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I need your insights on this one

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  • #86901
    humour
    Participant

    I need help with understanding this. I have a fear of punishment. I feel that mistakes I’ve made in the past will be scrutinized. Some things are done unintentionally but I feel that lessons have to be learnt and I have to go through the pain. Sometimes I have felt that I need to change the attitude of perfectionism because of which i have been extremely hard on myself trying to get evrything ‘right’. Now, i understand that I have made more ‘mistakes’ when i have been extremely hard on myself. Its been difficult to sit on the mat and meditate because there are all these thoughts which I am trying to make sense of. Mindfulness has definitely addressed some of these questions I’ve had, where i try to focus on the emotions and try not to get lost in thoughts. Even when I practice mindfulness, if I have 100 thoughts in a day, around 80 of them tell me ‘no matter what you practice, you will still be punished for the wrong you did. Law is law.” This has been happening and maybe i am attracting it and it has been a trying time. I want to get rid of this mindset because who knows whats ‘right’ and ‘wrong’; circumstances make you behave in a certain way. Like they say never judge a person when he says something in anger. Those words are not true because he said it out of anger but another thought says, maybe he has to pay a price for it. Everytime I am in pain, I kind of link it to something I’ve done earlier.
    Can you’ll provide your insights and help me understand where i am going wrong because I desperately need to get rid of this mindset? lol

    #86903
    jock
    Participant

    sorry but “100 thoughts a day” jumps out at me first. Some of us can do 100 thoughts a minute, easy! πŸ™‚
    Can I ask your religion? Because it seems to be brainwashing you, making you feel guilty for no reason. Some religion’s dogma or doctrine in not conducive to good mental health. Ones that promote puritanical perfectionism, are not healthy in my view. This is my opinion. I was raised Catholic and some of the dogma made me feel guilty for even having selfish thoughts. But again that could’ve been my misinterpretation.
    Words like Armageddon and Judgement Day can haunt you. Better to look forward to Non-Judgemental Day. πŸ™‚

    • This reply was modified 9 years ago by jock.
    #86906
    humour
    Participant

    Lol. That’s true. Million thoughts a day. I just gave an example. I am not sure of the dogma and the guilt part of it but I felt a need to search for the truth but looks like ‘not searching and sitting quietly’ will open up things. It definitely is frustrating at times.arrgghhh. lol. Well maybe its the upbringing. Mindfulness has definitely helped me. I guess I just have to keep “practice practice brother” going. Yeah better to look forward to non-judgemental day.haha. Thanks Jack!

    #86907
    Laycee
    Participant

    Hi pantlover,

    Coming from someone that is/has experienced the situation you wrote about, I want to share with you what has worked for me. I am also proud that you are at least attempting to meditate, because I personally didn’t use meditation as a type of therapy until recently. I know that if I had attempted meditation sooner and with an open heart and mind, I would have been a lot happier a lot sooner.

    You have probably heard the same things like “everyone makes mistakes” or “no one is perfect”. You can hear it, see it, think it, read it, countless times over but it doesn’t matter; this isn’t good enough, you should/could have done this or that. Right?

    Honestly, you need YOURSELF. LOVE yourself. No matter what you do or where you go, YOU are all YOU will ever have.
    Mistakes. Did you really make life changing, ruining, saving, mistakes? Were they really that bad? I’m sure not every so called ‘mistake’ was really as terrible as you are making it. Stop beating yourself up!

    Loving yourself is the best thing that will ever happen to you. ACCEPT the negative thoughts/memories/feelings that you have, fighting them will waste too much of your energy. Also, can your body afford to keep up with the stress? It really does kill your brain, something you can’t just heal (I am a psychology major).
    When you experience these negative things, question them/yourself. Every time you have an answer that really isn’t an answer (Like, ‘why can’t I be happy?’ ‘Because I’m not good enough’), question it. ‘Why am I not good enough?’ Keep questioning, and eventually you will realize how sill you sound, especially if you say it out loud.

    What would you tell someone in your shoes? I ask myself for advice and only give myself POSITIVE advice. It actually has helped quite a bit, but to make it a habit I first imagined talking to someone else, because it helped give me the positive and therapeutic effect of talking out my personal fears, without attaching too much of my personal self to it. Basically, I was able to ease myself into a painfully and openly dealing with things while at the same time accepting everything I could think of for what it truly was. Try doing something that you enjoy, and then or also do something relaxing, simply because you can. Enjoy yourself because there are reasons to do so. Importantly, do something relaxing that actually is relaxing. Simply going through the motions and even the thought patterns (like sitting and meditating) can not create a feeling or place inside that you are looking for. If you are more relaxed and contemplative doing something else, like cooking or taking a shower, then find a way to work some meditation around that activity or time because it might help you.

    #86959
    Saiisha
    Participant

    Hi plantlover,
    It must be tricky to travel through your days worrying about being punished!! Mistakes are your friends – they tell you what not to do πŸ™‚ Keeping the trend of quoting numbers going, you’ve heard Edison’s quote, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” If you can take on that scientist mindset of experimentation, then you won’t worry so much about punishment. So what if you make a mistake? Observe it with detachment, see where you went wrong, and how you can do it differently next time.

    I hope this helps?

    #86960
    humour
    Participant

    Thank you Laycee for your lovely advice πŸ™‚ Thank you dear Saiisha, it definitely helps πŸ™‚

    #86961
    Saiisha
    Participant

    You’re welcome plantlover! BTW – if it helps to think of what I talked about as a spiritual practice – it’s called self-inquiry (atma-vichara in sanskrit). Learning to observe with detachment can play a big part in understanding the deeper parts of yourself that are causing anxiety and worry.

    #86966
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear plantover:

    I think that the punishment you fear will happen in the future already happened. You were already punished. It is done.

    I don’t mean this sentence to be a cute sentence. Think about it deeply, will you? And then a bit deeper. Give it some time. See if you come up with something from it…?

    anita

    #87211
    humour
    Participant

    Thank you Anita and Saiisha. I will think about what you both have written.

    #87213
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear humour:

    You are welcome. You wrote that you think: ” β€˜no matter what you practice, you will still be punished for the wrong you did.”

    You wrote “STILL be punished.” I am thinking it is likely that you were punished NOT for things you did wrong, but for things others did not like. For example, some children are punished for crying or “complaining” when it is not wrong to cry or complain some, it only inconvenienced the parent. It was not wrong.

    But you assume it is wrong and then you become hypervigilant, fearing to do the next “wrong” thing.

    The thing is to differentiate between what is truly wrong and what is not wrong. To look back and examine what it was that you WERE punished for, if those things were at all wrong? If they weren’t wrong, if for example crying was not wrong to begin with, then it is okay to cry NOW. That wouldn’t be wrong now just as it wasn’t wrong then.

    anita

    #87222
    humour
    Participant

    Thank you anita. I hope I can make sense
    Of some stuff and rid my consciousness of
    Things which don’t serve me.

    #87254
    Dernell
    Participant

    HI”
    words for thought”…

    If life” didn’t have contrast”…..would we know the difference?

    meaning ( there is no such thing as light” without dark” )…The universe isn’t made to go back”…only forward, through time as it exist”

    Life” to me, is about choices and lessons”. mistakes” are just part of the game”… AS long as you don’t keep on repeating” the same ones.

    And I truly feel that you are learning” from your past”. Because your heart can still feel the wrong or guilt that you might of had done to others”…so that you won’t repeat”.

    So try your best to let go, and breathe”… it’s okay, how else do you think we change as people? GROWTH”

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 12 months ago by Dernell.
    • This reply was modified 8 years, 12 months ago by Dernell.
    #87314
    humour
    Participant

    Thank you for your kind words Dernell

    #87343
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear humour:

    I wrote to you Nov 7th the following regarding your fear of punishment: “I think that the punishment you fear will happen in the future already happened. You were already punished. It is done….Think about it deeply, will you? And then a bit deeper. Give it some time. See if you come up with something from it…?”

    I took my own advice to you and the results at this point are in my “Attacked” thread today. Does it mean anything to you, as far as your fear of punishment?

    anita

    #87453
    Dernell
    Participant

    ANY TIME” HUMOUR!

    IT TAKES A LOT OF COURAGE” TO BE HONEST” NOT TO US… BUT TO( YOURSELF” )….

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 11 months ago by Dernell.
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 23 total)

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