Andre,

There is no need to be embarrassed, you’re a good person and looking to love purely. That is so beautiful!

It sounds like perhaps you’ve stopped self-nurturing. When we get swept into romance, this is normal. Our partner is around and we are so excited and alert, so comforted, that we feel full. This is fine and normal, but if you stop spending time caring for yourself as well, when they leave it feels like a loss. Get back on the cushion, go for walks alone in nature, take a bath alone with bubbles and candles. You are beautiful and sacred, and even though a partner helps you feel that, you have to keep working at your own recovery. Nurture, nurture, nurture!

With warmth,
Matt

Helen,

Those are great questions to ask yourself. Consider that being in love is being vulnerable, which is scary at first… especially when we were in a painful childhood. Pema Chodron has a great book “From Fear to Fearlessness” that I think may strike you well. It may be helpful to set aside the judgements of health and unhealthy, and just say “this is fear, now where is it coming from?”

One thing that stuck out is how you said “…blurred lines, where I do not know what to think, feel or react.” Consider that we don’t “have to” think or feel, we are experiencing confusion. We don’t like to be confused, so we try to make it fit somewhere else. If we can step back and say “hmmm.. confusion, then we can investigate. Otherwise we get caught in a loop where we just doubt… like we accept the situation as is but don’t have enough information to respond wisely. So, we start generating mental fantasy to make it fit our feelings.

Namaste!

With warmth,
Matt

Casey,

In addition to Helen’s thoughtful words, perhaps you can transfer your confidence from results to intentions. We cannot control the results of our actions, but we can recognize the noble intentions behind them. For instance, if you have the intention of giving unconditional love to your neighbor, but they don’t see it or still think of you as a doofus, its ok. Your intention was there. As we keep at our noble intentions, we gain what my teacher called “authentic confidence”.

The nice thing about authentic confidence is that it is rooted in our intention, and as we become more skillful at acting on our intentions, we know it because it feels different as we do it. Then the results, such as others perceptions, do not challenge our confidence, because it remains about them. On our side, we get to know ourselves, our intentions, our skillfulness.

Right now the paranoia arises because you still have roots of confidence in others’ perceptions of you. This is slippery and unhelpful because other people’s views are influenced by things out of our control. For instance if someone has a fear attachment to the color red, and you are wearing a red shirt and lovingly say hi, they may startle and act afraid. With confidence drawing from their reaction, you doubt the genuine nature of your “hi” and the intention behind it. We have no way of knowing others’ triggers, so we just try our best and let the laws of cause and effect do their thing. Were we to have authentic confidence, when we see their reactions, we are able to stay alert and ask “what’s wrong?” or send them love in whatever way seems appropriate.

Over time, the paranoia will fade, and the authentic confidence will grow. Consider you spent a long time in the pride/shame cycle of confidence (feeling unworthy, or feeling cocky). The paranoia is just left over baggage. Just fear.

Congratulations on moving past a pretty big hump. Keep seeking, keep asking, keep listening, keep growing. Teachers are such a blessing, and the love and kindness they help us develop is an incredible gift to ourselves and others. Namaste!

With warmth,
Matt

Linds,

I’m sorry that its been a little rough the last couple days. When we’re going through loss, feeling lonesome is normal. Because our partner used to help us settle that lonesomeness, when it crops up again it sometimes pushes us into old habits.

I remember after I got contacts I used to try to take off my glasses a lot. The worst was when I was in a conversation with someone and I’d press the bridge of my nose to push my glasses up… I felt like a fool (especially when i’d start laughing).

Consider that you’re in a very special and fertile place to set down the lonesomeness. Being lonely is craving another to make us feel better. If you can accept that you are alone, then you can shut up that voice in your head that begs you to find another dose of him, and become the light which brings love to your world.

With warmth,
Matt

Zenhen,

Whew! That’s a lot of questions. 🙂 I’ll take them one at a time and try not to blab too much about one. Feel free to ask me to provide more detail on any of them if it might help.

1) The fog! Yes the fog, our silly minds which place a layer of silt on everything. The guilt and shame and fear adds extra layers to our senses… and we wake slowly over time as we find self acceptance and heal. It is jarring to suddenly awake, and so its better to erode the fears over time and things get clearer and clearer. The disassociation, in my opinion, is like a protective armor we put in place to protect our tender heart from our environment and our relentless self-criticism.

2) Tingling genitals sounds to me like a physical arousal perhaps without mental arousal. Instead of feeling warm and fluid, such as when our partner kisses us gently, its more like an itch. As the root comes into balance with our healing and self-nurturing, the mind and body unite.

3) Sitting meditation is great for bringing the mind and body together. The cho-ku-rei mantra has also helped me with that.

4) The saint/sinner is sooo common in my experience. Its more helpful to step away from the self judging. The saintly view arises from pride, where we pretend/try/think we are “perfect”. The sinner view arises from shame, where we fear/avoid/feel isolated because of our flaws or desires. Its a cycle that we can step out of with practice. The feeling of shame makes us feel unworthy of connection, so we compensate by trying to be perfect (whatever that means). When we (or others) regard our actions as great, we feel pride. When we (or others) regard our actions as not great, we feel shame. Instead of trying to be perfect, we can do our best to say what we see, think, and feel. That way if others like or dislike what we do, its about them, not about us.

5) Brene Brown has a great ted talk that is all about shame, isolation, and finding our self worth. This lack of worth is just a byproduct of shame. Consider that everyone is equally worthy of human connection. You, me, them… we’re all just stumbling along trying to find our way to joy.

6) When we were young, we didn’t have the strength or knowledge to set good boundaries. Because many of them were violated, we might get caught in fiery emotions like anger and fear before we think to set them. This makes us feel used or taken advantage. We now have the power and wisdom to say no, and if someone asks us for something that we don’t want to give, it is our responsibility to say no. Others can’t guess what we will and won’t do, and its not fair to make them. So when they ask, we can just say yes or no based on what we feel is right in the moment.

7) Sounds like shame to me. You are one of the most courageous people I have ever met, and I laugh and cry when I read your words. Sure, there are things you can improve on, but that’s true for everyone. As we open up and share with others, the “wrongness” is not secret, or even wrong. Just painful, so we heal it for our sake. Our parents set a bad example for us in suppressing or ignoring our abuse… most people cry and hug us. Little kids, penetrated and alone, scared, confused… grow up into adults longing for love and acceptance and scared they are unlovable. Why would a heart do anything but want to cry for their suffering? Love flows and connects us.

8) I did. I knew I would never, but still struggled with sexual desires arriving unwelcomly. As we heal, that goes away. Really its just fear… like you’d ever abuse a boy or girl. I bet you just about throw up in your mouth to even consider it. Fear is just fear, we can let it go. You are in control of your body.

9) When we are afraid, we are on high alert for danger. As we cleanse the fear, the alert changes back to appreciation for the love that is being shared. Instead of “oh no, where might that lead” which is our fearful mind playing a fantasy, we can see “look at how beautiful love can be… dads and daughters playing creatively and safely”.

10) Sounds like more fear. Consider reading “From Fear to Fearlessness” by Pema Chodron. Its pretty awesome. Consider that courage (which you have a lot of) is an energy that lets us do things we’re afraid of. As we let go of the fears, we don’t have to spend as much energy on courage, which we get to keep instead. Then we can do whatever we want with it, give it to others, concentrate longer, climb higher etc.

I’m impressed! You really know a lot about yourself, even if you don’t know what to do with what you know. 🙂 As we keep walking down the path of healing and self knowing, toward a balanced state of love and light, these items erode and dissipate. I’ve experienced all of them, but now, meh, not so much.

I still have some fear that my love or view might harm others because of what I’ve been through. Some fear that if someone really “knew me” they would consider me unlovable. But these are like gnats, flying around a spacious mind and heart so when they do come up, I catch them in my hand and put them back outside where they belong. The heart has too much love in it to let anything stop its pouring for long. Know what I mean?

With warmth,
Matt

Barbs,

I’m glad to hear that you’re moving on down the path and exploring! I’m sorry its kind of lonely… it seems normal to me to be a little uprooted from our comfort zone. When my wife has gone away for a few days, the house feels different even though its the same. Almost like her spirit is absent! Those are echoes, and they fade with time as the places move back from “ours” to “mine”.

As far as the other, with him doing things while you’re not there… it sounds codependent. I know it can be difficult, but the need to control his actions is unhelpful for both of you. If he watches some porn and masturbates, why is that about you? Consider that looking at your insecurities directly is far better than trying to prevent the painful conditions from coming up.

For instance, when you found porn on the laptop, perhaps you made your feelings of “not good enough to satisfy him” and “fear of him becoming a porn addict” turn into an attempt to control his behavior. “I want to be special and sexy in your eyes” became “you hurt me with your porn”. All that really does is create conflict inside him, as whatever his urges are drive him to dishonor the promise. Said differently, if you had said “you don’t have to bother with porn, I want you like crazy” you could have promoted a healthy outlet for his sexual energy rather than making him keep it secret or suppress them to please you.

Perhaps the obsession that arises now is because you spent so much energy making sure he acted in a pleasing way for you, that now you are insecure what “porn” really means to him from his side. He might not like it much, might dislike it, or might have only stopped to try to please you. If we don’t give our partners the space to be who they really are, we don’t get to know them very much, leaving us feeling insecure as to how they act when we’re not there to see. Said differently, when we force others to act in a pleasing way for us, we’re never sure if we’re seeing the person or the “pleaser role”.

As hard as it might be, we have to let others be. Just stop. If he wants to watch porn, let him. If he wants to chew gum, let him. We can say that gum chewing and porn scare us, but to say “don’t” is terribly dishonoring to free will.

To step away from the obsessive thoughts, we can smile at them. “Yep, barbs’ thinkin about porn again.” “Yep, there I go spinning around his actions again. Haha.” If you’ve been meditating, you can just take some mindful breaths and do some counting or metta practice. It does get better, you just have to let go. People either fit or don’t, and if we try to make them fit (as opposed to growing together) relationships don’t work… there’s not enough space for both people to find their path to joy!

With warmth,
Matt

SerCay,

I only have a moment, forgive the brevity.

Consider that the codependency isn’t in the feelings… its in the fear that has prevented you from stating your preferences. For instance, if you wanted to lay down with him, did you say that? Did you ask him to wait to eat? Often our expectations can’t be met if we don’t express them, and then we get pissed off our partner is not psychic.

He may also feel a little strained, have you asked him if he is feeling burdened? Are you too afraid he will say yes? Would you assume that “SerCay” is the burden, rather than the situation both of you are in?

Recovery is part perception and part courage. Seeing our feelings and how they interfere, and the courage to speak up about what we think, see, feel and desire.

With warmth,
Matt

Jamie,

I’m sorry you feel like thrown away garbage. That seems very dramatic, which is normal when we are in pain. Often we blame the other for our pain, and that’s normal too. Consider that no matter what the answer is from him, it doesn’t really matter because that is about him, not about you. Does he see you like trash he threw away? Maybe. Does he care about you at all? Maybe not. Luckily you’re not in a relationship with him anymore.

Consider that what is important, and why it hurts now is because he meant something to you, and still does. Your questions are the secret to knowing yourself, learning from what you’ve gone through. You know it doesn’t feel good to feel treated like an object, so now you will be less likely to treat others as an object. You know it feels painful to feel thrown away, so you will be cautious not to take others for granted. You know it is icky to feel invalidated, so you will be more cautious in being validating to others.

As to how long the pain will be present, that is between you and your heart. Keep self-nurturing, and you will give yourself the space you need to grieve and move on. Consider that the downside of these questions you’re spinning with is they are your heart reaching toward him again to feel special. That didn’t work well then, and it continues not to work well now.

With warmth,
Matt