Hi Luap

I am sorry to hear that you are not able to experience the real beauty of our existence.
Look, it appears you are very insightful from your post. If you could do only one thing to make things better for yourself, then can you pls let go of what mom said in your childhood. That limiting and unnecessary belief is creating havoc in your life and has become a self fulfilling prophecy. We become what we think about the most and that belief has made a semi permanent home in your subconscious. Unfortunately, many times our own loved ones help us to create miseries in our lives for whatever reasons.
Forgive yourself for falling a victim and forgive others for making you a victim. No one knew any better at that time.
Now things are better and you are in control of your life and destiny.
Hypnotherapy or an EFT session with a good practitioner may help with getting rid of your limiting beliefs.
Your life is going to become more beautiful from now on. You just need to give yourself a chance to be kind to yourself.
Loads of love and positive energy coming your way. You deserve it 🙂
Jasmine

Ps: @simpleal and @amatt, help pls 🙂

Luap,

I’m sorry for your suffering, and can understand how isolating the journey can feel sometimes. Sometimes when we’re raised in an environment where we’re unheard unless we scream, we’re left with some unhelpful patterns. Consider that perhaps the problem you face is the acceptance and expression of your needs and desires. Don’t despair, dear sister, there is always a path toward freedom. A few things came to heart as I read your words.

There is nothing wrong with wishing to be heard and seen… to have your needs seen, considered, comforted, and fulfilled. Sometimes we give ourselves to others a lot, trying to be spacious and helpful, attentive toward our friends and family. But when it comes time for their tender attentions to be focused on us, something fizzles. And then, eventually, resentment and distance start coming up, perhaps some fiery barbs tossed back and forth, and then before we know it, kablammo! Intimacy, friendship, connection, gone.

It might seem like an endless cycle, as though people are just “this way” and finding loving, giving people is difficult. This is false. Instead, consider that sometimes we don’t express our needs until they are bursting, until we are so hungry, that when someone denies us food it is enraging… personal, with resentment and aggression. The problem here is all the pressure, all the built up momentum, the hunger.

Going back, consider for a moment how corruptive the home life was. Some of our desires blossom with confusion, such as “I don’t know exactly what I want, but I think I need some kind of hug, food, warmth, connection.” If your parents were too busy, not good listeners, or too involved in their own pain, they didn’t sit down with you and help you figure it out. Instead, the feeling just grew and grew. Finally, when it was understood, loud, demanding, it had enough heat, fire behind it to blaze through their barriers and be heard. Then, maybe, some food or whatnot would be tossed at you.

So here and now, consider this replays with others. People are busy, caught up, and enthralled by their own stories quite often. Even the best hearts might not take the time to look at you closely, to try to hear the needs you keep hidden. And there you are, just wanting some.connection, feeling special just being included. So perhaps you eat where they want to eat, talk about what they want to talk about, and so forth. At first, its fine… the newness and exploration overshadows the unmet needs. However, as time goes on, you end up being the sidekick, rather than the hero. When you get fed up with this, perhaps you start trying to explain your side, get some resolution on your desires being unmet, perhaps try to find some validation that you’ve been wronged. That doesn’t really fix it, though, because they’re not the issue.

The issue is perhaps that as the desires come up, you trade them away for fear that you’ll be denied. Like, even if you dislike brussel sprouts, its better than starving. Even if you hate that director, seeing one of his movies because the beau wants to is better than threatening the relationship. Over time, when we do this, we end up blaming to other for all the bad movies we watch, all the meals we hate. How dare they!

Now, here’s the thing. Sometimes people are genuinely selfish, self centered… some pain or whatever keeps their eyes turned inward. However, often people are caring, giving, and open to be the big spoon for you, but you wait far too long to express it. So, when you do express it, perhaps its more like “hey, why the hell don’t you ever give me hugs? Why do I always have to be the one to hug you?” instead of “hey, could I have a hug?” When you launch fire at a sensitive being, one that would love to give you a hug, its painful. Its tough to see someone we care for berate us, tell us we have been neglectful. It sets up a lose lose, such as connectingneith others that will be selfish, insensitive, and therefore unavailable to give back, or the fire you launch at others blazes away the tender shoots of connection that were growing, and the union turns to ash.

The path out of this cyclical maze is twofold. First, we have to make ourselves our own first citizen. Alone, we turn toward self nurturing activities. Hop in a bath with candles, walk alone in nature, breathe in the ocean… we take a stand, open up our own peaceful spirit and give her space to grow. Much like a chef eats before doing his job, so his pallet is more stable, less influenced by his own hunger… when we self nurture, come a peaceful balance inside our own body, when we connect with others we have less desire, less need. So we can be patient, and follow our own heart. This makes seeing the movie or eating the undesired meal a simple compromise, to do or not do if we want to. Then, (secondly) next time we eat where we want to eat, and if they refuse, they refuse. Not about us, not hungry for their participation, just inviting it. This tempers the fire, releases the pressure. Said differently, if you take turns following desires, such as you pick date 2,4,6,8 and he picks date 1,3,5,7 etc, then the dance becomes mutually fulfilling. Perhaps he will love date 4, and you love date 7… so you two find more and more harmony, common ground. If he picks them all, not only do you not get a say, but he doesn’t really get to know you, your desires, your hopes and dreams. His loss, because what your tender heart has to say and wishes to do will bring many blessings to a partner open enough to hear you.

Finally, consider spending time forgiving others for their actions. We become selfish, unresponsive, delusional and on and on. We’re still good people, just have difficulty sustaining our inner light. Your parents, for instance, for all their whip and wither, were still children that grew up in difficult situations, giving them scars and patterns of their own. As we forgive them, we receive freedom from our emotions being controlled by them. Slowly, over time, resentment erodes and we find acceptance that they are simply who they are, light, love, anger, scars… perfectly imperfect bumbling fools just.like you and me. Then, we kiss them, and let them go, move on. “OK, that convo with my mom felt familiar and invalidating. Oh well. So, whats next? Perhaps I’ll go for a walk, and dance along the sand.”

Namaste, dear sister, may your fire temper into a warm glow.

With warmth,
Matt

Thank you for the mention Jasmine.

Luap,

To further emphasize upon Matt’s words, we must do our best to stay compassionate towards others despite their negative attitudes/actions towards us. If you take the care of observing that every individual suffers in their very own ways as you do you will find that we are all in the same situation. All of us are simply trying our best to live our lives the best we can by how we were taught through our numerous influences. And, as you well know, influences come in positives and negatives. Because we have two forces at work, it becomes difficult to categorize what is right and what is wrong; especially so in today’s global society. The pressures on us to ‘move’ and ‘get things done’ are so overwhelming that it gives us very little time to ourselves to muse upon the meaningful things.

Recognizing this underlying pain in others that exists and is identical in us allows us to develop a compassionate heart. This also helps us understand that the words and actions of others that hurt us are not deliberately intended. They are simply innocently ignorant. By also understanding that this applies to us also helps us adopt a forgiving attitude towards others and ourselves. This also applies to your parents.

So please, do not blame your parents. They did their best with what they were taught/learned. Also, holding anger will only garner chaos within you. Harmony requires that we learn to deal with all that is inside and outside of us. We will never obtain peace unless we remove the chaotic elements within us.

With Care,

Al

@cereszal yep I really do think it’s more of a case of being an introvert. I realise that now about myself and in others. We all have the ability to make friends and accept other people but we ourselves are often misunderstood and so left alone because they can’t be “bothered” to give us time or patience in order to be who we are.
Some people are pushers, and rush rush rush – in a show that they are “better” than others or “demanding” of everyone else’s attention.
Whereas we are more suited to the calm, quiet life and take things at a steadier pace. We are more in touch with nature and are reflective people. Thoughts and feelings – we acknowledge them and try to deal with them best as we can. And that is why we are all here on TinyBuddha after all. To make more sense of the world, other people, to improve ourselves, to handle the stresses of life a bit better than we would do on our own.

@Luap
Everyone feels lonely and gets lonely once in a while. Alone and lonely are two very different things. If you can shift from being lonely to alone then you can take control of it and make use of the time better for yourself in order to meet your own needs, wants and desires in life. When you are left feeling lonely, it is very hard to get out of sometimes and at those times – you just have to let out that sadness and anger in positive ways by being active. But don’t push problems away or hide away from them.
Emotions are the confusion of thoughts and feelings. Once you can clear your mind a bit then you will know how you truly feel and then make a better decision for yourself based on your own instincts and therefore take action to make better life choices for yourself.

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by starrynite.