Oskari,

I’m sorry for your suffering, and can understand the sense of desperate hopelessness. Its as if the world doesn’t fit, or we don’t fit in it. We’ve tried countless paths, but nothing seems to bring about a sense of inner balance, of rested peacefulness. Don’t despair, dear brother, this is normal and usual, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with you. What you’re experiencing is fear of the unknown, mixed with poor self nurturing habits. A few things came to heart as I read your words.

You sound pretty harsh on yourself, friend. Like a master with a whip, sometimes we stand behind ourselves and try to push and push. “Keep going”, “Stop being lazy”, “dammit, what’s wrong here?”, “Learn faster”, “climb higher”. On and on the voice pushes, demands, criticizes.

Buddha taught that we all have a drive inside us to find happiness, but a fundamental ignorance on how to find it. This leaves us with faulty maps, a dissonance between how we try to find happiness and what actually brings us happiness.

It seems to me that your stressed feelings are coming from your body, which is bitching you’re not being kind enough to it. Not taking time to relax, unwind, let go and rest. Setting down the quest, putting away the swords, closing the attention on the mystery. Said differently, the kid in you has forgotten how to play. Dummy! No wonder the world is glum looking. 🙂

No wonder you feel envy, people having fun around you, while you’re stuck in some emotional mud. Then, here comes the whip “no envy, what’s wrong with you?”. Yeah, where’s the fun in that? No wonder the kid’s grumpy. Consider instead “oh, that looks nice, I’d like to have my version of that too, please.” The brightness of it makes sense, but just because its not yours doesn’t mean you have to resent theirs. Right? But still, it’d be nice to get out of the mud.

This is where better self care habits come in. When we take time to be kind to ourselves, nurture our happiness, we feel better. Our body experiences stress as we learn and quest and solve and wonder. Expending energy. As we self nurture, that energy is recharged, helping us meet our day to day dance with grace and simplicity. Yes, the mysteries of career and how to help the world and finding love and so forth remain, but with a sense of curious adventure, like hiking up a mountain, rather than slashing through a thorny mess.

But to learn to dance, we have to learn to accept the uncomfortable aspects of our song, and rest with them. Just accepting the unknown, and opening to what’s here. Perhaps hop in a tub with candles, go to a museum, art gallery, out in nature… and look around. Be there, see what’s there, let go and breathe. My favorite of these is metta meditation. Metta is the feeling of warm friendship, and is something we can learn to grow. As we focus on thinking kind thoughts, it reaches into our subconscious and cleans house, establishing a more stable emotional ground. Consider “Sharon Salzberg guided metta meditation” on YouTube, if interested. Or “Pema Chodron Awakening Compassion” on YouTube, if interested. Pema approaches metta in a different direction, called tonglin, but both practices have the same basic results. Really though, any time you spend having fun (sober’s better) helps breathe out the stress of it and reinspire our raison d’être. Happiness in the destination is a waste, because happiness is available all along the way. Especially because we’re always on our way somewhere, “horray, got third in the class, learned well. But shit, what’s next?”. Ya know? Where’s the celebration? The space to enjoy?

Finally, stop beating yourself up for your mistakes. We’re all fools, stumbling our way through. Perhaps if you had seen dad flubbing his way through life with duct tape and spit, it would have been easier to laugh at your stubbed toes and broken engines. It happens, friend, but we have to cut ourselves some slack, we’re doing our best to do our do. 🙂 So be gentle, explore your path tenderly, forgive early and often (yourself and others), and laugh at what foolishness comes up as we all bump elbows and toes. It helps to stay open, so when the fruits are lush, we’re open to that, too. And, whoohoo, just you wait and see!

Namaste, brother, may your wings find their warm breeze.

With warmth,
Matt