llah,

I’m sorry for your difficulties, dear sister, and can understand how difficult it can be to maintain a positive attitude when our mind runs away on us. Sometimes when we get caught in “mental fixation”, our mind cycles and cycles. This is much like drinking from a poisoned well, as our body drinks deeply from a painful idea and keeps at it. Fantasy after fantasy arises, perhaps rapidly, and before we know it, we wish to hide under some covers and cry. Don’t despair, dear sister, because there is always a path toward joy. A few things came to heart as I read your words.

I’d like to invite you to a different view of all these difficulties. Imagine for a moment that you have a loving light inside your chest, like a torch. When our mind thinks, it kind of uses up the fuel of that torch, depending on the thoughts. Some fuel it, some use it up. When we start experiencing fear and other stressful thoughts, the torch burns low. We lose confidence and concentration quickly, and soon feel like a little ship in a big ocean, with waves of this and that, hurricanes and waterspouts of “what ifs” and “if onlys”. However, we can learn to help our mind stay moving in a healthy direction.

From another direction, more directly, as you grab on to something you’re afraid of (say, husband cheating on you) and think all about it, stay with that fear, you fall into a tormenting mindstate. Ouch! But there is a way out, so don’t despair.

The path of healing from this reduces into a twofold plan. First, you’ll need to find authentic forgiveness for those that have harmed you (including yourself, but it feels like there is another, older wound, pre-husband). Second, you’ll have to learn how to grow a positive mental state. Easier said than done, and it is a process, requiring patience and tender attention, but it is well worth it. Take a chance, trust the light, and jump.

For a positive mental state, consider starting a metta meditation practice. It begins as a wish, a dream, a hope, a seed of being happy someday. We take that tender seed and hold it close to our heart, and with time and effort, it blossoms. We wish to be happy, wish to be peaceful, wish to be healthy. As we intentionally think those kind of thoughts, it reaches into the subconscious and we begin to feel friendly feelings. It takes a little time, but you’ll be surprised at just how refreshing it can be. Consider searching YouTube for “Sharon Salzberg guided metta meditation” if interested.

Now, metta is only part (but possibly a huge part) of growing a positive mental state. Self nurturing is also needed. It makes sense that you’d turn to self harm… a little pain in the body can feel like a relief from the pain in the mind. But, it doesn’t really help. You have to become tender and gentle with yourself, be easy with yourself, learn to be patient with yourself. Do you know what loving action looks like? Have you taken a friend in your arms, given them a hug, helped dry their tears, and offered comfort? You deserve, need, that kind of attention from yourself. So hop in a bathtub with candles, go for a walk in nature, breathe in the earth and sky, listen to soft music. Be comfortable with yourself, give comfort to yourself. This helps us relax, so everything doesn’t seem sharp and aggressive. As we get in habits of being a tender caretaker for our body and mind, we grow much more happy.

For authentic forgiveness, we can offer our compassion to the ones that harmed us. Compassion is much like space, such as making the room in our day to see it from their side. For instance, for your husband: Consider that he is a mixture of a wise man and a doofus. If you were depressed and sleeping a lot, perhaps he was getting lonely. That makes sense, we all get lonely when our loved ones disappear. Instead of acting skillfully, he did some dumb things, such as wanting to connect with other women. But what was the issue? From here, it sounds like both of you lost hope. You lost hope in yourself, which lead you to sleep and hide. He lost hope in you, which lead him to seek and dream. Its not “all about you”, rather, you both have avoidance strategies when it comes to confusion, hopelessness. The same. So, why beat either of you up over it?

If you could follow that, then you’re primed to let it go, forgive, and be free. Consider that both of you are learning, imperfect, and are trying to find nourishment and home. Its tough sometimes… so we have to be patient, let things unfurl, let them unwind. And that’s it. To simply see him as a human, real, sometimes lovely, sometimes lost, just like a rest of us. Then, choose to turn away from the anger, set down the judgment, let go of the “how could he do that to me?” thoughts and simply see how he’s stumbling and bumbling along his life path. Normal, usual, and like you, a mix of light and shadow.

Finally, it sounds like there may be some clinical depression going on inside you. Its tough to say, and I’m not a medical doctor, so consider that sometimes our brains don’t produce enough of certain chemicals. Sometimes its just clinging, just situational, but sometimes its a chemical deficiency. So, consider trying some of the suggestions you read about here and elsewhere, but keep in mind that it may provide a lot of relief to find some help with the chemicals in your brain. When those are out of balance, things can appear much heavier than they are, much more hopeless and shadowy.

Namaste, dear sister, may your clouds quickly disperse into the vast, luminous sky.

With warmth,
Matt