Hello Adam Sparks!

I read your post yesterday and found myself responding to it in an interesting way 🙂 At first, I found it hard to relate, because of the superficial differences. I don’t know what it’s like to be a young man in love with another young man. So my brain wasn’t able to find any useful information from my own past to fit your situation. This ended up being a good thing, because I wasn’t able to project my own fears and past hurts onto you. I read your post and just felt this joy reading how much love you have for this man. He really seems to be very precious to you, and I find that to be very precious in itself.

The “bad stuff” that may happen in relationships is usually the result of our fears of bad stuff happening. We panic and try to control the situation. You already know that you can not control the love that you feel. You also acknowledge that he is far away and might want company locally, and you’ve accepted that, not wanting to control him. Perhaps the next step is to acknowledge that you are powerless in front of this great love, and that it’s OK. If you were in total control of the situation, your feelings and him, it wouldn’t be the same anymore. Romantic love needs a bit of uncertainty in order to exist. Knowing that the other person is free, yet still decides to share themselves with you is really quite wonderful.

Cherish the feeling that you have and cherish him. Don’t let the fears take over and kill the feelings that you have.

I also want to thank you for sharing a bit of your life, because reading your post made me understand myself a bit better and I actually feel butterflies in my own stomach because of how you describe your love for him. Love really is so very wonderful and thrilling.

Hi Matt,

I’ll offer you my point of view, which isn’t really based on any particular teaching, but is just how I view this world. I don’t claim my view to be any kind of absolute truth. Just something I’ve observed in myself and in others. So handle my words with a healthy amount of skepticism, but try to keep an open mind 🙂

I think we are all tender and vulnerable, but then life happens and we experience things that hurt us deeply. We get scared, and while we’re scared and seek for protection and understanding from others, our pleas for help might be dismissed. Left to our own devices, we start to create these shields at a very young age and as a result, we have these rather immature ways of coping with stressful situations. When we feel under threat, we automatically summon this bigger, meaner big brother or sister, that quickly hurts the person back who tried to hurt us. Or who we perceived to be hurting us. I think that we all have these reactionary sides to our personality. It might be the only way to feel safe when we are younger and feel powerless. When we get older, we start to suffer from the consequences of those actions, so it’s time to learn new ways to protect ourselves.

I personally don’t see evil as some kind of force. I see it as a void, where love and compassion has seized to exist for what ever reason. Darkness can not exist when there is light, but when the light goes out, everything becomes dark and cold again.

In my humble opinion, you need to start tending to your tender and vulnerable core. Give more room for the part of you that is in desperate need to be seen and heard, to be loved and respected. You can’t outsource that, though it is of course a good idea to seek people who are kind and loving (and try to steer clear from those who also try to suppress their emotions). Speaking from experience, it is not easy. To open up, even when alone, seems to trigger this other part that was created to protect from hurt. It requires a lot of time and patience to learn how to calm down when things inside your mind gets heated. Probably a lot of painful thoughts come to the surface, and you’ll have to acknowledge them. What has happened, has happened, and it can’t be changed now. Reality needs to be acknowledged and accepted, but you can do it without passing judgment. You’ll probably realise that when you can look at things with love and compassion, guilt and shame turn into sadness and deep understanding. You accept responsibility and forgive yourself.

You have the possibility to oversee these different parts of yourself; the vulnerable part that feels like other people are taking advantage of, and the aggressive counterpart that reacts to the hurt with actions that get you into trouble. Nobody can actually take advantage of you without your permission. When we’re children and teenagers, it’s a different story, but as adults, we can set boundaries and we are in charge of what we give and receive. You don’t have to borrow money to anyone, even if they ask or try to guilt trip you. You can say “no”. If you do decide to lend money, only lend as much as you can afford to lose. If someone doesn’t pay you back, then that’s their wrongful actions, not yours. That is just an example, but I think it’s good for you to recognize that you actually have power over yourself and your own life. Set your boundaries and also give more room for your neglected self. No other person can do this for you. As you experienced, even a therapist can completely fail to see and hear you, as they are too busy focusing on the superficial. But you know yourself and you know what you need deep down. So give yourself that what you need.

There’s this documentary that I’d like to share with you. It is about Vipassana meditation and how it was used in a prison in India. The documentary actually made me want to take a Vipassana course, which I will some day (they only have one once per year in my country). I think it is a wonderful story of how one can come to terms with the painful reality and learn to react to it with compassion, rather than avoidance. You can watch the whole documentary in YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg

I actually have been writing this for about an hour already + some ruminating in my mind before that. It’s difficult, because I know exactly what I want to tell you and make you see, but it is so difficult to put it into words and to organize the thoughts that are actually feelings. You are loved and already forgiven, you are seen and heard, but you just don’t know it yet.

Having a tender and vulnerable spirit doesn’t take away from your masculinity, by the way. A man with a kind and loving heart is much more powerful than a man who denies his own humanity.

If there is no free will, then whether or not you’ll end up running around naked will either happen or not. It’s not your choice then. It still wouldn’t make everything meaningless or pointless. I think it’s quite interesting to see how everything plays out.

This is just my personal opinion, but I think that most obsessive things that we do are a form of self-protection. Not very efficient in what they’re supposed to do, but there’s some kind of logic behind it.

I’m a rather controlling personality. It might not be obvious, as I’m also laid-back, but my brain is constantly doing some kind of calculations and I’m very aware of my surroundings and the subtleties in it. It is very annoying, so I do try to actively let go…occasionally. Not constantly, but now and again. In a safe place, when I’m alone, I imagine letting go of everything. Accepting that the world will continue to function without my awareness of what is happening in it. I can turn my back on everything for a moment and trust that everything will not fall apart. It is very liberating and very thrilling. I feel very light and like I’m standing on a hill, with wind blowing from every direction, and I accept it all. I don’t have to control the currents and the winds; nothing bad will happen.

I know that I would have to do a lot of letting go in order to change the way my brain works, but for now, it’s enough for me that I can acknowledge when it’s starting to become too stressful and I can then find the release I need from the grips of the controlling brain.

The reason I took a different turn on my own journey couple of years ago was that I had lost a person whom I really, really wanted in my life. Yet, my life was a complete mess and so was I. He was perfect for me, someone I had waited for my entire life, and then he was there, and it all fell apart. It was the push I needed to really seek help for my own problems. So, for me, was the timing bad or exactly what it was supposed to be? 🙂 It didn’t end up being the great romance in the conventional sense, but it changed everything for me. He is still around, supporting me and encouraging me on my way, and there is still hope for romance in the future. If it ever happens, it would be completely different to what it would’ve been, had we embarked on a mutual journey while I still had issues that needed to be dealt with.

While you’re in pain, it’s hard to see the future and think that things might be different. You don’t know what is going to happen. What if you learned something precious from this experience and next year, the real love of your life will enter the scene? What if you helped her to see something she really needed to see? Obviously, all of this isn’t a great help when you are in the middle of a painful situation. Besides, if you focus on what might happen next, you’d miss out on what is happening right now, which is what leads to the next moment.

All you can really do is to take care of yourself and be kind and compassionate to yourself and observe. Try to make choices that are healthy for you, and try not to hurt others in the process. Life unfolds before you all the time, and a year from now, you’ll look back and see what you can’t see right now.

I’ve done, and probably still do, something similar to what you are doing. I figured that one of the reasons would be that there’s this thought somewhere at the back of my head that if I go to the source of the pain, I can control it. If I can’t see it, or hear it, then perhaps it’ll sneak up on me and surprise me with pain. Of course, I never can control the pain, and the pain just ends up controlling me.

I remember this one thing from a book I read about abandonment, and it said that if you step on a duckling, it’ll start to obsessively follow you around (this was from some sort of scientific/psychological experiment). Unfortunately I can’t remember what the conclusion about it was, as I was reading the book during a time that was so filled with pain, that it was hard to focus. In any case, I can understand the obsessing part, even though I have no explanation for it. Other than the idea that one keeps friends close and enemies closer; to know what is happening, to be able to control it.

I’m sure it’s always more complex than that, but I just wanted to let you know that you’re not exactly alone with such behavior. I agree that you should definitely continue to choose the healthier option and keep the distance. Even tell him that you need some time and space to heal. Surely he’ll take good care of your pet, and you could focus on healing. It’s funny how we are fine with taking some time and giving care for ourselves when we have some visible ailment, like a broken arm, bad back or the flu. Yet, when it’s about a broken heart or injured soul or trauma from abandonment, we keep saying that we should just get on with it and move on. There’s no need to ruminate over the pain, but it is a good idea to pay more attention to how we treat ourselves and what we put ourselves through when ill.

Be kind to yourself.

Well, I actually didn’t say that we have total control over how we interpret our experiences 🙂 We have control over it, especially if we’re self-aware enough, but I don’t think we have total control over anything. Also, things don’t have to be just negative or positive, but they can be, and most of the times are, neutral. Neutrality brings a lot of peace as well. There’s no need to interpret everything as a positive, especially if it gets you further away from the truth.