Do our experiences crate our thoughts or do our thoughts crate our experience? (read create… but I like crate)

I suspect it both.

We often have little control over the influence’s coming from the outer world however we can influence the stories and thoughts we tell ourselves and in way create the growth we hope for.

The first step is to become conscious of the stories you’re telling yourself and check them for cognitive distortions.
There is always distortions in the stories we tell ourselves so it would be a mistake to label or judge any findings as proof of being bad or stupid (which would be a cognitive distortion) The task is to become conscious of your stories and possible distortions without judgment so that you might respond to them vice react to them

You might enjoy ‘The Art of Racing in the Rain’ by Garth Stein

“In racing, they say that your car goes where your eyes go. The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle.”
― Garth Stein

“To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to.”
― Garth Stein

“People are always worried about what’s happening next. They often find it difficult to stand still, to occupy the now without worrying about the future. People are generally not satisfied with what they have; they are very concerned with what they are going to have.”
― Garth Stein

“That which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”
― Garth Stein

“I know this much about racing in the rain. I know it is about balance. It is about anticipation and patience… [it is also] about the mind! It is about owning one’s body… It is about believing that you are not you; you are everything. And everything is you.”
― Garth Stein

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by Peter. Reason: (lol typo crate instead of create, but maybe crate is still correct as our thoughts more easily box us in then free us

I’ve had a similar experience with the relationship to Love as Jock noted.

Relationships, what’s love got to do with it? Everything and nothing???
– Love must be present but does not mean a physical/material/worldly relationship should be maintained.
– Love is “all there is” and so always present even when you don’t feel the thrill of being in love or when love requires a relationship to end.

So confusing

The movie ‘La La Land’ address the issue of love and its role in Relationship and our expectations of it. (Spoiler alert)

‘La La Land’ is a movie which touches on the feel of the old time Hollywood musical where the expectation is for a happy every after Hollywood ending. The couple can achieve their life’s purpose/calling/dream and remain together happy ever after.

As an audience that’s what we want, and we get to see that the possibility was present, perhaps even only requiring moment’s choice of the taking of a different road, or a kiss instead of walking past…

But the movie doesn’t end that way. The love remains – bitter sweet – but the relationship is not meant to be. LOVE it seemed needed both Sebastian and Mia to become more then it needed them to be together. Perhaps even, the relationship push pull and ending was part of the process for them to achieve their callings.

Maybe that’s not helpful but I believe it to be true maybe only because it has been my experience. The woman I loved woke up one day and stopped loving me even though she still loved me. The relationship was over. I have never been so hurt… Knowing, or was it accepting, that LOVE pushes for growth, pushes for life and becoming even at a cost of a personal relationship did not make it hurt any less. In hindsight I can see that the pain of the breakup for both us pushed us forward into a more mature inner relationship to a relationship with life and love. Still bitter-sweet.

The same week I saw the movie ‘Collateral Beatty” where a man grieving the loss of his daughter writes letters to Death, Time and Love. Though the sadness and loss is different it’s also the same as that in La La land…  (so appropriate ‘La La Land’ when it comes to our expectations of Love)

Sorry I’m meandering.

Anyway after that movie I thought to myself that I would have written the angry letters to Life and Love and wondered what that said about me… Its not Death I’m angry at but Life… Maybe it doesn’t matter as Life and Death exist in each other, require each other… one might say they are married to each other and that together are LOVE.

Still not helpful.

Maybe when it comes to the experience of Love and Being in love, reason, philosophy, psychology, theology… don’t matter in the end… maybe all we can do is experience it and doing so hope to become.

Funny, I’ve been thinking about learning some dancing…I love music, but feel so awkward when I attempt to dance to the beat…

If you want a activity where you get to practice learning not to take yourself too seriously and self acceptance – ballroom dancing.
Everyone starts out awkward but then if you persevere one day you realize your body always new how to dance.. it was always only the mind getting in the way. And isn’t that true of most of the things we do especially with regards to relationships?

🙂

I figure that most people break there resolutions within the first week of the new year so

New years Resolutions…
Start drinking, over eating, gambling, smoking, womanizing…

Worked for me last year 🙂 though I’m a little torn with the womanizing, on the one hand it sounds like it might be fun but then I think so much work and who am I kidding no way I could handle it… 🙂

Happy New Year Everyone!

The car goes were the eyes go. When a car enters a spin and your eyes stay fixed on the tree by the side of the road your afraid of hitting that is exactly what you will hit. The car goes were the eyes go.

In this moment of time and space you can’t take your eyes off the memory of your mistake and so that is where your car/self goes. By focusing on this memory you intensify it and give it power. You are not required to be perfect, your are not expected to forget but you are expected to learn and in learning grow.

We are more then the sum of our parts, more then the things that we think or the things that we do. We make mistakes and hopefully we learn and then we do better. Learn better do better what more can we ask of ourselves. If someone close to you made the same error in judgment would you continue to define them by that single event for the rest of their life? We are asked to love our neighbor as our selves but often some of us treat others much better then they treat themselves. In this case it may be appropriate to love yourself as you would love others.

A quick google search for spiritual loneliness reveals that you are not alone.

Almost all wisdom traditions recognize the conundrum of spiritual awakening and loneliness and even warn that this will be a hurdle along the path for those that practice. It seems that ignorance or unconsciousness is truly bliss.

Seeing the world as it is and saying yes to this world as it is, yes to life as it is, is bitter sweet. Becoming opens the door to compassion, love and even calmness but at the cost of knowing that life must, no will, come at the cost of the sacrifice of life, that learning comes from confrontation with hope and expectation… we seek holding a balance of becoming and acceptance – bitter sweet

You recognize the loneliness of acceptance of the things you cannot change that you see so much clearer.

Ram Dass: There is an intense desire, once you have tasted something as sweet as spiritual awakening, to want to share it with people you love. Sometimes it’s so strong that you get into a proselytizing stance that awakens in them a paranoid defense, because you’re saying to them, “Who you are, just as you are, isn’t enough; if you only knew what I know, or had what I had, you could be happier than you are, and I want that for you.”

After a while, you come to appreciate that what you can offer another human being is to work on yourself to be a statement of what it is you have found in the way you live your life, and one of the things you have found or will find is the ability to appreciate what is, as it is, in equanimity and compassion and love that isn’t conditional; that is, you don’t love a person more because they are happier the way you think they should be.

What you cultivate in yourself is the garden in which they can grow, and you offer your consciousness and the spaciousness to hear it.

I have become an environment that is available, I am living my life in such a way that some people come up to me at an airport, and they say, “You know I’ve been watching you, and there’s some quality about you; could we have a cup of tea?” or something like that, and then I’d know it’s really “out there”; it’s really working; and what I find is that if I just am what I am, when people are ready they will ask, and now I really wait for people to ask. I don’t come on to people, I don’t like to teach where I’m not invited to teach.

The above may be wisdom but it can be loneliness if the desire is to be asked.

You may be interested in reading about the principle of vibration, the law of attraction and the concept of synchronicity. It won’t remove the problem of spiritual loneliness but it does show how a person becoming can influence the lives of those around them in loving ways. It is however another doing by not doing.

I also believe living in the present, so in times like this it’s hard to challenge living in the present ‘as if nothing has happened’ but also using what has happened to determine my path.

I appreciate your posts as you attempt to work out your experience that I think many people can relate to. How to build trust when trust has been tested and made even more difficult by the hope of being loved.

Perhaps the question that needs to be answer first is do you trust yourselves again after your experience?

“The foundation of adult trust is not “You will never hurt me.” It is “I trust myself with whatever you do.”
― David Richo, Daring to Trust: Opening Ourselves to Real Love and Intimacy

I also struggle with the concept of living in the present and memory however I don’t think living in the present means living as if the past hasn’t happened. Our memories are a part of who we are and so present in us.

And then there is the memory of the imagined future hope for…
“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you’ll never have.” ― Søren Kierkegaard

How much are we willing to overlook in order to keep a dream alive and not experience this most painful state of being?