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The Ruminant

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Viewing 15 posts - 241 through 255 (of 360 total)
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  • in reply to: Does the law of attraction cause more harm? #55166
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    The problem is though, EB, that one can not control the thoughts that come to your mind. So to say that there are “bad thoughts” and “good thoughts” can set someone up for downward spiral in guilt and shame. People can start to obsess over certain thoughts because they fear them, as they are “bad”, and so they think that they are “bad”. Yes, it is possible to learn how to let go of thoughts, though I’m guessing that it might be more difficult to some people. Guilt tripping them isn’t going to be very helpful, but might actually do more harm. Trying to control something that isn’t really under your control and then feeling bad about it is torturous.

    in reply to: Confusion Of The Heart #55164
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    Hello Adam Sparks!

    I read your post yesterday and found myself responding to it in an interesting way 🙂 At first, I found it hard to relate, because of the superficial differences. I don’t know what it’s like to be a young man in love with another young man. So my brain wasn’t able to find any useful information from my own past to fit your situation. This ended up being a good thing, because I wasn’t able to project my own fears and past hurts onto you. I read your post and just felt this joy reading how much love you have for this man. He really seems to be very precious to you, and I find that to be very precious in itself.

    The “bad stuff” that may happen in relationships is usually the result of our fears of bad stuff happening. We panic and try to control the situation. You already know that you can not control the love that you feel. You also acknowledge that he is far away and might want company locally, and you’ve accepted that, not wanting to control him. Perhaps the next step is to acknowledge that you are powerless in front of this great love, and that it’s OK. If you were in total control of the situation, your feelings and him, it wouldn’t be the same anymore. Romantic love needs a bit of uncertainty in order to exist. Knowing that the other person is free, yet still decides to share themselves with you is really quite wonderful.

    Cherish the feeling that you have and cherish him. Don’t let the fears take over and kill the feelings that you have.

    I also want to thank you for sharing a bit of your life, because reading your post made me understand myself a bit better and I actually feel butterflies in my own stomach because of how you describe your love for him. Love really is so very wonderful and thrilling.

    in reply to: What to do… #55005
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    Hello there!

    If your interests lie in working with children and outdoor activities, then a summer camp isn’t the only option and United States isn’t the only country to have summer camps (or other camps). Within EU you can travel and work without special permits. I don’t know if people from UK have easier access to commonwealth countries. There are different kinds of camps around the world in different climates, and when it’s winter in the northern hemisphere, it’s summer in the southern hemisphere.

    If you’ve found something that truly makes you happy, then that is just wonderful! Most of us aren’t that lucky. I still would urge you to get your degree and obtain other beneficial skills. None of the knowledge is wasted, and it might all come in handy if some day you want to create a camp of your own. You have the motivation right there, but now you just need to make a connection with what you are doing right now and how it will benefit you in your pursuit. I’m not talking about just getting a degree so that you could get access to a country. I’m saying that when you’re studying something, try to put it in the context of if you were running a summer camp for children. If you would ever become an entrepreneur, you would need all the possible skills you can get, because you’d need to do and know everything 🙂 Even if you would not want to have your own camp some day, you might need to step up and help with something, and at that time, it would be good to have the knowledge.

    What you could also do is send e-mails to some of the camps. Ask what kind of personnel they really need. What sort of specialization would they want to see?

    Also, if you want to make an impact in children’s lives, there are other options than teaching outdoor activities. You can teach a lot more and see the progress. If you want to have special memories and make an impact, then seek some of the organizations that do work in Africa. Having a degree in UK will give you something that can be precious in certain places in the world: having knowledge. But I digress…

    Point is though that there is more to summer camps than just that one aspect. They need to be managed just like any other venture, and they need people with skills. If I understood you correctly and you are studying IT, then that’s the one skill that will make you desired almost anywhere (speaking from experience). You’d just need to make sure that IT wouldn’t be the only thing that you did! 🙂

    in reply to: I cannot seem to deal with my past. #54982
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    Hi Matt,

    I’ll offer you my point of view, which isn’t really based on any particular teaching, but is just how I view this world. I don’t claim my view to be any kind of absolute truth. Just something I’ve observed in myself and in others. So handle my words with a healthy amount of skepticism, but try to keep an open mind 🙂

    I think we are all tender and vulnerable, but then life happens and we experience things that hurt us deeply. We get scared, and while we’re scared and seek for protection and understanding from others, our pleas for help might be dismissed. Left to our own devices, we start to create these shields at a very young age and as a result, we have these rather immature ways of coping with stressful situations. When we feel under threat, we automatically summon this bigger, meaner big brother or sister, that quickly hurts the person back who tried to hurt us. Or who we perceived to be hurting us. I think that we all have these reactionary sides to our personality. It might be the only way to feel safe when we are younger and feel powerless. When we get older, we start to suffer from the consequences of those actions, so it’s time to learn new ways to protect ourselves.

    I personally don’t see evil as some kind of force. I see it as a void, where love and compassion has seized to exist for what ever reason. Darkness can not exist when there is light, but when the light goes out, everything becomes dark and cold again.

    In my humble opinion, you need to start tending to your tender and vulnerable core. Give more room for the part of you that is in desperate need to be seen and heard, to be loved and respected. You can’t outsource that, though it is of course a good idea to seek people who are kind and loving (and try to steer clear from those who also try to suppress their emotions). Speaking from experience, it is not easy. To open up, even when alone, seems to trigger this other part that was created to protect from hurt. It requires a lot of time and patience to learn how to calm down when things inside your mind gets heated. Probably a lot of painful thoughts come to the surface, and you’ll have to acknowledge them. What has happened, has happened, and it can’t be changed now. Reality needs to be acknowledged and accepted, but you can do it without passing judgment. You’ll probably realise that when you can look at things with love and compassion, guilt and shame turn into sadness and deep understanding. You accept responsibility and forgive yourself.

    You have the possibility to oversee these different parts of yourself; the vulnerable part that feels like other people are taking advantage of, and the aggressive counterpart that reacts to the hurt with actions that get you into trouble. Nobody can actually take advantage of you without your permission. When we’re children and teenagers, it’s a different story, but as adults, we can set boundaries and we are in charge of what we give and receive. You don’t have to borrow money to anyone, even if they ask or try to guilt trip you. You can say “no”. If you do decide to lend money, only lend as much as you can afford to lose. If someone doesn’t pay you back, then that’s their wrongful actions, not yours. That is just an example, but I think it’s good for you to recognize that you actually have power over yourself and your own life. Set your boundaries and also give more room for your neglected self. No other person can do this for you. As you experienced, even a therapist can completely fail to see and hear you, as they are too busy focusing on the superficial. But you know yourself and you know what you need deep down. So give yourself that what you need.

    There’s this documentary that I’d like to share with you. It is about Vipassana meditation and how it was used in a prison in India. The documentary actually made me want to take a Vipassana course, which I will some day (they only have one once per year in my country). I think it is a wonderful story of how one can come to terms with the painful reality and learn to react to it with compassion, rather than avoidance. You can watch the whole documentary in YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg

    I actually have been writing this for about an hour already + some ruminating in my mind before that. It’s difficult, because I know exactly what I want to tell you and make you see, but it is so difficult to put it into words and to organize the thoughts that are actually feelings. You are loved and already forgiven, you are seen and heard, but you just don’t know it yet.

    Having a tender and vulnerable spirit doesn’t take away from your masculinity, by the way. A man with a kind and loving heart is much more powerful than a man who denies his own humanity.

    in reply to: Just a logical theory making everything pointless for me. #54951
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    If the world works according to your deterministic view, then how is it fake? Isn’t it then exactly what it’s supposed to be? If there is no wiggle room for choices, then everything is authentic, because what else could it be?

    in reply to: Just a logical theory making everything pointless for me. #54857
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    If there is no free will, then whether or not you’ll end up running around naked will either happen or not. It’s not your choice then. It still wouldn’t make everything meaningless or pointless. I think it’s quite interesting to see how everything plays out.

    in reply to: Is seeking re-assurance a bad thing ? #54838
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    Zita, I’ve been doing similar things myself. I have chosen the kind of partners that were never really pleased with me and then I sought for their approval. I don’t know what that was all about, but I know I did it, and that just means that I could stop doing that and that it wasn’t actually about me somehow being worse than others. I needed to shift my thinking a bit, and I am still shifting it. I still give my power away to other people and seek their approval a bit too much. But when ever I place my focus back on myself and what I want, and realize that it is my life and my body and my mind and I get to take care of it in what ever way I want, it feels so good…

    So, there’s nothing wrong with you. Your thinking has just shifted, and you can shift it back. You are the most important person in your life, and if you keep telling yourself that someone else’s opinion matters more than your own, then that’s not a very nice thing to tell yourself, is it? Of course we want to be accepted by other people. I would say that it’s even a basic need. But that comes easier when you accept yourself first. Other people will treat you the way you think you should be treated.

    I think you’ll be OK 😉

    • This reply was modified 10 years, 8 months ago by The Ruminant.
    • This reply was modified 10 years, 8 months ago by The Ruminant.
    in reply to: Help Me Understand My Actions, Please. #54805
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    This is just my personal opinion, but I think that most obsessive things that we do are a form of self-protection. Not very efficient in what they’re supposed to do, but there’s some kind of logic behind it.

    I’m a rather controlling personality. It might not be obvious, as I’m also laid-back, but my brain is constantly doing some kind of calculations and I’m very aware of my surroundings and the subtleties in it. It is very annoying, so I do try to actively let go…occasionally. Not constantly, but now and again. In a safe place, when I’m alone, I imagine letting go of everything. Accepting that the world will continue to function without my awareness of what is happening in it. I can turn my back on everything for a moment and trust that everything will not fall apart. It is very liberating and very thrilling. I feel very light and like I’m standing on a hill, with wind blowing from every direction, and I accept it all. I don’t have to control the currents and the winds; nothing bad will happen.

    I know that I would have to do a lot of letting go in order to change the way my brain works, but for now, it’s enough for me that I can acknowledge when it’s starting to become too stressful and I can then find the release I need from the grips of the controlling brain.

    in reply to: so lost #54804
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    Hello Chelsea,

    I can understand how you feel. I don’t have any clear advice to give, only something that I can see of myself looking into the past. Hindsight 20/20 🙂 I’m not sure if it actually helps you though.

    You’re probably expending a lot of energy into wishing that things weren’t like they are right now, and that your life would be different. It takes a lot of energy to fight every moment of your existence. It leaves one exhausted and not sparing a lot of extra energy into actually getting things done. Besides, you’re kind of living in a limbo in such a situation: not really embracing and living in the reality, but not living in the fantasy life either. There are probably a lot of possibilities and opportunities around you all the time, but to be able to see them would require strength, energy and trust. There’s probably not much of those left at the moment, if you keep spending your energy on fighting, instead of going with the flow.

    I recently read somewhere a quote, that I can’t remember fully, so I’ll have to paraphrase: humility is not trying to outsmart the reality. You may hate your current job, but it might offer you a way to get where you want to be. Do the best that you can with what you have right now at your disposal.

    I sometimes think that somewhere in this world there is a person who wakes up really early in the morning and walks miles and miles to do a job that pays less than a dollar per day, and then walks back home to eat and sleep and does it again the next day. Am I above doing such things? For some reason, injecting a bit of humility in my life offers this tremendous feeling of safety and even happiness. Why fight everything, so that it would be how you want it to be right this minute? Why not do what needs to be done right now, and do it well while you’re at it? Why waste time and energy into wishing that things were different, because they’re not going to be different through magic. What if you’re not ready for Nashville just yet?

    So I guess my answer to the question of what can you do to get back in touch with the life and the universe is “humility”.

    in reply to: Is Timing Everything…? #54792
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    The reason I took a different turn on my own journey couple of years ago was that I had lost a person whom I really, really wanted in my life. Yet, my life was a complete mess and so was I. He was perfect for me, someone I had waited for my entire life, and then he was there, and it all fell apart. It was the push I needed to really seek help for my own problems. So, for me, was the timing bad or exactly what it was supposed to be? 🙂 It didn’t end up being the great romance in the conventional sense, but it changed everything for me. He is still around, supporting me and encouraging me on my way, and there is still hope for romance in the future. If it ever happens, it would be completely different to what it would’ve been, had we embarked on a mutual journey while I still had issues that needed to be dealt with.

    While you’re in pain, it’s hard to see the future and think that things might be different. You don’t know what is going to happen. What if you learned something precious from this experience and next year, the real love of your life will enter the scene? What if you helped her to see something she really needed to see? Obviously, all of this isn’t a great help when you are in the middle of a painful situation. Besides, if you focus on what might happen next, you’d miss out on what is happening right now, which is what leads to the next moment.

    All you can really do is to take care of yourself and be kind and compassionate to yourself and observe. Try to make choices that are healthy for you, and try not to hurt others in the process. Life unfolds before you all the time, and a year from now, you’ll look back and see what you can’t see right now.

    in reply to: Is seeking re-assurance a bad thing ? #54749
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    So, essentially you’re looking for reassurance that seeking reassurance isn’t such a bad thing? 😉

    The problem is, that right now you are viewing everything from the point of view of a person who is feeling insecure about herself and has given away all her power and is desperately trying to loan it back now and again from other people. If someone says that you are right and good and lovable, it’ll only give you security for a moment, but when the moment is gone again, you’ll need your fix again. It’s not a good situation for you, nor for other people. But instead of focusing on if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, why not just start taking action, right now, where you summon back all your power and hold onto it. Don’t give it away. Instead of asking someone else if something looks good on you, you dress the way you think looks good on you. Do what makes you happy. You think you did your job well? Be happy and feel great about what a wonderful worker you are. If you start to look for compliments, then you’re gambling with your own happiness. Whether other people are the sort who notice and give compliments has more to do with them and their own situation in life rather than you.

    If you do things that make you happy, then would you have chosen to be with your ex in the first place? Would you need the compliments of others if you already felt good about yourself? Perhaps you would’ve chosen to be with someone who also thought that you’re wonderful, because it corresponded with your own view of yourself. Perhaps you would feel joyous that others like your choices in life as well, if they randomly complimented you on who you are, what you look like and what you do. You can enjoy all those things, but there’s a mismatch in thinking that you aren’t good enough, but still expect other people to see you as you being good enough. Such conflicting energy, and it can’t work.

    in reply to: Help Me Understand My Actions, Please. #54748
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    I’ve done, and probably still do, something similar to what you are doing. I figured that one of the reasons would be that there’s this thought somewhere at the back of my head that if I go to the source of the pain, I can control it. If I can’t see it, or hear it, then perhaps it’ll sneak up on me and surprise me with pain. Of course, I never can control the pain, and the pain just ends up controlling me.

    I remember this one thing from a book I read about abandonment, and it said that if you step on a duckling, it’ll start to obsessively follow you around (this was from some sort of scientific/psychological experiment). Unfortunately I can’t remember what the conclusion about it was, as I was reading the book during a time that was so filled with pain, that it was hard to focus. In any case, I can understand the obsessing part, even though I have no explanation for it. Other than the idea that one keeps friends close and enemies closer; to know what is happening, to be able to control it.

    I’m sure it’s always more complex than that, but I just wanted to let you know that you’re not exactly alone with such behavior. I agree that you should definitely continue to choose the healthier option and keep the distance. Even tell him that you need some time and space to heal. Surely he’ll take good care of your pet, and you could focus on healing. It’s funny how we are fine with taking some time and giving care for ourselves when we have some visible ailment, like a broken arm, bad back or the flu. Yet, when it’s about a broken heart or injured soul or trauma from abandonment, we keep saying that we should just get on with it and move on. There’s no need to ruminate over the pain, but it is a good idea to pay more attention to how we treat ourselves and what we put ourselves through when ill.

    Be kind to yourself.

    The Ruminant
    Participant

    I believe in an afterlife, but I’m also fine with the idea that there is none. To me this whole thing about meaning of life and why are we here, and whether there is or isn’t an afterlife, is something that I’ve accepted I can not understand, nor do I need to. Just like when children are just learning basic things like walking and talking and grabbing things, you can’t expect them to comprehend extremely complex things. If they claim to understand them, then there is a very good chance that they actually don’t, but simply think that they do. Like “I know how television and radio works: you switch them on!” In the same way, you can’t expect children to get everything right, and when they don’t, you can’t punish them disproportionately. That would make no sense.

    I become quite happy when I accept the “child of the universe” role and try to focus on the simple things that are within my grasp. It is not my job to understand how everything works, even though I do examine everything and try to understand it. So I guess what I’m trying to say that it’s great to be curious and ponder about things, but it’s also great to be able to admit that I simply don’t know everything and I don’t have to. The world will continue to function the way it functions regardless of my comprehension of it. Death and what happens after that are out of my hands, no matter what I do, so why worry?

    in reply to: The most useful thing you have learned or experienced #54645
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    Well, I actually didn’t say that we have total control over how we interpret our experiences 🙂 We have control over it, especially if we’re self-aware enough, but I don’t think we have total control over anything. Also, things don’t have to be just negative or positive, but they can be, and most of the times are, neutral. Neutrality brings a lot of peace as well. There’s no need to interpret everything as a positive, especially if it gets you further away from the truth.

    in reply to: Handling excess feminine sexual energy #54593
    The Ruminant
    Participant

    Thanks, Will 🙂 I do appreciate the down to earth advice, I really do. And I think you are right with your observation “I’m not ashamed of it, but it is in my way”.

    I am the kind of person who is much more comfortable with the abstract and gets a bit perplexed with the physical world. I have a tendency to intellectualize things, and not just experience them. I observe and analyze and think, think, think… There’s a socially conditioned shame attached to sexuality, but I also have a personal kind of shame attached to it. Or perhaps it’s not shame, but more of a confusion. To let go of the thinking part and get swept away by the feeling part is a bit scary and weird to me. So I do understand and appreciate the idea of truly enjoying the physical sensations. To not attempt control it, but to embrace it.

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