Hi tontonyanou,

I know what you mean. I took my family on some of my Bucket List adventures. And I would get totally focused and obsessed. Looking back, I should have done them alone. Maybe it’s the fear of if we don’t do it now it will be taken away? Or that nothing I’ve done “mattered” and this won’t “matter” but I have to do it anyway? I don’t know how we can fix this, but maybe cop the attitude of calm, cool, and collected.

I like the idea of We are Already Perfect, and Everything Else is just Happy Optional Extras.

Best,

Inky

I have similar feelings. I had terrible anxiety and frustration the other day as I was trying to pick out flowers to put in my back yard. I realized that this was partly coming from my perfectionism. I was also upset that money is tight and had to put a lot of thought into what I could afford. Gardening is so pleasurable to me that it’s become an addiction (one of my many) and so I lose joy when doing it.

I also relate to you in second guessing if I should be doing something else with my time. Guilt takes all pleasure out of the experience. Plus I feel angry that I am taken away from what I am clinging to. So I hold onto it for dear life lol.

I actually decided to become mindful at the store and let myself experience the beauty of the flowers even though I couldn’t take any of them home with me. It also helped me to decide what I could afford the next time I went flower shopping <3

Dear tontonyanou:

This is what I am thinking at this point, having re-read your original post and your reply posts; this is my proposed answer to your questions: “I know this pain has something to teach me, but what exactly?” and “this pain is trying to teach me something… why it’s there?”

You learned early on in your life, when you were a child, that what you want is not important enough to do, that you are not important or valuable enough to do what you want to do. You learned that other people are more important, that you should do for them. When you did things you wanted to do, you were discouraged, either by criticism for not doing what you did perfectly, or you were criticized for being selfish. On the other hand, you were rewarded for doing things for others.

So when you do things for others you feel calm. You have a memory of being rewarded for doing those things. But when you do what you want to do, you feel anxious because you have a memory of being punished for doing what you wanted to do.

As you feel anxious about planning on doing what you want to do, for yourself, and once you pass the initial anxiety over it and start doing it, part of you knows this is a very precious opportunity that doesn’t happen often, so it “binges”- not much different than someone on a restrictive diet: no cake! But the moment you finally allow yourself cake, part of you goes crazy and eats and eats and eats.

The message: tontonyanou wants to do what she wants to do! My solution to a similar situation is to do what you want to do more often, maybe every day, set up time every day to do what you want to do, so the part of you that binges will get used to getting what it wants regularly.

What do you think?

anita

Hello tontonyanou,

I’m so glad you are getting so much from us that resonates with you! I am also enjoying Anita’s responses and your excitement that they are so on target.

It’s so great that you see there is fear behind “all of your problems.” I teach a course on stress management, and one of my exercises challenges people to come to this recognition for themselves. They can usually identify individual fears, but they have a little more difficulty realizing that most of their problems trace back to one fear or another.

One day I will write a book on fear because we are all fearful whether we realize it or not. It’s a big issue.

I think you might also like one of my favorite Buddhist quotes: “There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.”

So if we can find the happiness in “the way,” that’s the ultimate. It is definitely there.

One time I went to a weekend event where three or four of us were put on the spot by the teacher. He was confronting our issues–bringing them to the surface–and helping us to deal with them. It might sound harsh, but he had a very good heart and a good way of doing this. We trusted him. He discovered with me that I never had a happy childhood. I never played as a child.

Before one of the breaks, he said to me, “You need to go play during this break.” He gave me some ideas. “There is a plate of cookies in the kitchen. Go take a bite out of one of them and then put the rest of it back on the plate. Go outside on the swing and swing to your heart’s content.” I’ll never forget that. I started adding silly play to my days after that…then more adult play where I found friends who owned boats and we would go sailing on the water.

Maybe you could try adding silly play into your life, too. Make sure it makes you smile!

Back to fear again….your analogy with the sun and the clouds is very unique. I like that!

There is a verse from “The Prophet” about sadness and joy that says something similar to what you said, “…fear, when we use it correctly leads inevitably to love, deeper and more wise love.” The Prophet says we can only feel joy to the same extent that we can feel sorrow.” That sorrow hollows out our cup and then joy can fill that same cup to the same extent. That is very comforting to hear when you are feeling sorrowful.

And yes, it is true that fear (and other forms of pain) teach us. They motivate us to grow in order to move away from the fear and the pain. They get us moving.

But I believe we can “identify with the outside world if fear isn’t there to make us reflect.” We can also identify with the inside world (within our soul) without fear. Fear is a powerful motivator. But I have often asked not to be motivated by fear and pain anymore….to be motivated only by positive things.

On the yoga path, the end goal is total bliss–“ananda.” Sat, chit, ananda means “ever existing, ever conscious, ever new bliss.” Many yogis have achieved this state.

I was trying to think of an analogy today. But it’s hard to think of something to substitute for fear in the analogy. It’s kind of like walking with a crutch and a cast when you have a broken leg. These implements allow you to walk somewhat well, when otherwise you would be unable to walk. But once your leg fully heals, you are able to throw your cast and crutch away and walk far better without them.

So fear can motivate us to change for the better, and when we get to that state of happiness and contentment, we no longer need fear to motivate us.

Returning to your analogy, when we can be the sun, why go under the cloud cover anymore when the sun is ever new bliss (it never gets boring)?

At the same time, when we are experiencing fear or pain or illness, remaining emotionally unaffected by it is another yogic goal. This is because to be attached to anything, whether we label it good, bad, or neutral, is discouraged. This has to do with a belief in reincarnation. It is said that attachments are what require us to return to a next life so we can learn more lessons. But that’s a different concept than the one you are talking about.

I think fear is not the same as love and pain is not the same as happiness. The intensity might be the same, and one can even lead to the other, as you say, if we use them correctly. But when we react to them, our reactions are opposite. Fear causes negative reactions and love causes positive reactions. When we truly love someone we don’t fear them. We are drawn toward them rather than running away.

Also, if we are afraid of something and decide to face our fear, we can prove that it’s not real. If we’re afraid of deep water, like I once was, we can learn to scuba dive and completely overcome our fear, realizing that it was not real.

This works with most fears. Now, you can say, “I’m afraid if I fall off a cliff I will die, and that is probably true.” But you can say, “I’m afraid if I get close to the cliff I will fall off,” and prove that you will not fall off if you learn to stop projecting yourself down the cliff with your mind and you learn to maintain your balance and gain confidence.