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In need of some help?
BoatS
Explorer
First of all I'll say hello again. I posted on this forum a few months ago with a relationship issue and attachment. I've been studying Buddhism and being mindful for nearly a year now (mindful activities, meditation, walking meditation.) Recently I've broken up with a girlfriend that I've been with for about a half a year. I find myself helpless, depressed, and empty. Before I dated her I was in a serious depression, and once I started dating her, I began to have a "reason" to keep going - and thus a motivation and something that made me happy. I was indeed happy for a while, but I realized that my happiness was codependent on my significant others - if she was having a bad time, so was I, and if she didn't react how I thought she would if I did something for her I would feel bad. Now I know these codependent feelings are bad, and once I'm alone again I've reverted back to the unhappy self I was prior.
Now I have a few questions. I find my mind tracing back to her every few minutes (this is a few months after we broke up) and is leaving me in an inescapable, miserable life. My mind has convinced me that it must have been my fault. Memories of things that she said that utterly hurt me keep replaying days upon days. (On a side note: this next sentence was even before we were dating) What use to make me happy no longer brings joy. I've tried therapists but alas they can't seem to help me. What can I do to better help myself? It's a scary feeling living in a life where every time you notice your mind thinking it happens to be on negative things which lead me to feel even worse. I can find myself returning to being mindful 100's of times in a day, all stemming from a negative ruminating thought. Does anyone have or know anything that can help?
I find myself living in fear also, and I know this comes from the thought of "being alone" and having no one to care for or be there for you. I know that I shouldn't base my happiness upon someone else, and that I should have enough to make myself happy. From my experience it seems that life really isn't as meaningful if you have no one to enjoy it with you.
Thank you,
Matt
Now I have a few questions. I find my mind tracing back to her every few minutes (this is a few months after we broke up) and is leaving me in an inescapable, miserable life. My mind has convinced me that it must have been my fault. Memories of things that she said that utterly hurt me keep replaying days upon days. (On a side note: this next sentence was even before we were dating) What use to make me happy no longer brings joy. I've tried therapists but alas they can't seem to help me. What can I do to better help myself? It's a scary feeling living in a life where every time you notice your mind thinking it happens to be on negative things which lead me to feel even worse. I can find myself returning to being mindful 100's of times in a day, all stemming from a negative ruminating thought. Does anyone have or know anything that can help?
I find myself living in fear also, and I know this comes from the thought of "being alone" and having no one to care for or be there for you. I know that I shouldn't base my happiness upon someone else, and that I should have enough to make myself happy. From my experience it seems that life really isn't as meaningful if you have no one to enjoy it with you.
Thank you,
Matt
0
Comments
Now you have an excellent opportunity to examine those feelings mindfully and decide what you're going to do about them. This appears to be an important lesson coming your way.
You said:
"I find myself living in fear also, and I know this comes from the thought of "being alone" and having no one to care for or be there for you. I know that I shouldn't base my happiness upon someone else, and that I should have enough to make myself happy. From my experience it seems that life really isn't as meaningful if you have no one to enjoy it with you."
I see a couple of should statements in there. I wonder if you are beating yourself up about this too much. What you say is true, in a sense, but it's not so much a matter of, "I should do this, and if I don't I'm doing it wrong, I'm wrong..." It's more of just the way life is. A fact that you don't need anyone else in your life to be happy.
And remember that you always have yourself. I've been practicing a lot over the past few months with being "with myself" instead of being "by myself." I wrote a song a little while ago that was about being really invested in wanting to be with someone else, and the chorus repeats, "what is it about you, what is it about you," but at the end I say, "what is it about me?" Because that's what it always comes down to. One of the verses goes:
I can't see the ocean's vastness
from my view in outer space.
I must leave these trails of stardust
for the only one I can't escape.
Meaning that if we're off in outer space, chasing around star dust, relationships, a good partner, anything that appeals to us really that distracts us from ourselves, it makes the rest of the world seem pretty small and insignificant when it's not. And that line, "I must leave these trails of star dust for the only one I can't escape," is something that goes through my head time and time again. That's me, I'm the only one I can't escape. And you are the only one you can't escape. Love yourself because you're worth it. You're not worth it because of anything you've achieved or any award you've won or success you've had. You're worth it because you have a tender, beating heart that is always trying its best. And once you realize your own worth, you'll know you don't need anyone else in your life to give it to you.
For depression, I always recommend a book called Feeling Good. It helped me out of my depression quite fast, and I always refer back to it if I feel the cognitive distortions creeping back in for whatever reason, and it does the trick. Try taking it out from the library and giving it a shot! It really helps with those negative thoughts.
First of all though, what I would do is to go take a look in the mirror. Take a long look into your own eyes and find something in there that you love. Think about how hard you have tried to be happy, how much effort you put in. Think about your good qualities, your compassion, your love. Remember that if you searched the universe far and wide for someone more deserving of your love and affection than yourself, you would not find him. Sometimes I do this, and I keep at it until it really sinks in and I cry of relief. Maybe it will work for you, maybe not, I don't know.
I know I focused a lot on self worth, but that's because I went through a similar thing with a break up, and that's what it comes down to for me. I'm still quite unskillful in how I project myself onto others... but I just hope something I said may help. Best wishes, always.
Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. So stop trying to change reality. That's crazy! Stop trying to change the other person. We spend all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody else. We don't have to change anything. Negative feelings are in you. No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person. Nobody told you this; they told you the opposite. That's why you're in the mess that you're in right now. That is why you're asleep. They never told you this. But it's self-evident.
Let's suppose that rain washes out a picnic. Who is feeling negative? The rain? Or YOU? What's causing the negative feeling? The rain or your reaction? When you bump your knee against a table, the table's fine. It's busy being what it was made to Be -- a table. The pain is in your knee, not in the table. The mystics keep trying to tell us that reality is all right. Reality is not problematic. Problems exist only in the human mind. We might add: in the stupid, sleeping human mind. Reality is not problematic. Take away human beings from this planet and life would go on, nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence. Where would the problem be? No problem. You created the problem. You are the problem. You identified with "me" and that is the problem. The feeling is in you, not in reality.
Never identify with that feeling. It has nothing to do with the "I." Don't define your essential self in terms of that feeling. Don't say, "I am depressed." If you want to say, "It is depressed," that's all right. If you want to say depression is there, that's fine; if you want to say gloominess is there, that's fine. But not: I am gloomy. You're defining yourself in terms of the feeling. That's your illusion; that's your mistake. There is a depression there right now, there are hurt feelings there right now, but let it be, leave it alone. It will pass. Everything passes, everything. Your depressions and your thrills have nothing to do with happiness. Those are the swings of the pendulum. If you seek kicks or thrills, get ready for depression. Do you want your drug? Get ready for the hangover. One end of the pendulum swings to the other.
This has nothing to do with "I"; it has nothing to do with happiness. It is the "me." If you remember this, if you say it to yourself a thousand times, if you try these three steps a thousand times, you will get it. You might not need to do it even three times. I don't know; there's no rule for it. But do it a thousand times and you'll make the biggest discovery in your life. To hell with those gold mines in Alaska. What are you going to do with that gold? If you're not happy, you can't live. So you found gold. What does that matter? You're a king; you're a princess. You're free; you don't care anymore about being accepted or rejected, that makes no difference. Psychologists tell us how important it is to get a sense of belonging. Baloney! Why do you want to belong to anybody? It doesn't matter anymore.
No event justifies a negative feeling. There is no situation in the world that justifies a negative feeling. That's what all our mystics have been crying themselves hoarse to tell us. But nobody listens. The negative feeling is in you.
How do you change things? How do you change yourselves? There are many things you must understand here, or rather, just one thing that can be expressed in many ways. Imagine a patient who goes to a doctor and tells him what he is suffering from. The doctor says, "Very well, I've understood your symptoms. Do you know what I will do? I will prescribe a medicine for your neighbor!" The patient replies, "Thank you very much, Doctor, that makes me feel much better." Isn't that absurd? But that's what we all do. The person who is asleep always thinks he'll feel better if somebody else changes. You're suffering because you are asleep, but you're thinking, "How wonderful life would be if somebody else would change; how wonderful life would be if my neighbor changed, my wife changed, my boss changed."
We always want someone else to change so that we will feel good. But has it ever struck you that even if your wife changes or your husband changes, what does that do to you? You're just as vulnerable as before; you're just as idiotic as before; you're just as asleep as before. You are the one who needs to change, who needs to take medicine. You keep insisting, "I feel good because the world is right." Wrong! The world is right because I feel good. That's what all the mystics are saying.
WITH METTA
Keep your head up buddy. This too will pass. I can verify that while it seemed my world was falling apart when I lost a very important partnership, it was just the beginning of a major life change that is improving every facet of my body, mind, and Spirit.
pegembara -
Everything you said is all easy in concept, but how can you apply it? It's so much easier said than truly accepted and realized. I realize that when you have an "image" of a person you leave yourself to be disappointed when they fail to meet it. It's a bad habit, but again, this isn't something that you can convince yourself of instantaneously - if it was that simple no one would be attached to an image of a person.
I realize that I obviously don't love or accept myself as much as I'd like too. According to you pegembara, wouldn't loving yourself also be another form of "attatchment" or longing to be?
Cristina -
Thank you for all the advice; I do think that I lack self-love and I'm hoping to better accept who I am. That book looks intriguing too, I will pick it up and let you know how it is. You bring up many good points, I'm just hoping that I can escape my mind for a little while it's quite exhausting. I love the song lyrics also - I'm always open to poetry/music/art.
Aeonuniversalis -
I'm sure time will help dissolve some of my feelings, it's just so tiring being haunted by memories uncontrollably throughout the day. It seems so relentless. Learning that you can't change someone is a valuable lesson I will have to learn from this. It just hurts so much when I always feel that "I" wasn't good enough for her, not fun enough - my ego has been destroyed. I somehow managed to take the blunt of the relationship failing, it must have been my fault. Ugh... so tiring
TreeLuvr87 -
Thank you for the site for codependency, it is likely I'll become a contributing member
I'd agree with everything said so far, and add that the very fact you're aware of what you're thinking and feeling - even if it's that you've just been smashed around in the maelstrom of negative thoughts - means you're doing better than many people, whom essentially live their thoughts and feelings for many years.
From my experience, there's no quick fix, no magical pill, no nice and easy emotional lobotomy to "make it better". Making sense of all the post-breakup shite, understanding the effects it had on you - it's very difficult, but also can be very simple. I found that crying helped. Laughing helped. I didn't let my emotions rule me, but I let them say their piece - ignoring them was not a very smart move :S
I often went outside and watched the sky - sometimes I felt peaceful, watching the clouds over the blue sky, sometimes the quiet and peace would let my hurt bubble up, and I'd cry - but happily. I'd go outside on rainy, stormy days, too - but that's because I love the rain, and the sense of freshness that comes with it.
This will sound even more corny and cliched but; the heart never "mends" or "gets better", but it makes peace with itself and becomes much broader - its potential deepens, and becomes more wise from the experience.
That's my five cents' worth, feel free to take what you want from it, or ignore it!
Metta,
Gecko.