Hi Lauren,

I definitely know what you are going through. I was exactly the same way through high school and didn’t have my first relationship until my 3rd year of college. I was bitter at my friends that were in relationships and I just felt I was too awkward and not good enough for a relationship even though all I wanted was a relationship.

The biggest thing that helped me was to focus on myself. I realized that I didn’t like the person I was and if I didn’t like myself, why would anyone else like me. I had to really take the time to be in the present and be grateful for what I had. I was always looking towards the future and was wasting my life by being frustrated by not having the things I wanted. I had to find things in my life that excited me and find something I was passionate about. For me at that time it was music. It was an outlet for my creativity and as I learned how to play guitar it was also an emotional outlet. After a couple of months of practice I started building up my self confidence which filtered into other aspects of my life.

Beyond just having a creative outlet, another big thing that helped me move forward was learning how to be grateful. At first there was just a feeling of bitterness when someone told me to be grateful for what I had because there are so many people in worse situations. Then one day a friend mentioned to me, do you have someone or something that you truly love. If you do, you can use that to help you feel gratitude for all things. For example, I think about something I love, usually my two dogs. When I think about them, there is a feeling that I get within my body. I then take a moment to really feel that sensation and be grateful for that sensation. At that point I write a list of 10 things I’m grateful for. Sometimes I even list things that are currently bothering me. I then go through each item on my list and try to feel that same level of gratitude for that item just like I do with my dogs.

The first couple of days might be a little difficult to really feel gratitude for each item on the list but if you keep doing it everyday you will notice a shift in your attitude which will change your interactions with others that can lead to a happy and healthy relationship.

At this point I’m just rambling but hopefully something I said helps.

E.buddha – Thank you. Your words resonate on some level I need to be in better touch with. Filled with gratitude and feeling at the end of my rope. Thank you.

Thanks Mark and Justice.

Hi Ainka,

Sorry to hear about your emotional abuse.

Until you hit rock bottom and come to an acceptance that “enough is enough”, you wont be able to move on from your troubled past. Like Mark said, everyone has their own prescription for solving their issues. You need to decide if you are ready to let go of your past in the first place. Once you are ready for healing your wounds, the help will appear and show you the right path. But you gotta be ready and ask the universe for help.

Few thoughts that may help add clarity to your situation and you are more than welcome to trial some of the suggestions below to help you move forward.

– emotional abuse often stems from an underlying lack of self-love or appreciation. We are hard on ourselves and it flows on to others. The roots of this can often be found in the childhood. We feel we are not good enough for many reasons and so we let others manipulate us or abuse us emotionally.
– however, at the end of the day, our feelings and our life are our own property. No one can make us feel in a certain way or make us do things, which is against our wish (except for parents when we are young).
– in the spiritual world, we are 100 % responsible for everything that happens to us, which means, we also have a choice of letting go of hurts, resentment, anger, hatred etc. For many people, this is easier said than done as they are constantly blaming others for their pain without understanding the true essence of this life and the universal consciousness.

I have personally used the following tools to assist me in the process of self-loving (although I am still a work in progress like most ):

– self loving or nurturing involves accepting yourself the way you are; loving yourself unconditionally and forgiving yourself for all the pain you have created for yourself.
– Creating an exceptional life by louise hay and Cheryl Davidson is a good start – it has a lot of positive affirmations and good stuff to start us on the journey of self-love
– Meditation and Yoga
– Gratitude Journal and practicing “letting go of resentment” every day
– Writing down your feelings about what is working in life and what is not. Things which are not working are usually out of our control. Once you accept this, it will be easier to accept yourself
– Smile, Smile and more Smiles
– Doing only things that you are happy to do – first step to accepting yourself. Your mind / heart, thoughts and actions need to be aligned. For example – you offer to sort out other person’s mess but in your heart you are cursing the person – this creates a conflict at an Universal energy level. Like attracts like. So the more you are misaligned in your thoughts and actions, the more you attract of the same.
– Everyone is imperfect including myself – helped a lot in accepting myself
– My daily mantra: I accept myself the way I am, I forgive myself for all the intentional and unintentional pain I have caused myself and I love myself unconditionally.

Best wishes,

J

• This reply was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by @Jasmine-3.

Dear Julie527,
My heart aches for you. I especially feel the sharp pain of rejection by your only daughter.

I hope you have a sangha, a circle of those who will love and support you, a spiritual community who can hold you up while you are going through this.

If you don’t then go seek one, whether it is a church group or Buddhist center, a 12 step meeting, or even a group of one loving soul.

We all need help in this life from others. Regular meditation, exercise, and just plain prayer are all proven ways to get us through such challenging times, moment-by-moment, day-by-day. Before each day begins focus on how it can be better, even a little. At the end of the day you can focus on your gratitudes however little they may seem.

Writing/journaling can be useful in getting out of your head and putting down all your pain and stress.

I send you hope and love Julie.

Mark

Blaice, have you ever considered writing a book? You provide exceptional advice and I thoroughly enjoy reading your posts. I know you speak from the heart.

Personally, I’m trying to incorporate more gratitude into my life. So I just wanted to say thanks. I’m grateful for people like you, who have a profound sense of empathy, something that today’s society seems to have misplaced.

I will provide another response soon. I’m just consistently busy.

Hi Lavender!
I saw your post about wanting to fix broken relationships with self & others. And I thought maybe I could share some insights that’s helped me in the past when I went through hardship in life. 🙂
1. No matter what happens in life, we gotta first learn to let go of the blame for ourselves, our life situations, and others. Forgiveness is the very first step to having a better relationship with self and others. We gotta first learn and understand that no matter what happened, we did the best we knew how at the moment and so did others. Everything happens for a reason, if you’d allow yourself to see the gift and the life lesson from the situation, and let it go with gratitude, then you’d be able to free yourself from the emotional burden you’d created for yourself.
2. Second is to stop judging yourself for whatever is going on in your mind and your life. You’re who you are today for a reason, and for a good reason 🙂 You’re a gift to this world. You had to go through a certain experiences in your past to learn certain things, or become the beautiful person that you are today. A lot of challenges in our lives are actually blessings in disguise. And it’s important for all of us to learn to be open to see the gift the Universe wants to bring to us. But we must first let go of the judgment about our life circumstances so we can open ourselves to new perspectives 🙂
3. Stop scarying yourself with your thoughts. A lot of thoughts in our mind are just ”assumption” about what we believe is true about the situation or others. But it’s not necessary true. We gotta let go of our scary thoughts and our assumptions about A LOT of things. What you’re thinking in your head isn’t always true! So stop scarying yourself with your fearful thoughts of ”what ifs” as this won’t help you to get anywhere. Instead, listen to your heart, feel your heart’s guidance. Our heart is the channel to Divine Love, whatever that comes from the place of love is peaceful, relaxing, and joyful. Our heart will guide us to the right place only if we’d just listen 🙂
4. Trust yourself 🙂 Trust that you have the ability to change your life circumstances. Trust that you are the creator of your own life, you’ve created everything in your life and so you have the power to create your life in the way you’d want it to be with your loving intention. Trust that you have the ability to change and be the ”you” you want to be! Trust your gut when your gut says no or when your gut says go forward! go toward the direction of your dream!! Just trust that inner loving voice withing you, we all have it 🙂 we just gotta allow ourselves to feel it and listen to it 🙂
5. Embrace yourself with kinds words and love everyday! You’re the only person who’s gonna be with you 24/7 through out the rest of your life, so it’s important that you be your best friend and your cheerleader 🙂 We always want to be surrounded by loving people, so we can start with ourselves! Every morning when you wake up, take a few minutes to look at yourself in the mirror and say words that you wish you’d heard from your parents, friends, loved ones, society, etc. Often time, we don’t really need to hear these from others, we need to hear this from ourselves the most 🙂
Sending you lots of love and light!

Hi Rachel

Thanks Lilbuddha and Matt for your posts. You guys are so amazing :))))))))))))). Matt, is lilbuddha your duplicate ?

Rachel, I have had very similar experiences as yourself and couple of years ago, I hit rock bottom in terms of, “Enough is enough”. This is when I started on a journey of Self-love and self-care. Basically, what lilbuddha said is correct. Judgement stems from an underlying lack of self-love or appreciation. We are hard on ourselves and it flows on to others. The roots of this can often be found in the childhood.

I used the following tools to assist me in the process of self-loving (although I am still a work in progress like most 🙂 ):
– Creating an exceptional life by louise hay and Cheryl Davidson is a good start – it has a lot of positive affirmations and good stuff to start us on the journey of self-love
– Meditation and Yoga
– Gratitude Journal and practicing “letting go of resentment” every day
– Writing down your feelings about what is working in life and what is not. Things which are not working are usually out of our control. Once you accept this, it will be easier to accept yourself
– Smile, Smile and more Smiles
– Doing only things that you are happy to do – first step to accepting yourself. Your mind / heart, thoughts and actions need to be aligned. For example – you offer to sort out other person’s mess but in your heart you are cursing the person – this creates a conflict at an Universal energy level. Like attracts like. So the more you are misaligned in your thoughts and actions, the more you attract of the same.
– Everyone is imperfect including myself – helped a lot in accepting myself
– My daily mantra: I accept myself the way I am, I forgive myself for all the intentional and unintentional pain I have caused myself and I love myself unconditionally.

Best wishes,

J

Hi Amy and Anyone,
One exercise that was taught to me was to look at myself in the mirror everyday and say “I love you” and just hold my own gaze for a minute or so doing that.

Another is a variation of the gratitude journal except having gratitudes about yourself. What do you like about yourself? What are you grateful for for being you?

The go-to meditation is the Loving Kindness Meditation where you start off with yourself (see YouTube or Google it).

Having any of those as a daily practice helps reprogram our neuro pathways http://www.self-esteem-experts.com/how-the-brain-works.html.

Now give yourselves a hug!

Mark

I am sorry for your pain ainka.

I offer a suggestion to let this person go as the first step toward your healing.
I have done releasing ceremonies to let go of things I do not want in my life anymoe.
Write down your pain. Let your emotions out on paper. Pour out all your suffering, resentment, anger, betrayal, and lost love.
Then crumple up that paper and take it to a place where it has some meaning for you. Perhaps it is a quiet place by the lake or a tree or where you have your altar.
Say a prayer of thanks and love and then burn the paper.

And then, step-by-step, love yourself.
Do what it takes to nurture and love yourself day-by-day.
Each morning when you arise, look into the mirror, directly into your eyes and say I Love You.
Each day commit on doing one thing that will make you smile.
In your daily meditation, sit with whatever emotions that you have and BE with it however painful.
Be conscious of doing something good for another. Look outside yourself and perform an act of kindness.
Put this into your daily gratitude journal.

Let us know how you are doing.

Metta,
Mark

Dear Smita,
First a big hug. Know that you are not alone. Start a gratitude journal…every day write down one or two things that have brought you joy…good tea, bird singing, blue sky, a song, seeing a child smile. What comforts you? Make a list of what you like to do, a list of what you want to try and where you’d like to go. Don’t give your negative thoughts a voice…which is not to say you shouldn’t grieve your losses, but put them in their place…don’t give your power away to them.

If you want to, allow yourself to get counseling, visit with your Dr. and have an honest discussion about what’s going on. I’m starting over at 55, having lost everything…spouse, house, sense of place and community, that I thought would carry me into old age. I had to get help because deep down inside I wanted to survive…but I needed a life line. I got the proper medication and am getting counseling so that hopefully I can get off the meds, but they bought me time, time to sleep, time to cope. There’s no shame in that.

Treat yourself as your best friend…what would a best friend say to you? That you will be ok, that they are they for you, what can they do to help? Be that person for yourself if there truly is no one else. Eat well, sleep if you want to, cry if you need to. Try to go for at least a little walk outside. Coddle yourself, your heart is sick and that is valid!

You have been given the chance to recraft your whole life…you are free to go in any direction. Seize the opportunity to live the life you want and dream of. Nothing is holding you back but you.

Peace and blessings on your journey.

Hi Craig, As a 60 year old man who has found his passion (finally) of helping people as a life coach I can relate about how life can feel empty.

I look to that great Dalai Lama quote: “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” That says to me is to focus on our gratitudes and being in service to others (i.e. get out of yourself). Having a gratitude journal kept up daily would be good regardless. Volunteering would be good as well to be in service to others.

Sometimes you just need to sit. Don’t just do something, sit there! I believe we can hear our wisdom better when we are quiet. Do you meditate? That would be a good thing for you regardless.

Other times you need to move, even a step at a time regardless of the direction. Sticking to something, even if it is a small something can get the energy flowing. It does not have to be a big thing like working out cycling during the winter. Chop wood, carry water may be enough.

Let us know how you are doing!

Metta,
Mark