have no clue… however I do know that each breath we take is a death and rebirth, life living off of life, each moment a birth, death and resurrection two which we get to respond to with a yes or no. Yes to life as it is, or no. My own experience is that saying no only ends in more suffering. (the trick is saying yes to live as it is while still engaging in life and living your truths as you know them to be in the moment – not easy)

Your experience happened, it hurts, let it hurt, but also let it connect you to your authentic self.
I am sorry to say that in my experience time does not heal, forgiveness does not forget, forgiveness leans to say yes to the experience, to life, and then just maybe if you work at it to your authentic self to which your ex was a door to pass through

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Peter.