I'm deeply addicted to suffering and mental stories

[Bluebird]

Sorry for the long post, a part of me needs to just get this out. There is a question, but I would be doing it an injustice without the backstory. Maybe someone can offer some insight or help as I'm not sure I can move through this one alone.

After being emotionally hurt quite badly in my past I literally closed myself off from love, for perhaps the last 12-18 months. I could not let love come from an intimate relationship, let alone the entirety of existence. After some psychedelic trips I became aware of this, and of the importance of developing more love in my life. I KNEW that a part of this for me had to be finding a loving partner. I decided 2019 would be my year of love.

Well, I met this beautiful girl, who shares many of my interests mid-December. We have been deep and open with each other. We had planned a proper date on the 3rd (today) and I had been looking forward to this for over a week. Yesterday I sent her a message as a reminder over Facebook. When I check back a few hours later her account is blocked, she has blocked me. I almost immediately fall into a deep depression like I never have before.

That night I dream about her pushing me away without explanation, I wake up in a state of absolute panic.

At 2am she messages me, she had completely forgotten about the date. This marks the 3rd time this has happened to me, others leaving me to sit alone waiting for them. But she never blocked me, it was just a mental fiction I had created. She was experiencing some personal shit in her own life that was eating her away and had to temporarily deactivate her account. We had a really beautiful conversation, though it didn't look like the date was going ahead.

I asked her to message me when she wakes up, she doesn't. Again this spirals me into a depression and all my baggage starts to come up. Until she messages me (as I'm writing this).

I have so much resistance to letting go of these mental stories in this one part of my life. There are so many other areas where I can just observe without reacting, let it come and go. But this has become a sticking point for me.

It's like a part of me wants to suffer in romantic relationships of any kind, this pattern has expressed itself throughout my life since I was 5 years old. I push people away, and then when there is someone that I want to get close to they push me away.

Within 3 days of 2019, my "Year of Love", for the first time maybe ever I contemplated the merits of suicide. I have slept most of the day or just laid on the floor. It breaks my heart. It's like I've become bipolar. My diet is solid, exercise, nature, meditation.

Is this just a spiritual purging of past emotions that need to be expressed as I'm letting it. Or am I indulging in mental stories around the reality which is just causing more suffering on my part. I guess the obvious solution is just meditate more and become detached, but that almost doesn't feel right. Is my ego just deluding me?

I almost knew I was opening up myself to all this pain when I decided to let love back in. But it's so much harder to bear that I thought, any help is appreciated.

[ivankiss]

44 minutes ago, Bluebird said:

I push people away, and then when there is someone that I want to get close to they push me away.

I feel like you can see the connection here. 

Being open and feeling worthy of receiving love and attention is an inner game; like most games are.

Give it to yourself first. Open up. Don't build walls way too high.

Practise transparency and autenthicity in your day-to-day life.

Define the difference between needyness and true, autenthic desire. 

Do you desperately need this person to love you? Or do you love unconditionally, in spite of all circumstances?

Is your primal intention to find a part you feel like you're missing?

Or are you the whole; radiating love; attracting more love into your experience?

Meditation is good. 

Try not avoiding anything in your mind though. It will only come back with more force.

Recognize it. Accept it. Find it's source. If it comes from childhood; be with the child that was wounded. Give it love. Understanding.

That is how it may find peace. That is how you may become whole and stand your own ground. Lovingly so.

Give yourself the love first. Others will show up with their gifts shorty.

Also; feel free to honestly and openly communicate this to your partner. The heart will listen back.

Love.

 

 

[How to be wise]

@Bluebird The Work of Byron Katie 

[Bluebird]

@ivankiss Thank you.

@How to be wise Funny, I just came across the book "Love What Is" and felt a strong draw to it.

Quote

Is your primal intention to find a part you feel like you're missing?

Yes! Definitely need some more inner work on this neglected part of myself.

[Bluebird]

It's strange but a part of me almost enjoys suffering.

[ThinAir]

https://www.tarabrach.com/talks-audio-video/

 

[Shin]

The thing is, the mind is addicted to drama, it loves to struggle and hear/create negative stories, basically it loves to suffer.

Without this it would slowly realize it is just a tool and not actually a real entity, it would experience its own illusory death.

 

So your mind is an addict, and the only way an addict actually recover is not by enforcing its willpower on its addiction, it is by realizing there is nothing he can do.

One way or another he realize this, and paradoxically, this is when true healing takes place.

 

How does that translate to your experience ?

Like any unwanted/damaging behavior or patterns, you just keep being conscious/aware of it.

You don't indulge and identify to it, you don't add more to it than what it is expressing, and certainly not act on it until it passes.

 

It is a hard pill to swallow, but only observation and patience works in the end, which doesn't mean learning/reading and doing exercices that can helps is useless,

But realizing that being aware is the core principle to heal is way more important than those things combined.

 

 

See the suffering as external to you.

Don't push it away, and don't create anything on top of it.

You will get over anything with this.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Shin

[Bluebird]

@Shin Thank you!

Quote

How does that translate to your experience ?

 

It's totally true.

I've begun doing The Work as suggested and have already felt it help me detach from my identification with belief and suffering. Whereas I felt my meditation practice could do it well during good times, this has helped me remain objective during the harder times.

Love that Eckhart Tolle quote.

[Shin]

Just now, Bluebird said:

@Shin Thank you!

 

It's totally true.

I've begun doing The Work as suggested and have already felt it help me detach from my identification with belief and suffering. Whereas I felt my meditation practice could do it well during good times, this has helped me remain objective during the harder times.

Love that Eckhart Tolle quote.

Just had mind attack this morning, so I know how you feel <3

[WelcometoReality]

On 2019-01-03 at 11:06 AM, How to be wise said:

@Bluebird The Work of Byron Katie 

@Bluebird Doing inquiry on these events will help you heal the emotional wounds you have.

[Pilgrim]

@Bluebird

Do you know what your attachment style is? It seems to me you could be fearfully avoidant, could that be? 

Hot and cold behaviour is typical for that, it's rooted in low self-esteem.. you want an intimate connection, but ultimately you feel like you are not worthy of it. Shin and ivankiss gave already great advice. All you can do is know your patterns as precisely as possible and be totally aware of them. Self-love is the keyword here. If you desperately need other people to love you, you will be draining them. 

Your behaviour sounds quite needy, and your 2019 year motto should be the year when you fall in love with yourself. It sounds so cliché, but it's the most important lesson you could ever learn. Everything will change when you truly fall in love with yourself. I have struggled with this myself and I know how difficult it is. You can DM if you want and I would love to help you with this. 

[theking00]

3 hours ago, Pilgrim said:

@Bluebird

Do you know what your attachment style is? It seems to me you could be fearfully avoidant, could that be? 

Hot and cold behaviour is typical for that, it's rooted in low self-esteem.. you want an intimate connection, but ultimately you feel like you are not worthy of it. Shin and ivankiss gave already great advice. All you can do is know your patterns as precisely as possible and be totally aware of them. Self-love is the keyword here. If you desperately need other people to love you, you will be draining them. 

Your behaviour sounds quite needy, and your 2019 year motto should be the year when you fall in love with yourself. It sounds so cliché, but it's the most important lesson you could ever learn. Everything will change when you truly fall in love with yourself. I have struggled with this myself and I know how difficult it is. You can DM if you want and I would love to help you with this. 

How can I love myself? 

[Maya_0]

On 1/3/2019 at 3:57 AM, Bluebird said:

After some psychedelic trips I became aware of this, and of the importance of developing more love in my life. I KNEW that a part of this for me had to be finding a loving partner. I decided 2019 would be my year of love.

That is a belief and that is the source of your suffering. You have beliefs about what love is. Love is not something you need someone else for. Love is empty of self, it's unconditional, it's not needy. You need to work on your understanding of love.  Love is indiscriminate and comes solely within you. The good news is you can still make 2019 the year of love, with or without an intimate partner. 

The hermit meditator in the cave showers the world with love. ~ Osho

[Shin]

Btw very few people can love, to love is to completely accept yourself as you are, while accepting the other person exactly as they are.

You can't do this unless you're secure in yourself, until you experientially know that you don't need anyone to be happy.

Until then you will be able to feel love, but it will momentary and rare, what you will experience 95% of the time will be attachment.

Attachment is clinging to something, it may look like love, it may taste like love, but if you dig into the feeling, it is fear at its core.

It is about possession, about locking happiness in your life, it doesn't even feel good if you're honest with yourself, there is way more pain than «love» in the end.

You may succeed to lock someone, but only because you two are so fearful to be alone that you accept the misery that attachment is.

In the end there is endless drama and suffering that limit yourself greatly in your self-actualization.

This is the number 1 reason why people don't actualize, they cling to relationships that only makes them act inconsciously.

Be very conscious in your own experience what you think love is for you.

It is not what you think it is.

 

Edited January 7, 2019 by Shin

[Bluebird]

@Pilgrim The year when you fall in love with yourself. I like that, I think I'll steal it haha

@Maya_0 I think there's been misunderstanding about what I mean by the "Year of Love". I had a psychedelic experience that opened my up to universal love and decided to embody and integrate that more in my life. Intimate love seemed like it should be one part of that as I'd been running away from it for so long. Already I can see that I made the right call, by running away from romantic love I was avoiding the real work of facing my beliefs and mental stories.

Having made the decision to embrace all love, including moving towards a romantic relationship, they have all come up, and so I've been able to process them very effectively with inquiry. I can tell I made a very powerful choice in doing this, because already struggling through these beliefs has opened me up to a liberation and freedom I've not known before. It's brought me into contact with The Work. And so, I'm extremely grateful.

@Shin I completely agree with what your saying. However I spent 1-2 years alone self-actualizing and working towards enlightenment quite happily and made significant progress. Now I've felt a strong intuition that the next step for me was a relationship, so I chose to follow it. It's not that I wasn't happy alone, because I was (unless I deluded myself). It's more than I'm not happy alone when I decided I wanted a relationship. So I needed to go for it in order to work of the deeper wounds. Which with everyone's help, I've been doing.

Hopefully this makes some degree of sense.

 

Additionally, my mental stories are already disappearing after only a few days of The Work. In doing so I've been primarily free of suffering and the relationship with this girl has progressed in a healthy way, moving towards rescheduling the date which I think will happen. But, I'm also (mostly) okay if it doesn't.

[purerogue]

Good luck

[Bluebird]

@purerogue Thanks man, she continues to offer me a great opportunity for growth. I feel I've grown more emotionally these past few days than any other time.

[Bluebird]

@Pilgrim Seems to be Anxious-Preoccupied attachment style

[ajasatya]

@Bluebird if you don't seriously decide to let go of the part of you that enjoys suffering, nothing can be done.

saying "i don't want unnecessary suffering anymore" to yourself should be the first step.

[Bluebird]

@ajasatya Yes, by investiagting the beliefs I realised my self imposed suffering was actually making me less loving. Which was a massive help in dropping the need for it. I think I always had a belief of "To grow I must suffer"

I realised my "goal" to become more loving was blocked by the mental stories which made me suffer, imposed by will on others, was controlling and needy. By dropping these beliefs and hence the suffering I could better align myself with unconditional love.

Took some suffering to decide that though