Hi Glo,

The advice from Anita is good. I’d like to say a little more. The first thing, and perhaps the most important, to address your initial problem, something I learned only a few days ago, is to send love to those negative thoughts when they come, love them. They talk about sending love in response to hate because it “casteth out all darkness”, the same law applies within yourself too. You just have to try to catch it as soon as you can and respond with love, then stay in love mode as best you can, no need for any analysis of the negative thought, don’t try to get rid of it, that is just resistance resisting resistance, and what do you get- more resistance, so just love.

Another thing I’d like to say is they say that the universe burdens you only with what you can handle. It sounds like you did very well digging yourself out of the hole you were in. Well, now the universe has given you another opportunity to lift yourself even further into the light. I’m noticing this happen in my life frequently lately, as you grow you will often be faced with more ‘bad’ stuff in order to bring you to even deeper letting go. It’s natural to fall and to then beat yourself up (because the ego sees the progress you’ve made so how can you fall now!), just send love to that too. Also, it happens that the bitterness towards yourself from beating yourself up can be so intense that you end up firing it outwards towards others like when you said you seemed to be jealous of his attitude. Congratulations for being so open and honest for saying how you felt, I don’t think that’s something to regret, I’m sure if your boyfriend has the strength to be positive at this difficult time then he will be able to help you grow too. It all seems perfect from where I am (forgive me for saying so, I have no idea how difficult it must be). What I mean is that, I can see the perfection in all of it. Him coming to you at a point when you were ready to let more love into your life and to be more loving. It seems to me that the darkness is always given as a gift, which holds the potential to bring you to a place of more light, more love, more joy, if you would embrace it’s challenge. You have again been given this challenge.

Lastly, I would say do not condemn the cancer, because it’s part of his path. It sounds like it could be the catalyst for extraordinary growth for him, not to mention for you too. Just like you said, loving is what you are here to do, you are being called now to bring it to a higher level.

Best wishes,

Ben.

Hi Matt,

The only bad thing that I think you are doing is caring too much what other people say, including spiritual ‘authorities’. When you say things like “I was told”- never mind what you are told, what is true for you? what is true in your own experience? We have to be very careful I think because people all have their own interpretation of things. What you think they might mean might not be what they actually mean anyway, so why waste time thinking about it. I’ve noticed so many people who allow themselves to be drawn in by people who have ‘the answers’ when the fact is that the answers are inside YOU. If you get to the bottom of what most of the great spiritual masters that have walked the earth teach you will see they all say the same thing – that the kingdom of God is within, that your treasure is inside you, go within, seek it there. The more you look to external figures to decide on things in your own life you are simply giving away all your power. Your feelings are a good indicator of truth. How does it feel to be believing in all this stuff you are being told? I bet it’s causing you self-doubt, worry, feelings of inadequacy and a dependence on them for answers/guidance? Cut it off!

You also have a misconception that many people have and I myself used to have – that being good leads to being walked on. No, being artificially nice/accommodating leads to being walked on. True goodness/kindness is highly misunderstood – that actually takes great strength and integrity. It comes from recognising that there is a need for kindness, and that might not always mean being nice per se, sometimes kindness can involve being very direct and assertive. You see it has to come from the right place inside you. If you are being ‘nice’ to avoid confrontation or if your being nice stops you from getting your own needs met then that is not being nice, that is being a victim. I have learned that what is truly right for me is right for the whole and what is wrong for me is wrong for the whole. If you are brave enough to walk your own path you will see this too. So please stop giving your power away to other people, unplug yourself from them. This may take some time, there’s no rush, but if you don’t you will continually be drained of your own energy and power and surely live a life filled with uncertainty and anxiety. That energy and power can be better directed to looking inside your own self for your own truth. This is what the Buddha did, this is what Jesus did…

By the way, thanks, this has helped me clarify things for myself too.

All the best,

Ben.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 6 months ago by AikiBen.

Hi Kaven,

I might be able to offer something helpful here. I’ve recently packed up my job. My heart was never in it from the start and I realised that it needs to be. The question is how do you find work that your heart is in? Well, you can’t work it out, I put lots of effort into doing that, but it’s fairly obvious at the end of the day, getting there through a logical process means you are making the decision from your head not your heart. I tested it out a few times and it didn’t work. Maybe on rare occasions someone will strike lucky with this approach, but I think generally not.

The conclusion I’m coming to is that the answer (as with all things in life I’m sure) lies in learning to go with the flow. And what this means to me is learning to align yourself better with spirit, your higher self, God’s will. They say that all things that you want also want you, that’s the way the universe works. But for this to happen means learning to listen to the quiet, inner voice which directs you where to go. This is the voice of your heart. Even if it may not make sense to your mind, to learn to trust and follow it. And it’s a step by step process (as Henri says on his website Wake Up Cloud). He talks about just following the next small step, then the next, then the next. So in short, learn how to listen to the heart AND to follow what it says, which can be very difficult – even once you start hearing it, overcoming doubt and trusting it also takes time. Who knows, it may be some long, winding road that you are taken on before you get to THE WORK. But it may be that you have to experience/learn certain things before coming to that work, who can know.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by AikiBen.
• This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by AikiBen.

Hey,

Yep, you figured right. I’m afraid that’s the way it is. I know, it’s a bummer isn’t it! And yes, it’s hard at first but after a while you’ll be glad you did it. Just so you’re ready for it, you’ll also fall back into the hole often at first, but each time it gets easier to get out and with time you’ll be climbing mountains rather than caving hehe. You’re actually doing well at your age to have the self-awareness that you’ve been kidding yourself all this time – that’s what most people are doing for most of their lives so congrats to you. A few other points:

1. The sooner you can let go of those friends who clearly don’t care the better. I’m talking from experience here. I know you might be afraid of loneliness, but you are still better without them. Such people will drag/keep you down. Make an effort to establish contact with the true friends you said you have.

2. If you really do not want to be at school and you are genuinely not enjoying the course then leave. Yes, I know, I’ve been there, 1 yr into a 4 yr uni course and I didn’t want to be there. I stayed, but now I’m older and wiser and I can now say that anybody in a similar position asking what they should do, it’s a no-brainer to me. I know, all the what-ifs and the ‘but what about all the money and time invested already’, and the ‘but what about getting a job’, but none of that matters if what you are doing is making you miserable.

3. By the sounds of it you have direct access to an excellent teacher. Talk to your brother, open up and share with him. Spend as much time around him as you can. Do something to make it happen, visit him one weekend. Yes, maybe you never visit your brother so it might seem a bit strange, doesn’t matter, do it anyway.

4. Do some vigorous exercise a few times per week. This is important. I know you probably don’t feel like it right now, but it can help a lot.

5. Try doing some mind-body type practice – this is probably the most powerful thing that can help you I’d say. I strongly recommend enrolling yourself in a yoga class for a month. Yes, you will have to invest the money in yourself. Meditation is also very powerful, do that too – that’s free, watch a video on YouTube, don’t get bogged down by all the different types, just start off with the basic one, i.e. sit upright, take a few deep breaths, close your eyes and just follow your breaths as you breathe normally. Just concentrate on the movement of your breath in and out for 15 mins, set an alarm clock. Do this daily. If you want to sleep extra well then do 10min before bed. Often you can go to bed and your body is ready but your mind is still busy thinking about stuff. Meditation puts an end to this.

Forget about not being bothered, feeling too lazy to do it, just do it.

Start where you are. Accept where you are. You can start over right now, you don’t need to go anywhere or change anything outside of you right away. Take your time.

All the best,

Ben.

Hi Cassiopeialight,

I simply have to reply to you. I started off thinking years ago about all this sort of thing and at first used to think too that, “maybe I’m just being an idealist”, etc. Several years later, being older and wiser haha, I realise the truth of those feelings I was having. The more you come to realise it, the more you see how backwards almost everyone has it. The thing is it’s so deeply ingrained in people, the ‘this is how you live life’ idea, that you are actually feeling guilty even though you’re the one who is ACTUALLY seeing clearly, who has seen the light, it’s really crazy when you really start to see the truth of this. People think and tell you that you have it backwards, and yet something tells you that something is deeply wrong with all this, so of course you can often end up feeling guilty, I certainly have done at times. However, I’m realising how ludicrous it is to feel that way now. Honouring your own truth is I believe the most important thing you can do in life. When you do this however, you will naturally face resistance from people still immersed in the illusion. I now realise that it’s like we all wear tainted glasses and we see everything in the world not as it is but only as it appears through these glasses. To such people your plans will naturally appear senseless according to their view of the world and unfortunately you cannot remove their glasses for them, they can only do it themselves, and most people unfortunately will never remove them their entire lives. All they have is their narrow view of the way things are supposed to be and anything that doesn’t conform is deemed wrong or stupid. Really, you are blessed, you have seen through it, this allows you to live a life of freedom, a life which will allow you much more happiness, fulfillment, growth, health, wealth (in all respects), so long as you “march to your own drum” and do not allow other’s opinions and doubts to lead your way. This is so essential.

I think you are also very lucky because this is happening at just the right time. I’ve been through uni so I can speak now from experience and what I’ve seen which might help you. For me, I began the process of lifting myself out of delusion a few months in to my first year. I went to study chemistry. Looking back, it seemed like a good, sensible option at the time, I found chemistry fairly interesting. However, I know now that my heart wasn’t in it, even before I even got to uni. It’s not that there were other strong expectations for me to go, it was mostly from myself, but I just didn’t know any better at the time. As I’ve read time and time again, nobody teaches the most important stuff in life at school: how to live, how to be happy, the importance of following your heart, you just learn how be a good academic, which you realise, unless you want to be an academic is pretty useless, even for most jobs. Anyway, a few months into my first year and I just had to find answers, I didn’t even know what I was looking for at the time, all I knew was I HAD to find answers. I now know that I was looking for truth.

Well, I struggled through 4 years of chemistry. I can’t tell you how much I suffered as a result. I’ve read how we essentially have 2 wills, our personal will and our higher will. Our personal will comes from the ego, it tells us what we should be doing. Our higher will comes from our higher self, the universe, God, however you want to describe it. You can go against your higher will, but when you do so you will suffer. It is said you can continue to do so (which gets harder and harder, more and more painful) but eventually the higher will will find a way to stop you. It’s like, hahaha, you think you are more powerful than the universe, we’ll see, and the universe will stop you somehow. It will even manifest physical illness if it must so that you are forced to listen. I’ve read about and listened to people where this has clearly happened, even if they didn’t understand the reason for it themselves, e.g. a past colleague who was unable to get out of his bed one morning. It was clear to me from how he had described his life up to that point what was happening and why. Anyway, back then, I remember at the start of the 3rd year I said to a close friend, “I don’t even want to be here anymore” (I was reluctant to leave though because of the money already invested), I then had 2 more gruelling years to go. The thing is at the uni I was at and doing that course, the workload is such that your heart MUST be in it, if it isn’t then you will find it extremely difficult to do well. I remember at the time, I felt so guilty because I felt I was just being lazy, I just couldn’t seem to get much work done. At school I had done very well so knew I was academically capable and a hard worker so I just felt lazy. I told myself I must do the work, but I now see how I was fighting myself so intensely, every ounce of me didn’t want to be doing this, but I was forcing myself to do it. So, it caused me immense pain.

I now know that this is what happens when we follow the ‘shoulds’ of others or even of ourselves, rather than our hearts and what we really want. You see, so many people really make life a struggle and a large amount of the time it’s because they are doing this very thing. By following the should you become unhappy, don’t enjoy life, your health deteriorates, you shrink as a human being. Consequently, you become a minus, a negative impact on the world as a whole not just yourself. If you follow your truth, the opposite is true. Yes, this means not only is it good for you, you become a plus to the world so you actually make world better too! You are actually what the world needs!! Now do you see how back-to-front most of the world has it? How ludicrous it is?

To those who are sleep walking you are having a premature mid-life crisis, in actuality you are awakening. As you continue this journey you will see again and again how much paradox there is. You need only look at 19 out of 20 faces on a train at rush hour to see how zoned-out and like a zombie most people are in the way they are living their lives. I highly recommend reading Emerson’s essay on self-reliance, he could see so much of what others failed to see, link here:

http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm

I lastly want to mention something that I read about what a young Zen monk said in a book I read. It echoes exactly what you said so well done to acknowledging that you are not sure what you want to study so aren’t just picking any old subject. By the way, I’d say that out of my entire year group at uni (about 120 people) it was clear that 2 were passionate about what they were doing and were exactly where they were supposed to be. Most of the rest had probably chosen chemistry mainly because of the job prospects, basically as a means to an end as far as I could tell, it’s really quite sad. And it’s amazing how much these two stood out from the crowd, yet very few question, why is this? Is something wrong here? Could I be like that too? Anyway, this monk said something to the effect of: many people do not yet know at such a young age what subject to study, which may dictate their career and ultimately their life direction. For many people uni may not even be right for them full stop. He instead went to live in a monastery for a few years, that’s what he wanted. Most people don’t really stop and question themselves as to what they really want. The world needs people who do what they really want! Be brave, be courageous, that is also what the world needs and what you need. Incidentally, I remember meeting a friend of a uni friend at a party years ago and asking him where he studied, he seemed pretty bright so it’s the natural assumption made I’m afraid. I was surprised to hear he wasn’t at uni but had decided to just get a job. Probably not by coincidence he seemed so free and easy, I really wanted to be like him I remember thinking, just in his manner and relaxed quality he had about him. The people I’ve met in life so far who aren’t following the run of the mill seem to usually possess an enviable carefree air about them, a joyousness and freedom that I want to be around and other people find attractive. Hmmm, I wonder why…?

Go for it, do it, be brave! Also, read the essay.

All the best,

Ben.

Hi,

I’m 27, I returned home after finishing uni. I got a job within a few months and then moved out after another few months. Before I moved out, I also thought about the benefits of being at home, and in some ways I was quite content to stay. The thing is my parent’s home is in a small town and I had the same things on my mind as you do now: relationships, friends, things going on. I had in mind to move to the nearest big city (conveniently my job was within commuting distance of this city).

The thing is, at the time I wasn’t so 50/50 as you seem to be, I recognised that although my situation was amenable at home, it was important, probably essential for my own growth as a person, and to really experience life, to get out there! The thing is for me it wasn’t such a big jump out of my comfort zone as I’d already rented a few places when I was at uni.

Looking back, I’m so glad I did move out. So much came my way in every way. The thing is I think it’s really important to find like-minded people and things that you resonate with. These things will help you to know out who you are, which is fundamental to you blossoming as a human being and fulfilling your potential in life. I could never have done this staying at home, as most young educated people are living in cities (not all but most), it’s a fact of life. Consequently, cities are where you’ll find more activities and opportunities to pursue because of basic supply and demand. Although it’s a mean-sounding generalisation, from my experience, small towns are mainly filled with three sorts of people, at least in the UK where I live: old people (who want somewhere a bit quieter to live), people starting families (who want somewhere safe and suburban to bring up kids) and lastly young people who aren’t going anywhere in life. I know it’s harsh, but it is generally true. Anyway, this means there’s no audience/demand for so much culture, interests, creativity, artistry, etc, etc.

These days I try to make choices based on love not fear, I highly recommend it. All the fears you’ve listed I’ve observed either for myself or people I know for none of these to be a problem. I’ve heard it said that unless businesses are always moving forward/growing in some way then they naturally start to decline (not stay the same but actually decline). I think the same is true of people, if you aren’t always moving forward then your world will start shrinking. You see, life is always changing, the universal force is always flowing and you are a part of it. This means you will get urges to move in a certain direction in your life, often accompanied of course by fears, but it’s when people resist moving due to fear and then the fears grow and grow. Allow it to move through you, move with it. This is what is meant by ‘going with the flow’. Are you really going to hold off life until you can afford to buy? Stop trying to plan life out, do you really think that getting THINGS you want (like a house) will make you happy? Live now, don’t put off life to get something in the future, I think it’s one of the biggest mistakes people make, they strive for comfort and security and sacrifice life and living as a result. To me you are looking at life in a very black and white way, in a purely logical way. From my experience, listening to your heart is best. Staying at home to save money sounds logical, but if you are fairly unhappy living at home, will you really feel like saving money? Will you even care anymore about that? The universe moves in ways that you can’t work out, but if you follow your feeling and stop trying to work it out life will pan out just fine I believe. Of course there are times when it is necessary to hold back, but you have to learn how to discern one from the other. It sounds to me though that you feel you know you want to move but that you are just holding yourself back with fear and worries and what ifs, but only you really know.

At the end of the day, what’s the worst that can happen literally? Say it is the ‘wrong’ thing for you, so you move back home, yeah your wallet may be a bit lighter but at least you will know for sure then. Is it not worth doing it, whether or not it’s right or wrong just so that you know? I’ve done this with a number of things and it certainly helped me. It allows closure on certain questions in your mind and allows you to move forward with your life rather than being stuck in limbo. Otherwise that ‘what if’ will always keep arising and will cause you to stop and stall in whatever direction you do finally choose.

All the best,

Ben.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by AikiBen.

Hi,

Seems to me like life has presented you with both a great opportunity and learning experience. Sounds like you’re doing OK because the important thing to me is that you have awareness of how you are holding yourself back, so just keep going and you’ll get through it. I used to be one of the biggest worriers around and can still be highly indecisive.

All worry is a waste of time. All your what ifs are a waste of time. Cast out these ideologies which are not even your own, this quote comes to mind: “A man (or woman) must act as if all else were ephemeral except he” – Emerson. Remember, all these ideas about convention, it’s all made up, none of it is inherently right or wrong, none of it is true. People find it so hard to listen to and honour the truth but it makes life so simple when you do, I’m doing this more and more and it’s great. Listen to your feeling, to your heart, that’s what is true, honour this truth. Yes, honour it, above all other opinion and convention. Also cast out your own ideologies/expectations of how things were meant to be, this just creates suffering.

I really recommend trying meditation. It takes some amount of practice, but if you get into it, it could help you big time. It may help you see through all of your worry, anxiety etc so that it no longer affects you, or at least much less so, in time.

Another thing, I know it may sound stupid and difficult, but stop fighting/pushing away your doubt and anxiety. Do your best just to let it be. The more you try to struggle with it the more energy you give to it. At the same time, try not to get caught up in it, in other words when you find the doubts envelop you do something to occupy yourself, or go for a walk etc. Again, meditation is perhaps the best training to be able to do this. You could try just sitting with your doubts and worries, not getting caught up in them but watching them, being a witness to them only, because it’s just your mind making them up, it’s nothing more than that, they’re not actually real, they just seem so real because most of us are so enslaved by our minds, we believe everything they tell us. Meditation will reveal to you eventually how daft it all is and give you freedom. This is the freedom that the Bible is getting at when it says, “the truth shall set you free”. Imagine also the personal strength and energy that you get when you are able to do this!

Good luck,

Ben.