Cameron,

I’m sure Al will answer your question, but since I was going to come here to respond to Zita anyway, I thought I’d respond to you as well. I agree with Al that it is through pain and suffering that we learn the most, but suffering in romantic relationships isn’t the only type of suffering there is. Nobody gets through life without pain and suffering. It just comes in different forms to different people. It’s not just pure luck that some people have married their first love and have stuck with it. I do think that they have been more wholesome when it comes to dealing with relationships, without unrealistic expectations and willingness to work on their relationship. It still doesn’t mean that their lives are perfect. They have their own worries and their own journeys to go through.

Zita,

I’ve been trying to figure out how to better explain my point of view. To me, the concept is clear, but it’s not that easy to explain.

Imagine that there is energy in you that is free for you to spend how ever you please. What ever is the focus of your attention is where you spend your energy. I’m just talking about energy, not positive or negative energy. Just energy. Precious energy. As long as your focus is on other people, you will continue to expend your energy on others. If you never focus on your own needs, you will end up in a situation where all your energy is constantly being fed to others, whether they ask for it or not. You will end up running on empty, desperately waiting for someone else to spend their energy on you, just like you are spending it on them. When that doesn’t happen, you will feel cheated. You spent all that energy on them, and now it’s wasted and nobody is tending to your needs. Yet, all you would have to do is change your focus from them onto yourself, even for a while, and you would be replenished.

My understanding of unconditional love is that when you are so filled with love and compassion yourself, it will start to overflow towards anything and everything around you. It doesn’t matter who the recipient is, as you have all this extra love and it’s freely given to others. The concept can’t be understood if one hasn’t been filled with love. If you’re running on empty, the last thing you can do is to give unconditionally to others. You can’t. It’s impossible. The same goes for forgiveness, in my opinion. As long as you’re empty, not tending to your wounds and not using your own energy to heal yourself, and still wasting it on others, there is no possibility for forgiveness. The state of emergency continues. It could be changed at any given moment with a bit of self-awareness, but the shift is very hard to do.

This is why, Zita, it is important to focus on yourself. You are focusing on others to the extent that when the advice is to feel compassion and forgiveness towards the self in order to heal, you are more preoccupied with the selves of other people and do not acknowledge your own. You are in pain, so you must tend to your wounds. Worry about other people later, when you are healed and full of energy again. And when you are full of energy again and perhaps even full of love, letting go of the past hurts and forgiving others will come naturally.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 7 months ago by The Ruminant.
• This reply was modified 10 years, 7 months ago by The Ruminant.