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Peter
ParticipantHi Tara
With regrades to the question: What do you think would be the most helpful as you are learning about being mindful and actively seeking your lifeâs purpose? And How could I be the best instructor possible?
Let go of this idea of Purpose which is completely subjective and honorably misunderstood.
Peter
ParticipantYour concerns and feelings are valid and you (and your family ) need to respect that.
Youâre in a difficult situation which will require honest conversations. Unfortunately, as you noted a few times you donât feel safe having those conversations. Some of the necessary steps in engaging in a Crucial Conversations (recommend that book) is to be honest with your self and your needs. That requires a lot of skill so my recommendation is to find a therapist or some such person that can help you and your family address these issues.
A 7-step primer on managing crucial conversations (Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are Highâ by Kerry Patterson)
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Start with heart. Ask yourself what you really want and whatâs at stake.
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Learn to look. Always be asking yourself whether the conversation is defensive or a dialogue. If you or the other party strays into defensiveness, simply say âI think weâve moved away from dialogueâ or âIâm sorry, Iâve been trying to force my ideas on you.â
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Make it safe. Another way to deal with defensiveness in difficult conversations is to create a comfortable situation by apologizing, asking a question that shows interest in othersâ views or even taking a time out.
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Master your story. Focus on what happened that made you feel a certain way. Think through your emotions and then choose the appropriate way to respond.
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State your path. Share your facts and conclusions so that the other party can see where you are coming from.
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Explore othersâ paths. Find out what the other person is thinking. Make sure that you understand each other and look for areas of agreement.
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Move to action. Come to a consensus about what will happen. Document who will do what by when and settle on a way to follow up.
Peter
ParticipantHe has a new partner, a good life. Why does he insists on being friends?
Its possible that at a sub-conscious level your a safety net and or its a power thing. (I think its a power thing) Regardless he isn’t respecting your needs so no your not being selfish… he is. I suspect your angry because deep down you know this – its him… not you, no matter what he tells you.
Some doors are best left closed. If you keep It open, even just a crack he’s is going to try to open it.
Peter
ParticipantAll parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair. â Mitch Albom
Do everything right, do everything wrong, regardless which, some children will thrive and some falter.
One of the tasks of individuation is coming to terms with the mother/father complex. It is true indeed that our relationship to our parents tends to be complex. Anyway, as we become adults we must learn to nurture and discipline ourselves, essentially become our own âmotherâ and âfatherâ. This tend to happen by detaching the mother and father archetypes from our parents. And we do this by recognizing our parents as individuals with their own needs, fears, hopes, failings… By learning to relate to our parents as people and not *only* as mother and father (just as we are not *only* son/daughter) we open the way to reconnect to the archetype/energy of mother/father within ourselves.
Peter
ParticipantOne of the purposes of relationships is to heal our past so we tend to be attracted to partners that will trigger our âpastâ hurts hoping that because the love us they will be able to react/respond in such away to change our expectation of being hurt. Â This more often then not happens subconsciously. The goal then is to make the process as conscious as possible
For example, if you have abandonment and trust issues because your father left you or some such and subconsciously you blame yourself for it you will âtestâ your partner in that regard. Creating scenes to push your partner away with the subconscious expectation that he will leave you, (like everyone leaves you because your such a bad person…) but hope that your partner wonât leave and in this way heal your past. Unfortunately, we tend to replay the scene until we either we get it or our partner, for there own health leaves. Of course, you might pick a partner who issue is sticking around in unhealthy relationships so leaving would be the healing thing to do⌠but more likely you would be stuck in a codependent relationship where you are always pushing your partner away and your partner staying no matter what, and no one is happy or learns anything.
The way out of these tangled webs is âTo know thy Selfâ, âMaster your storiesâ, âWake to your authentic selfâ….. Pick any wisdom tradition and the words and practices they suggest may be different but point to the same thing. Only by noticing when your setting up a scene in your story to play out and understanding why your doing it will you stop.
Peter
ParticipantHi Nichole:
Sorry for your loss and that you experience with your mother was so complicated. Its understandable that your having issues coming to terms with all the emotions and contradictions of the relationship. (Role reversals and the like)
When it comes our relationship to our mothers and fathers its indeed complex. Jung felt that one of the tasks of individuation and becoming an adult is to come to terms with the Mother/Father Complex. Often this is forced on us when we lose a parent.
The task is to take ownership of our ability to nurture and protect ourselves â in a symbolic way become our own mother and father. The difficulty is that our ability to nurture and protect ourselves has been greatly influenced by our relationship to our mother and father and sometimes we canât separate the experience from our own abilities nurture and protect ourselves.
We take ownership by becoming conscious of our experience of our mother and our inner mother â Symbolically if we may have to overcome the âevil step motherâ the problem of overcoming the negative self judgment and internal dialog we might have. But even the To Good Mother must be dealt with as in this case we may have to over come a tendency to be overly trusting, naĂŻve or the expectation that others will always nurture and take care of us.
The book âThe Wildâ by Cheryl Strayed is a good example of coming to terms with the mother complex. Cheryl life spirals out of control when her to good mother (her idealization of her mother) died. With the loss of her mother Cheryl loss the ability to nurture herself in a positive way. It was only after Cheryl was able to see her mother as an individual, the good the bad and the ugly and not only âMotherâ that she was able to connect to the positive inner mother and begin to be able to nurture herself.
Don’t be to hard on yourself as you work you way through this experience.
Peter
ParticipantHi Tannhouser
I don’t know anything about the statistics between depression, spirituality and atheism however there is indeed a lot of nonsense when it comes to talk about G_d, Religion, spiritually, humanism, even atheism… there is a lot of nonsense in the world.
Their is a fable, sorry can’t remember the details only that the lesson was to be careful about the questions you ask. There are some questions better left not being asked as once they are asked you can often find yourself falling down a “rabbit hole”
Good for you for understanding what helps and does not help you.
Peter
ParticipantHi Rai
As they say âFool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.â – I think you know you need to cut contact with this guy. As for talking to his girl friend? I would stay out of it. You need to protect yourself and not let your self to be pulled in further into this drama power game.
Peter
ParticipantDear Jenny
I agree with Anita. I’m not aware of many people who have good under standing of the  âinfinite nature of loveâ especially as it relates to the idea’s we have about sex, intimacy and commitment. Your husband can love his friend without having sex with her. That he feels that sex is needed in order for him to express that love suggests that his understanding of the âinfinite nature of loveâ needs more depth.
There are those that can handle a open marriage however such a thing requires really, really, really good communicators skills on all parties evolved. My observations, few have those skills and eventually all open relationships end.
Peter
ParticipantHi Katie
You may find the following book helpful: ‘When the past is present’ by david richo
Peter
ParticipantHi Maria
You appear to be very self aware as you already know that you need to deal with your anger. Believe it or not that is a big step. The clinginess and childishness that you experience as a negative is likely linked to the anger.
Something that struck me in your post was your relationship to the concepts of forgiveness and patience. Reading between the lines it seems to me that you are making the mistake of attaching your idea of forgiveness and patience to your mother. Forgiveness does not require you to repair or engage in a relationship with the person that hurt you. Sometime âLoveâ requires a relationship to end.
Foremost forgiveness is about and for the person who was hurt and may not even require the evolvement of the person who hurt us. Following this path of forgiveness allows us to let go and detach ourselves from the experience and find patience for ourselves. You are not your experiences, you are not your memories, you are not your pastâŚ.
It is very important to note that detachment is not the same as indifference. What happened to you happened, it hurt and has influenced your experiences, you are not indifferent, and you do not have to forget. (though you may want to practice âforgettingâ as in not dwelling which is differentâ) Detachment is part of the practice of detaching the sense of self, ego, identity from our experiences and or memories. You may experience the emotion of sadness or anger when a memory pops up but âYouâ are not your emotions. You experience emotions, you are not the emotion and in this way the emotions flow through you vice getting dammed up to a point everything burst forth in a fit of anger. Does any of that make sense?
Heal your relationship to forgiveness and you will heal yourself.
Peter
ParticipantWhen it comes to inner experiences and memory time is an illusion (and a trickster). Here the past, present and future exist together, are part of each other, and happen at the same time.
This nostalgia, this longing for yesterday, longing for home isnât happening in the past its occurring now, in the present. The past that you are remembering, this act of remembering is now. Â You arenât stuck in the past you are suck in the now.
The problem is memory. It is likely that this memory you labelled âfour years agoâ has been idealized. Meanings and purposes attached that only exist in hind sight and can and will change in the next remembering.
The feeling of nostalgia can become a trap or a door. A trap if you stay stuck in the illusion, becoming that old angry guy always talking about how good things used to be. Or a door, a reminder to your sense of self that the Self seeks to find and return to its authentic self. That the path you are on is not who you are, itâs a path. A path that will change and lead you places you have yet to dream of.
In the words of T.S Eliot – “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – T. S. Eliot
You see we are always seeking home, longing for home⌠even as we have a problem recognizing it as home, but that two is part of the path. Donât get stuck in the illusion of past memory. Take what you learned, pick a direction and see what lies over the next hill. You will find your way home⌠your already there.
Peter
ParticipantHi Lauren
From what you have written I donât think you are over reacting. Its possible that he is doesnât realise the uncomfortable situations he often places you in however that is not an excuse as it suggests he is taking your friendship for granted.
As a guy, and ashamed that I have also done something similar to a friend in the past, its also possible that a part of him likes not quite letting you go and keeping you guessing. Â A kind of ego power trip thing. Either way he is not âseeingâ you.
If you truly donât have any romantic feelings for the guy, or any expectations as a friend you could try to just maintain a work relationship. Let him know you are not willing to talk about personal matters, and you may want to find someone else to car pool with.
Peter
ParticipantHi Jay
Ouch that is a difficult situation to be in.
Two things I noted.
The tendency to compare ourselves with others is never helpful and a bad habit to get into. If your working in the practice, letting go of such comparisons and learning to love yourself without comparison is a good place to start.
The second thing is the speculation that you can know what another person is thinking, or motives are.  You canât. The rule of charity states that if there are multiple possibilityâs behinds someone actions and you cannot be sure which is true, pick the story (it is a story until you confirm it) that is most compassionate. Pick the story that does you the least harm.  The other option is to talk to this person and ask them straight out if there is any ulterior motives to their interactions to you. That would take a great deal of courage and understandable if you decide not to, however if you decide not to, again choose the better story and in this way let it go.
Peter
ParticipantYour story especially as it relates to the self-help movement propensity to focus one-sidedly on the positive reminds me of the story heard of a sparrow trapped in an empty grain silo.
There was enough grain and water to survive but the sparrow was stuck and wanted out. Each morning the sparrow would look up and see light shining though various cracks in the silo. Frantically the sparrow would fly towards some light coming through the crack hoping to find a way out, however they where never big enough for the sparrow to find freedom. Flying from one light to the next, at the end of the day the sparrow lay exhausted and frustrated on the floor of the silo. Â One morning instead of look up the sparrow looked down and noticed air coming through a hole in the floor. Though afraid as it was very dark, the sparrow entering the hole which required going down a ways but at the bottom the tunnel started going upwards until the sparrow from itself free of the silo and out in the open air.
This has matched my experience.
The movement to improve oneself is great however its important to remember that sure itâs the tree branches and leaves that reach upwards to the light that reveals its beauty, but it is its roots that drive deep into the darkness that also bring in nutrients but more importantly stability, especially in times of bad weather.
Just one thing about the experience of purpose. I am convinced that the experience of purpose is about what you do but being seen. It is when we are âseenâ by others and or by ourselves that we experience purpose and meaning. After a divorce it would be natural to feel that we are not seen and so feel life as lacking purpose and meaning. So in my opinion Purpose isnât about looking upwards but downward, looking first to see ourselves and then open up to allow others to see us.
Sometimes the way out isn’t up but down.
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