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Hello Anita-
I hope you are better now, I worried for you as you seemed upset in your message dated the 28 Oct. Please I am here for you if ever you need.
This conversation is proving to be deeply beneficial, when I met with my therapist on Monday evening I was somewhat astounded by the progress made in the 2 weeks since I last saw her. Indeed today marks 2 weeks exactly since I discovered this man of whom I speak was seeing someone else, we argued and I blocked him. Time has lost its sense of meaning – I have been on such a journey in such a short time.
I’ve moved past the gritty pain and can see a bigger picture now. My anger with him has subsided and I feel an urge to reconnect with him but I am holding off for now- it may not be wise to act on this feeling and I am cautious of my motivations. (I do miss him.)
Regarding a mothers love:
Yes, I can tell you how my mother showed me love but I did not notice. In advice she gave, and times she remained silent and allowed me to learn from my own mistakes. In my older years, my mother has been more outspoken and supportive. She always made sure I was safe, warm and had food. These are things I took for granted when I was a child – it just *was*.
That isn’t to say I do not have my issues with my mother, much as I love her too. She does not listen, does not talk of her feelings and is bloody stubborn at times. But hey, she is human like we. We forgive our shortcomings because we love one another.
Anyway- this is about me and I cannot speak of your relationship with your mother, as I know very little. However, we can get onto this matter of your mother if you wish, perhaps the following framework of a hungry ghost works for you too? (Or maybe not.)
Regarding the Hungry Ghosts:
The link I sent to you: when I read it a second time I felt it was somewhat misleading. I do not feel the author has the same understanding as I. A much better description is in this book – Thoughts without a Thinker: http://markepsteinmd.com/?p=1 (which I highly recommend!)
As a psychoanalyst and Buddhist, he has a good professional standing to explain the psychological and spiritual phenomena of the hungry ghosts.
First I type an excerpt from his book “Thoughts without a Thinker.”
Second I relate that to my own situation.
“…hungry ghosts represent a a fusion of rage and desire. Tormented by unfulfilled cravings and insatiably demanding of impossible satisfactions, the Hungry Ghosts are searching for gratification of old unfulfilled needs whose time has passed. They are beings who have uncovered a terrible emptiness within themselves, who cannot see the impossibility of correcting something that has already happened. Their ghostlike state represents their attachment to the past.
In addition, these beings, while impossibly hungry and thirsty, cannot drink or eat without causing themselves terrible pain or indigestion. The very attempts to satisfy themselves cause more pain…. these are beings who cannot take in a present-day, albeit transient, satisfaction. They remain obsessed with the fantasy of achieving complete release from the pain of their past and are stubbornly unaware that their desire is a fantasy. It is this knowledge that such people are estranged from, for their fantasy must be owned as a fantasy. The hungry ghosts must come into contact with the ghostlike nature of their own longings.
…. [the author gives an example from his professional practice, a woman called Tara, who was “searching insatiably for the kind of nourishment that she had once needed but that was now inappropriate to who she was as an adult woman… she feared what she most desired and was unable to experience the transitory satisfactions available to her.”]…
In the traditional depiction of the Wheel of Life, the Bodhisattva of Compassion appears in the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts carrying a bowl filled with objects symbolic of spiritual nourishment. The message is clear: food and drink will not satisfy the unfulfilled needs of this realm. Only the non-judgemental awareness perfected by the Buddha offers relief.
…This desperate longing for inexhaustible abundance is very common in the Western psyche, where is masquerades under the heading of “low self esteem”…. the Western student afflicted with such feelings must make the emptiness itself the object of his or her meditation. Only then can self-loathing be transformed into wisdom, a task in which psychotherapy and meditation may well collaborate. “
1- …hungry ghosts represent a a fusion of rage and desire.
Indeed, my anger has been a focus of this thread and was the focus of my therapy session yesterday. And desire? Yep.
Rage, anxiety and desire.
2- Uncovering a terrible emptiness within themselves
Through this event, I have finally had the strength and courage to face a deep well of loneliness and pain that I have oft avoided.
I am grateful for having met this man, who reminded me so much of myself. He encouraged a side of myself that was tenacious and empowered (not through words as such, he just brought that side out of me) and therefore, given me the strength to tackle this ominous beast.
“The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.” – Nikos Kazantzakis
I sit in this well of grief, a watchful deer. I sit through this pain and discomfort, and it is passing over me.
3- In addition, these beings, while impossibly hungry and thirsty, cannot drink or eat without causing themselves terrible pain or indigestion. The very attempts to satisfy themselves cause more pain….
I read this as being my anxiety issues. I am sufficiently anxious that I cannot ‘eat or drink’ or ‘enjoy the transitory pleasures’- I am too worried that I will be rejected. I am too worried that I will be rejected to voice my true feelings, so I with-hold. I get involved with people believing I will not fall in love with them, and then fall in love with them anyway. (By then its too late: I am in the realm of hungry ghosts.)
Ironically I get rejected because of this: either because people think I do not care /or/ because the feelings come out in intense bursts -usually in an argument or something- when the attempts to suppress my feelings have just made me anxious and behave in a strained way.
*Another* point that came up yesterday is that I am the continual pursuer, I voluntarily take all the responsibility of maintaining the relationship upon myself. I get too anxious to ‘wait and see’ how long it might take for a guy to message me first, or invite me out. I can’t handle that out of control feeling and presume that he will never take the initiative. So I do it, again and again and again. I get more anxious and an insecurity that I am not really wanted or needed starts to grow within me. This just fuels the cycle and I probably end up coming off as demanding and needy.
This is the kind of issue that ought to be addressed with CBT or psychotherapy, I am not sure meditation in this case will quell the intense anxiety that I feel in that moment.
4- They remain obsessed with the fantasy of achieving complete release from the pain of their past and are stubbornly unaware that their desire is a fantasy.
What fantasy and unrealistic expectation underpins all of my pain and anxiety?
Do I just accept that I will always feel this degree of anxiety and suffering in my romantic relationships – is this just part of who I am? Built deep into my psyche? Am I really just picking bad partners?
Yesterday I was surprised to discover that a close friend (whom I would marry in a heartbeat if I could) speaks with his other close friends about lots of matters close to his heart. Matters and conversations that have always eluded me with him. The potential for us to have them is there: he has them with others. I have those conversations with others. We do not have them with one another, but we do with others.
5- In the traditional depiction of the Wheel of Life, the Bodhisattva of Compassion appears in the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts carrying a bowl filled with objects symbolic of spiritual nourishment. The message is clear: food and drink will not satisfy the unfulfilled needs of this realm. Only the non-judgemental awareness perfected by the Buddha offers relief.
Your comment regarding this self-help crap, you said:
“How can a lifetime of reading books fill this deep well of pain”? (roughly)
This really stuck with me. It put responsibility back onto me. For too long I looked at these posers for an answer, a salvation. For too long, it was my ‘food and drink’ – because a loving romantic relationship has proved inaccessible to me. Now I know I am really on the way to working this through.
6- This desperate longing for inexhaustible abundance is very common in the Western psyche, where is masquerades under the heading of “low self esteem”
Indeed, the self help literature bullshit I’ve read would describe me as ‘having low self-esteem, and therefore picking relationships that I subconsciously know are destined to fail.’
As we discussed this is so general as to miss the point almost altogether. Not only that but they’ll slap a demeaning label on me and my partners of choice. In fact this thinking has caused me to catastrophise: “I like him, therefore there must be something wrong with him, he must be emotionally unavailable too…. this is all hopeless, destined to fail before we start!”
These self-help guru wankers give with one hand and take with the other.
7- the Western student afflicted with such feelings must make the emptiness itself the object of his or her meditation. Only then can self-loathing be transformed into wisdom
Which is what we are doing here. (Thank you once more.) And what I am doing outside of this conversational exchange.
…that was a long one eh?
With love and compassion,
Feathering my Nest
Left alone, again.
Nobody likes me enough to want to be with me.
Nobody wants me enough. They don’t love me enough.
Something is wrong with me, but I don’t know what.
I will always be alone.
(That is the hardest question you’ve asked me yet.)
RE: the hungry ghost.
I don’t think a 5 year old would understand the full implications of what I mean by this.
Grief is like glitter because you find it everywhere. It hides in plain view sometimes.
I’m sure you know of the hungry ghosts already: desperately trying to resolve a past hurt. They want to have satisfaction but they cannot drink or swallow or eat and therefore, can never satisfy themselves. They cannot understand the futility in trying to change what happened in the past.
This is a side-note but I wanted to share:
Last night I went to see an exhibition on witchcraft and wizzardy, it was a temmporary exhibition taken from the museum of witchcraft in Boscatle, Cornwall, UK. So old school pagan witch-craft, part of our cultural heritage.
For 5 years now, I have a ‘sculpture to fragility’ in my room. It is a rounded fish-bowl with a crack in it. Inside is a birds nest, resting on a pile of black tissue paper. Inside the nest are some broken egg-shells, some feathers and a dead rose head. It sits alongside a stag skull and resides over my bedroom. Its a little shrine of mine and I pay my respects to it after yoga, meditation, or after a particularly emotional event.
In this exhibition, was a birds nest with tissue paper and broken eggs: exactly like the one I have at home. Apparently, its an old spell that spinsters used to cast – they would list their wishes in a partner on paper and hide it in birds nests.
My name – Feathering my nest- is because I used to use the nickname ‘Birdsnest’ on other forums and online after the birds nest in my shrine.
xx
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. 