Hello Colton,

“I’d like to own a business but I don’t know in what. I just feel as if i’m running along with no idea as to what i’m doing”

Perhaps Affiliate Marketing may be of any interest to you.

It is useful in situations where one wants to turn their hobbies/passion/interests into a business. Below is a website that helps people to achieve this.

The below link has the details that you will require to know what it is all about.

http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com

 

Regards,

VJ

Hi Patricia,

“I don’t feel like I want to leave him or anything
I had been so crazy over him”

In most of your comments there is a desperatedness about wanting this person.

This doesn’t seem to be detachment. In fact this is attachment.

True love is neither attachment nor detachment.

It’s like a gardener who steps-in and steps-out only when required. A gardener who should step inside the garden when it is required to water the plants and step out when not required, else the plants will die.

It is as if  “When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily.”

It’s like if you close your hands with a butterfly inside it then it is going to suffocate, but when you open your hands and allow it to fly – there is great beauty and love in the overall experience which both you and the butterfly will internally experience. The point is we should not be holding to it.

You don’t want to badly need this person and give away everything to this person and then after a period of time when there is a setback start a new thread on tinybuddha “Loved my boyfriend a lot but only got was hurt…don’t know what to do?”. Don’t take me otherwise. Look out and you will find such threads on this forum.

So don’t have the intense neediness of this or any other person in life.

Assuming you have good relations with your mother and you love your mother. Do you desperately “need” your mother and that you somehow always want her in any case? I don’t think so. But you still love her very much. You may say a motherly love is different than a love with a spouse. A mother will send her child to an overseas country for further studies even though she cannot live without the child. That is true Selfless Love and not Obsessed Love in which there is no ‘wantingness’ or ‘neediness’ for any person. There is no suffocation within yourself and the other and in the relation.

So then after you remove this neediness, coming back to your original question of the post on how to experience love towards this person?

You may not like it but – It is by self-love and only by self-love.

It is only when we expand our love towards ourself, we become so FULL that we then extend it to others. There is no other way of true love.

See if there are any blockages to self love and inculcate more of that and extend it towards your boyfriend.

You just don’t need to do anything else and your love life will be back on track.

 

Best Regards,

VJ

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by VJ.

Hi Lumou,

Yes this definitely requires a change in perspective to transform your habit of seeking validation from others.

Yes, as you said, you need time. Take out time to make this time.

The only way to stop validation from others is to start focusing back on yourself.

§ Stop seeking validation from others.

– When you seek approval from others, you add an unnecessary step and go backwards from the direction of your own happiness.
– Make sure you do not add these steps anymore.

§ Start approving of yourself

§ Don’t give your power away.
“When you do not seek or need approval, you are at your most powerful.” ~Caroline Myss

§ Start giving yourself time, attention and care
You deserve your own time, attention, care, appreciation and of course love. Give yourself these things on a regular basis.

§ Be gentle with yourself

§ Be self-ish
– Do one thing today just because it makes you happy
– Incorporate some form of self-care and self-love into your daily routine. Also self-care and self-love aren’t a One-Time Deal. So include them on a regular basis.

§ Start the focus on yourself

– Prepare a list and do all the things that you like to do and makes you feel happy. This list should not contain something where other people are involved. You may struggle to think as to what can I do for myself that makes me happy but does not involve other people. Well, here are a few examples on the same – (below are just a few tips; add your own, and as many as you want)

•  Go and watch the sunset or simply go to a beach  (sounds cliche but worth the visit)

• Go and buy something to eat for yourself that you like very much

• Go for a walk simply to a place where you have never been before.

Of course go to a safe place. Keep walking and walking just for the heck of it. No particular agenda in mind, no destination to go, just keep going. Once you are tired or feel like you have gone far then return back. Make sure that you know the road to return back 🙂

•  Simply go to the roof, lie on your back, both hands under your head, and watch the sky

• Sit down and take ten deep breaths

All these breaths are yours – only yours and nobody else’s.

• Take a different route to your work or college. Just for the heck of it – for no reason at all

• Be still for a while

Sit somewhere in the greens or on a park bench, and be quiet for a few minutes. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. Simply sit.

• Inhale a fragrance that you like

Maybe Lavender or maybe Peppermint or maybe Rose……or whatever you like. Whatever that boosts your mood and makes you feel happy and cheerful.

• Watch the sunrise

If you have watched the sunset (in #1); now wake up early on some morning and watch the sunrise too.

• Have a good and hearty laugh.

Put some YouTube videos that make you laugh and giggle or read a comic strip if you like it that way

• Go alone to a museum or a gallery

• Become more conscious of your health

Add at least one healthy item in your breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Then add two. Continue as you wish.

• Stroke a pet

• Take a “self-spa” at home (or maybe even at an actual spa).

Take a long bath or shower, sit long in the bath tub if you prefer. Apply something of nice fragrance.

• Strike something off from your to-do list

Either something that you have been postponing for a long time or something that is easy and quick to do.

• Disconnect yourself for an hour (or minimize the time if you attend something urgent)

No phones, no messages, no social media, no emails, no internet.

• Shake yourself

Put your favorite track and dance the heck out of you. If you do not like dancing then simply put your favorite songs and listen to them.

 

The list is going to be endless. Prepare your own list.

After a few weeks of doing the above things – Stand in front of the mirror, finger-point yourself and proclaim to your own face in the mirror “You are awesome! You are so amazing! You finally did it”. Let it be even if you do not mean it. Continue acting on the above list and the ones that you prepare, which is for yourself and only for yourself.

 

■ Be aware that during this inner transformation of yours, people may provoke you by saying or doing something that may pull you back to your old habits. For eg; someone close may say “You used to do this for everyone; but now you are not. Why, what  has happened?”  Respond politely. Maybe by smiling gently or by saying nothing depending on the situation. Don’t give any reasons that from now on I am not doing anything for others but only for myself.

■ During this journey, also pay attention and make sure that you do not become so selfish, self-absorbed and self-centered that you are lacking consideration for other people. For eg; Do give a warm genuine smile and thank them when someone helps you or tries to offer you some help. I hope you get the point.

 

Best wishes,

VJ

• This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by VJ.

Hi marco,

Your comments in the latest response to me has taken the depth of the situation into a different dimension.

I re-read your original post and found the only issue of bitterness towards your wife and that other things were fine including their relationship with you.

I am sorry to bring the excerpts of the post again but that is only for the sake of the explanation.

“my two Sisters, have a real issue with my wife”
“My sisters have got an impression that my wife was not as respectful”
“lot of slurs and old complaints were made about my wife”
“10 years of underlying issues between my wife and sisters blew up again”
“sisters had now said that she did not want any future relationship with my wife” and she was no longer permitted to visit them”
“if I wanted to visit my sisters with my children that would be fine”
“My sisters are adamant my wife is a rotten apple”
“my sisters would no longer be visiting my house because of my wife”
“my sisters want to cut my wife out of the family”

But now it is seen that-
“I think they have bitterness towards me also and my wife is the easier target to cause me pain “

All of the questions at the end of your post are coming from the mind and are still nothing about your NOW. But the NOW I was referring to was to bring acceptance of the present moment which means to be in total internal alignment to the situation. This does not necessarily mean inaction. It was about – Accept and then act in accordance to what is required to the situation. Also, at times there is not much you can do about the situation externally, but requires only to be internally free. More on this below.

“At some point, I have to say enough! this is not acceptable, these conditions are not acceptable and draw a line in the sand”

But now that as you say you have already taken the required action several times and that you find your NOW unbearable and intolerable, I will be leaving with you a “3 choice formula” for this situation. This is not designed by me but coming from master Eckhart. This can be used not only in this but also in any other challenging situation in our daily lives.

I can easily make you feel “relieved and contented” by giving you permission by telling you to immediately cut the ties with your sisters. But I am not going to do that since I too come from a country (India) where significance to family and all others connected to the family are given utmost importance. And also because life doesn’t work that way – ie; you have a painful situation – simply get out of that. Life will haunt you with the same situation if it has to. So in most cases it is better to be in internal acceptance or alignment of the situation, even if you are still in it or have come out of it. (Even if you have come out of it and are still having negativity, resentment about all those people involved then chances are you may come across another such situation or the same one may give more troubles. Hence the externals change after the internals and not the other way round)

Since it is only YOU who is aware of all corners of the situation only you have to make this decision. But ultimately, whatever option you choose, it is going to be on the similar lines of what I have already suggested to you in the earlier post – Acceptance, non-negativity, non-resistance, non-judgmental, compassion, love, forgiveness, truth, harmony, non-reactivity, being in the HERE & NOW. How these can be applied to the situation and still effectively work towards the situation? – more on that below.

————————————————————————————————————–
Wherever you are, be there totally.
If you find “here and now” intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options:
i. Change the situation:
Speak up or do something that will bring about a change in the situation

OR

ii. Remove yourself from the situation

OR

iii. Accept it totally

All else is madness

If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now.
Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear. Do not pollute your beautiful, radiant inner Being nor the Earth with negativity. Do not give unhappiness in any form whatsoever a dwelling place inside you.

If you take any action – leaving or changing your situation – drop the negativity first, if at all possible. Action arising out of insight into what is required is more effective than action arising out of negativity.
Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing. Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don’t let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.

If there is truly nothing that you can do to change your here and now, and you can’t remove yourself from the situation, then accept your here and now totally by dropping all inner resistance. The false, unhappy self that loves feeling miserable, resentful, or sorry for itself can then no longer survive. This is called surrender. Surrender is not weakness. There is great strength in it. Only a surrendered person has spiritual power. Through surrender, you will be free internally of the situation. You may then find that the situation changes without any effort on your part. In any case, you are free.

Or is there something that you “should” be doing but are not doing it? Get up and do it now. Alternatively, completely accept your inactivity, laziness, or passivity at this moment, if that is your choice. Go into it fully. Be as lazy or inactive as you can. If you go into it fully and consciously, you will soon come out of it. Or maybe you won’t. Either way, there is no inner conflict, no resistance, no negativity.

If your overall situation is unsatisfactory or unpleasant, (mentally) separate out this instant and surrender to what is. That’s the flashlight cutting through the fog. Your state of consciousness then ceases to be controlled by external conditions. You are no longer coming from reaction and resistance. Then look at the specifics of the situation. Ask yourself, “Is there anything I can do to change the situation, improve it, or remove myself from it?” If so, you take appropriate action. Focus not on the 100 things that you will or may have to do at some future time but on the one thing that you can do now. This doesn’t mean you should not do any planning. It may well be that planning is the one thing you can do now. But make sure you don’t start to run “mental movies,” project yourself into the future, and so lose the Now. Any action you take may not bear fruit immediately. Until it does – do not resist what is. If there is no action you can take, and you cannot remove yourself from the situation either, then use the situation to make you go more deeply into surrender, more deeply into the Now, more deeply into Being. When you enter this timeless dimension of the present, change often comes about in strange ways without the need for a great deal of doing on your part. Life becomes helpful and cooperative. If inner factors such as fear, guilt, or inertia prevented you from
taking action, they will dissolve in the light of your conscious presence.

If you cannot surrender, take action immediately. Speak up or do something to bring about a change in the situation – or remove yourself from it. If you cannot take action, for example if you are in prison, then you have two choices left: resistance or surrender. Bondage or inner freedom from external conditions. Suffering or inner peace.

—————————————————————————————–

Based on your situation, I have excerpted the above contents that may exactly be relevant to you. Below are just a few pointers based on my understanding of the situation. So these are just examples. Do not take them in the literal sense and work it out as per your understanding and maturity of the situation.

i. Change the situation: Speak up or do something that will bring about a change in the situation

– you bring this to the table and speak to your sister’s husbands
– or you directly speak with your sisters
– or you speak to a common friend
– or discuss the situation with a relationship counsellor, either online or offline)
– if there are still see chances convince your parents to speak to your sisters
– note that this option is not only about “speaking up” but also says “take action” or “do something” – so think out what that can be
– or see even if there something to at least improve the situation

OR

ii. Remove yourself from the situation

– this can involve not visiting them
– or may be visiting them only on certain very important family functions or gathering
– stay only in touch via phone, or via other interaction modes
– you can remove yourself from this situation by moving out to another city by you having to look for another job where there will be no question of meeting one another. Again you can still remain in touch with all of them but in a non-resistive way (in which case you will accept their imperfections and apply option 3).
In case, it may be possible for you to change your job, but perhaps the changing of the kids’ schools may not be easy. Again in that case make your job change the priority, apply acceptance (no. 3) that yes it is going to be difficult towards changing the kids schools, but will have to do it.
Then people may stop you from relocating to another place, but you will have to think about it beforehand and even fake or make up a few things (like there are problems started in this job, there are no other jobs suitable for me in this city, etc.) just for the goodness of the situation by applying no 3.

[As I said these can be applied by any one and in any other situation of our life, so this option also includes things like separation or divorce but is not applicable to your situation. This may be applicable to someone who is having a painful relationship with their partner and the only option now left is to part ways.]

This may not always involve extreme removal like divorce but also applicable in situations where one has an argument with someone and walking away is the best option in which case that person is removing her/him self out of the situation.

OR

iii. Accept it totally
– the last option applies when you are unable to go with options 1 and 2, when all of your resources are over and you absolutely have nothing else to do. But remember this is about accepting your here and now totally by dropping all inner resistance.

———————————————————————————————-

At any time don’t rush to find an answer to the choices.
Sit down, Contemplate, Meditate on each of the 3 points.

Also do not stay adamant or stick to one of the options all throughout the life of the strained situation.
For example; Right now you chose No. 1 (speak up to change the situation) Speak to your sister’s husbands – then their husbands come up with something different – you may not like it fully but is somewhat better and requires slight acceptance from you – then in that case you choose No 3. (Accepting it fully)

Be very much noted that the “speak up” above is not in a negative sense of getting up and quarreling with whoever you speak to. It involves non-resistive, non-negative discussion.

It involves surrendered action.

 

Take care buddy.

~VJ

Listen to one of the world’s greatest spiritual master Eckhart Tolle on the subject.
Since you are already from a spiritual background and understand things I don’t need to tell you much – Don’t based your sense of identify got to do anything with the gender or the physical form. The ultimate idea is disidentification with the external form and more into the formless realm (soul consciousness) where the doubts you have won’t matter anymore as there is no male/female in the formless realm.

(www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s0DBFnJS2I)

Take care buddy,
VJ

Dear marco,

It is very nice to see you as a family person wanting to have all relationships close and loving towards each other.
At certain times things are beyond our control and this may always not be possible.

Getting straight to the point there were things like sharing of keys and intrusion of your privacy… but that was THEN and this is NOW. Now you have a different house and as you said you are living a happy family life within yourselves…which is really a great thing and something that many people crave for.

– you have informed your parents that you do not accept the conditions imposed
– your sisters won’t visit you
– you cannot visit them without your wife
– your wife has said she doesn’t mind if you visit your sisters but you can’t visit them with any happiness knowing how they are hating your wife
– the children who used to mix, no longer see each other and the pressure on you is growing day by day
– your sisters are accusing you of breaking family relations because you won’t visit them

“I would like to find a way to get past this issue
…for the sake of my parents and my own soul, reconciliation I must find”

 

 

– Your sister is not willing to make any amendments in their decision.
– Your wife has already made an adjustment by accommodating to the situation.
– Your parents cannot do anything about the situation as it is not directly in their hands.
– Your sisters’ husbands are not actively looking into this matter.

The only way of what you asked “to get past the issue”, the only way “to find reconciliation” is YOU.

In any conflict, only a “win-win” situation for everyone can subside the strain in the situation.
But for this, adjustments, change of belief systems, change of mindset need to be made.
As seen above, all others are not willing to make this adjustment.
So can you? Can you break the mental position of thinking that it not fair to visit your sister’s place. More below.

Excerpt: The Power of Now ~Eckhart Tolle.

“Maybe you are being taken advantage of, maybe the activity you are engaged in is tedious, maybe someone close to you is dishonest, irritating, or unconscious, but all this is irrelevant. Whether your thoughts and emotions about this situation are justified or not makes no difference. The fact is that you are resisting what is. You are making the present
moment into an enemy. You are creating unhappiness, conflict between the inner and the outer. Your unhappiness is polluting not only your own inner being and those around you but also the collective human psyche of which you are an inseparable part. The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution”

 

“How can you handle this negativity?
By dropping it. How do you drop a piece of hot coal that you are holding in your hand?
How do you drop some heavy and useless baggage that you are carrying? By recognizing that you don’t want to suffer the pain or carry the burden anymore and then letting go of it.”

 

Why not just visit your sisters to remain in touch. Without much negativity about anything. Keeping your inner space clear. Inner peace (or peace of mind) refers to a state of being mentally at peace, with enough knowledge and understanding of the situation inspite of its downsides and keeping oneself strong in the face of discord or stress.

Drop your unhappiness that you cannot visit them. It is they who are hating your wife. It is their problem. So drop the burning coal and become internally free of the situation.
You do this without much reactivity and without much resistance towards your sisters. You still do the interactions with them with peace, love and harmony.

There may still be situations that may come to provoke you. Your sisters may find chances to intentionally talk about your wife. You be non-resistant. How does it really matter when someone says something wrong. If you say I am a mad person, how will it matter to me. I know I am not. But if I believe you then I truly am. If in future something becomes truly unbearable and intolerable, then that will be handled at that stage. That will be THEN, this is NOW. You be in the NOW.

During any interactions – do not use any word to speak against your sister, against your wife or even against yourself. Simply use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love and remain in yourself.

Have no negativity about any person, situation or event.

By doing this you will have answers to both of them in the title of your thread- family as well as wife.

While you keep doing this you will soon find that life circumstances will keep changing. In due course of time all will get busy in their own lives or in the challenges and routines of their own lives. Things do not remain the same. Impermanence is a law of life.

The only bitterness in the relationship now remains between your sisters and your wife. But is this something new? This was always there. Wasn’t it? You simply made certain adjustments for everyone’s benefit and all things would be just the way they were. Regarding the ill feelings from your sisters towards your wife – let it remain as it is. Let it be handled by Life itself when/if it wants to. You continue to interact with your sisters and enjoy your happy loving family life with your wife and children.

This really does not mean that you are not loving your wife. This in fact means that you love your wife very much and hence are not involving her in a situation where she will not be treated well.

Of course have a genuine, loving talk with your wife as to why you are enforced to do this (for the goodness of the situation) and that you are really thankful and grateful to her for being supportive. Mention to her that your love towards her has increased even more because of this situation. Along with mentioning, also show that love.

 

If you are cutting the relationship with your sisters you are going to estrange the relationship even more between several people – parents, sisters, wife, children, and many others involved. Who knows – think of the “hatredness” their children may have while they interact with your children when they are grown ups. Think of the quality of relationships between your children’s wives and their children’s wives, then between your children’s children and their children’s children and all of other family members involved. Then friends of family members also start to see them in the same darkness because of what they may have heard.

This is how hatred keeps on multiplying in this world.

See to it that you are not cutting the bonds of every single relationship because of someone else’s ill behaviour whereas you can still be accommodating and loving towards everyone, including your wife, inspite of all the difficulties in the relationships.

Accept the imperfections of this strained relationship.

“Acceptance of the unacceptable is the greatest source of grace in this world.” ~Eckhart Tolle

 

Love & blessings,

VJ

 

Hi Uncertainty81,

Yes it is the inner voice that is creating all the trouble when things are going beautifully well on the outside.
So then what to do in such situations? “Never take your thoughts too seriously”.
See for yourself if you are the thoughts or are you the one who is thinking those thoughts. If you are the one who is thinking those thoughts then it means you are separate from your thoughts, which indirectly means you are not your thoughts. They are just a lie. So don’t believe them. So separate out this instant from that inner voice. Dont allow it to come to your head and disturb your inner peace. Even if they come and if they become bothersome, then dont get frustrated and push them too much. Be with them and see them as passing fog of clouds on a clear sky. Catch yourself as they arise by saying – “Ah, there they are back again. There goes my monkey mind trying to create troublesome thoughts”. Don’t engage with, or entertain any of those thoughts. Don’t give them any energy. They will die. What makes a thought feel real is the attention we bring to it. So don’t give them any attention. Soon they will be dissolved.

“Worrying or overthinking is like creating a mental script of the outcome even before it has happened and then using the same script to scare ourselves.”
Make sure your head is not creating that mental script. If we let a thought be nothing, then that’s what it will be… nothing.

Please feel free to post if you would like to.

 

Thanks,

VJ