Like Mark said, take a moment to reflect before you take action. I’m also a bit overwhelmed by the amount of suffering and confusion that I witness in myself and in others, but I don’t think there is anything else to do than to be confident in your new approach to life and cultivate well-being instead of ill-being. When that fails, and it probably will at some point, then be compassionate towards yourself. Choosing compassion instead of anger and frustration yet again puts you on the path of choosing well-being instead of ill-being.

By the way, I don’t consider myself being a Buddhist, so my response isn’t based on any particular teachings 🙂

I personally see it this way: there’s either love or fear, either light or darkness. Both can’t coexist in the same moment, but I think that we all have both moments in our lives. Perhaps it’s really too black and white, and it’s probably not quite like that, but that’s my poetic vision. Almost any problem can be linked back to some fear, usually a primal fear, that we have about survival and being accepted, being good enough. Love is the feeling when you know that you are good enough and accepted, and there’s no need to fear.

Fear is part of living as a human. The moment you think you’ve figured it all out and you’re feeling fearless, you stop paying attention to and something happens and you become afraid again. The moment I forget to uphold the light, the darkness comes back. I find that the best way for me to live is when I try each day to live a life of love, but am also very aware of that other side and try to remember it’s existence. I’m only human and so are the rest of people. We become lost and scared and some of us don’t even know that they would have the option of not feeling guilt or worry. So they hold onto it. It is a shame, but what can you do other than being patient and caring, and hope for the best? With yourself and with others.

I love the “learning and knowing isn’t as joyous as learning and doing”. It’s certainly true. I know I’ve been the victim of thinking that if I just know something, it’s enough. I’ve realized that it’s not. We actually have to practice what we’re preaching. It is really interesting to watch people who say all the “right” things about how one should live and then go and do the exact opposite 🙂 But I digress…

Being indecisive sounds like lack of confidence in one’s abilities to make the right decision. You know what chips away from your confidence every time you do it? Telling yourself that you’re being bad for being indecisive. It’s certainly not going to help. When I talked about rationalizing everything, I mean the verbal talks we have in our minds. “You should do that, no perhaps you should do this, you’re going to fail if you do that…” It’s confusing and it’s pointless. When you take away those words, you’ll end up with going with your gut feeling and doing what feels right at that moment. If it ends up being the wrong choice, then you learn from it, but you don’t beat yourself up about it. None of us can know the future. And seriously, if it’s about choosing what clothes to wear, it’s not a case of life and death. In fact, you could practice with that scenario. Look at your choices and every time a voice pops in your head that starts to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, just let go of it. Tell that voice “thanks, but I’ll try something different now”.

I think we’re so used to the chit chat in our minds that we don’t even realize that it’s possible to just be and live without the constant chatter.

Hello Vera!

I understand what you’re saying and have felt something similar. My view on myself is almost a bit schizophrenic, to be honest, but it helps me to see my own part in things more clearly 🙂 I see the ego as the different roles that I take when facing the world. The things that I say to myself and to others. How I rationalize this world to myself and others. Like what you are doing now, in the same time telling yourself that you need to be better, but then resenting the idea that you need to be better.

I went through something that completely shattered my ego. I know others have gone through similar things, and probably also in situations that were very stressful. This makes it kind of difficult to help others, because I don’t want to tell you that you need to run into a problem so big that you can’t cope anymore. In any case, this rationalizing part of me just simply “shattered” and all that was left was me looking at the world without it, feeling completely exposed and vulnerable. And guess what? It was brilliant and amazing and I realized that I didn’t die, even though I didn’t have this part of me “protecting me” and making sense of things. Everything made sense even without rationalizing.

After that I started to see myself as a spiritual being, who is just great and fine as she is. The ego did grow back, but I am much more wary of it now. Once you’ve seen the world through the eyes of non-judgment and unconditional love, you know that when that impatient, judgmental and defensive voice arises within, it’s not the complete truth. It’s just an obsolete protection system developed by the brain. OK, everything I experience happens in the brain, but it is easier to comprehend it in a more poetic fashion.

So, the you, the real you, your body, heart, spirit, are loveable and great just as they are right in this minute. You are loved as you are. It’s that other part that one needs to be wary of and take control over. For example, if you feel afraid and your reaction to it is to say something mean to another person, you know that it would be better to tend to your fear in another way. Imagine being protective of yourself in a more mature way.

Does this make sense? It’s not about being more worthy, but about having a better understanding and control over yourself. And by control I don’t mean suppressing anything. Just managing things better. Stepping back a bit and seeing things in a neutral way and comforting that one part that feels lost and scared and being firm with the other part that wants things right here, right now, and so on.

That’s how I do it and that’s how I’m able to see myself as completely loveable and worthy, but also knowing that I do cause problems for myself and that I’m responsible for the problems that I have. Please note that I did not say that I’m responsible for all the bad things that happen to me. Just the ongoing problems, bitterness and so on.

Thank you for your clarification. I think that there is a difference between being offended by something and being actually hurt by something. Giving an honest and straight answer is pretty neutral and is not meant to hurt anyone, so if someone feels bad after that, it’s more likely because they feel offended. That is their responsibility and not ours. Our responsibility is to communicate clearly and compassionately. It is true that some people do not understand when they’re being told “no” in a nice way. But I’ve found that the next step doesn’t have to be being rude. If that “no” is said with determination, then usually it works. Unfortunately, some people prey on those who are somewhat insecure and not very confident in their ways, which is why I think it’s important to build one’s own confidence. It’s better than aggression, me thinks 🙂

I do not understand the idea that if someone doesn’t seemingly care about your feelings that you should then behave the same way and not care. If someone is aggressive, then why should I respond to it with aggression? How is that going to make things better or how would that help my growth as a human being?

People say and do all kinds of things all the time without realizing that it might be hurtful or scary to others. I don’t think they mean to do so. They’re just oblivious to their actions.

I agree that if something is making a person uncomfortable, then it should be expressed by clearly stating “this is making me uncomfortable”. No need for any drama or tactics.

Everyone wants to feel loved.

I’m reading this one book now, where love was defined as “attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection and allowing”. So basically, we all hope that we are seen and accepted as who we are. When that doesn’t happen, we might feel unloved.

My personal view on unconditional love is the realization that we are all loved and worthy of love even when we don’t get those needs met by the people who surround us. I also think that to understand it fully, one must experience it and that experience happens when that person is ready to accept it. Full acceptance of what one is. So essentially, it’s giving attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection and allowing to oneself irregardless of the current life situation or looks. It is very much a spiritual experience. Anyway, that’s how I see it and understand it.

I have felt that unconditional love and it changed my view completely on everything. When I look at people, I see them differently. I see incredible beauty in people who are authentic. People who try really hard to be something that they’re not seem lost, and I feel bad for them. OK, that came out a bit like I’m sitting on a high horse, and I’m really not 🙂 The point is, that once a person accepts themselves as lovable, they see others as lovable as well.

I know that romantic love is different from unconditional love, though it may overlap. Just because we feel that we are lovable, it doesn’t guarantee a success in mating. But if we feel unloved, then it guarantees a failure in human relationships.

I also have a history and a lot of experience with people who are incredibly hard on themselves. Including myself. When a person feels like they’re not enough and they’re just not lovable, they stare at the superficial things in others as well, judging.

I’m telling this to you, not because I would judge you for staring at the superficial. I’m telling this to you, because there’s a real danger that if you think that you’re not lovable as you are and you focus only on the superficial in yourself and in others, you’ll attract people who think the same and you really don’t want to try to have a relationship with a person who thinks like that. There will never be real acceptance, which is part of love and is something you need.

I think that this is the same for everyone, regardless of what they look like. It sure was like that for me. I was considered someone who was pretty and sexy, and I got plenty of looks from people, but I felt like nobody ever saw me. I felt like they didn’t accept me as I am, and were only interested in my looks. Now I understand that it’s a two way street: I needed to accept myself first to understand that there actually were also people who saw me and accepted me fully. I was just blind to that.

My point is that even if you would become the most desirable looking person right this minute, it would not guarantee love and a great relationship. It would only guarantee superficial attention, which isn’t always good. People can be incredibly vicious towards people they consider to be desirable.

What you want is the feeling of being loved and that starts with yourself. That feeling happens in you and no other person can provide it or even add to it as long as you don’t think that you are lovable as you are in this time in your life. I’m no expert on mediation, but I know that it helps. I wish I could explain that part better. For me, things just kind of happened in one moment, when I realized that I hadn’t allowed love in, which is why I felt unloved. It was I who was blocking it. Then I just made the decision to allow love in and decided to feel compassion towards myself, and then it just happened. Slightly scary experience, but it changed everything. But that was my path and I don’t know how others find theirs.

I visualize my boundaries surrounding my body, and I think that this is where everything in my life happens. Even if I think about someone else, those thoughts happen within those boundaries, within my body. So my responsibility is to be as centered as possible within those boundaries and not get lost and send my energy somewhere else. It has taken some practice, but I’m getting better at it. I also visualize how I center my energy and allow it to fill my body and radiate to the surroundings as well. That is in contrast to spreading myself thin around the globe, focusing on other people. I can actually feel the difference. I feel strong and powerful and happy when all my energy is firmly allocated in my body. I feel confused and weak when my energy is focused on all kinds of other things that aren’t even physically present.

So I guess my answer is to become more aware of your own energy and how do you use it. It’s one of those things that’s kind of hard to explain without sounding too New Ageist 🙂 Although I have looked into Chakras and energy work, I mostly just trust my own feeling and I really do feel the energy or lack of.