Hi Inky,

Excellent idea! Still it’s awesome to have the open discussions, they really mean a lot.

More for the list:

– Don’t take rejection too personally. You are awesome and there are others who appreciate you.

– Be yourself and be true to yourself.

– Don’t text or IM.

Big blue

• This reply was modified 10 years, 5 months ago by Big blue.

What comes to heart for me:

1) Don’t be afraid to post, dear friend. Even if your neighbor asked the same question, sharing often helps with the stress. We’re a community, and do our best to share space and ideas with everyone.

2) Don’t feel constrained… let your heart be free. Speak out, speak up… what’s going on? Own it! Whats there? If you’re scared to share where you’re really at, read through some past posts… let other’s courage to pour out the grit and beauty of their difficulties inspire you to jump in. Lots of huggers around here, bold but respectful.

3) Take everything with a grain of salt. Lots of views, beliefs, and attachments in most of us. We do our best, but always check it against your heart, make sure it feels right to you. Test, inquire, reject, research, argue, sit, digest. Inquire patiently, intrepidly on how to grow the path you wish to walk. What seeds produce what fruit? Tiny Buddha has a lot of great articles, which you can always bookmark, print, reread as needed. Same with threads.

4) Nurture nurture nurture. Its a busy world, yep. But we have to take time to unwind. Meditation is a supercharged version of self nurturing in my opinion… but if it doesn’t interest you, at least turn the TV or iPod to something gentle. Busy busy busy can get heavy heavy heavy. “Sharon Salzburg guided metta meditation” on youtube is a great jumping in point.

5) You are a phoenix. No matter how low we feel, harmony is all around us, peace available, in our nature. We all have limits… our genetics, history (and how much of it we have behind us), various baggage, afflictions, status. Don’t be ashamed of who you’ve been, who you are, no matter how lost, confused, or downtrodden. Mistakes are lessons, and we can learn and move on. Most fail at love and balance a few times before finding their groove. Some of us more than a few. 🙂 As we learn to sing our song, and sing out with all our heart, from the ashes of the grief flows a patient resolve to grow in the direction we wish. To dream a better dream, and then work to see the dream grow. Remember we stand on the shoulders of giants, so our successes and failures don’t really land on “us”, its a creation.

6) Don’t fall for “breakthrough, whews”, such as “ahhh, now I’m free” or “I R enlightened”. Everything cycles, and those cycles grow or erode. Not “oh, now I feel better about my exboyfriend, I’m healed, whole”. Those are more like suppression, impatience. Instead, try “I’ll cry when I’m sad, scream when I’m enraged, and try to open the space around my sorrow, anger, delusions, hatred etc”. If it feels sticky, find some stuff to do. With friends, if you have some, family, alone, or whatever feels right. Nature works for me, so does art… but what makes your heart sing? And when you do it, make an effort to let go. Don’t stew, instead, get into the present. What’s there? What do you see? Feel the air, see the art, hear the birds. Small steps, patient, consistent.

7) Forgive early, be proactive. Someone bugging you? Send them love in whatever way feels right. White light, good vibes, chi, prayers, metta. Its not a gift we give to them, its a gift we give to ourselves. When we forgive, we disentangle. Even if its just the hope of a future forgiveness, let the seeds stay present. It keeps the grief from festering. Such as “OK, I accept I’ll forgive that someday, but right now, I’m too angry/hurt/confused/bitter/sad.” Don’t force it, suppress, or invalidate your pain, but do try to remember we’re all bumbling around in the dark, with imperfect maps, childhoods, and each deserve a chance to find happiness. Even that bastard that cheated/punched/dumped you. And especially for ourselves, mistakes, self flogging, addictions. 🙂 Compassion grows as we practice, and freedom is the fruit. We keep the memories of perfectly imperfect dances, but peaceful… without the gut punch.

8) Don’t be afraid to get professional help. People sometimes feel a stigma, as though only people that are “crazy” need help. Not so. Life can be confusing for all of us, and finding help in untangling our issues is wise. Be raw, honest, courageous, and patient. Dont go in with “fix me”, rather “can you help me change the course of my ship”.

9) Put in the effort. There is a spacious joy that flows with us when we accept the work ahead of us, and try to apply our light onto the canvas. Behind a desk, a counter, a stroller, with a therapist, on a cushion, with a box of tissues, whatever… if we accept what’s there, and settle into it, breathe, our curiosity has space to blossom.

10) Don’t forget to play. Laugh loud and often, find beauty in the small things, and don’t take yourself too seriously. Its only life. 🙂

Good luck, and namaste. Feel free to “@” any of us in a thread if you’ve resonated with something we’ve said, want our take on a story, or if you want to hug/share/vent/inquire/help. Click on any profile, and you’ll see @user. I’m @amatt for instance.

With warmth,
Matt

BLAICE-SPECIFIC POINTS

These are probably most beneficial to me but hopefully they can act as underscores for others.

1) Try to understand that oftentimes you will simply derive loss from missing the relationship instead of the individual person. If you find yourself obsessing over particular memories but remain at a loss as to why and how someone you care about could hurt you, try to focus on the relationship in and of itself as it will help silhouette the person and compartmentalise the pain.

2) Try to rationalise your loss introspectively (however hard this might be) but do not project an expectation of that same rationality in the other person. Simply: do not orient a mature or reasonable explanation with an immature or unreasonable person.

3) Try not to feel loss for a person who so readily was willing to discard you as it only proves they loved you conditionally. Look at the circumstances of your relationship: would you really want to continue investing your heart and spirit into something that required several boxes to be ticked indefinitely?

4) Try to avoid the desire to force a relationship to work, as in, to programme someone into the person you want them to be (and vice versa) – another unhealthy aspiration. Likewise, do not allow your vulnerability to conform you to the idea that co-dependence is the only affirmation of happiness or validation of existence.

5) Try to seek closure if it is accessible but do not consider it necessary to your recovery. Many people emphasise that a lack of appropriate reasoning is obstructive to the healing process, placing high expectations on gaining a few simple answers as to why the relationship broke down. If you find yourself chasing reasons as to why that person hurt you, consider that if you finally got those ‘reasons’ they likely would not be sufficient enough anyway.

6) Try, if tolerable, to avoid the desire to erase the person completely from your life; erasing physical or virtual ties is not commensurate with erasing hurt, in fact it could stultify the healing process. Complete erasure is generally unrealistic and could dictate a state of heightened sensitivity, residual hurt, and emotional relapse later on.

7) Try to admit that on some level you brought ‘fault’ to the relationship. Whether or not this was marginally destructive or the absolute catalyst in its demise, relationships are a biological and emotional uncertainty. However, never accept that these ‘faults’ are intrinsically malign. Rather, learn to accept that people are pathologically different and simply one action or reaction is open to much (mis)interpretation.

8) Try to surround yourself with friends; seek counsel through experiential reciprocity.

9) Try not to coerce your recovery or preoccupy yourself with getting ‘better’ by someone else’s convention – time is curative in a period relative only to you.

10) Try not to let any of these points dictate your emotional healing. They are simply advice. Do whatever the fuck you need to do.

11) Try, when ready, to reflect both on the good and bad aspects of the relationship. Loss has a capricious way of suddenly downplaying the ‘bad’ and accentuating the ‘good’. Care and consideration is essential.

12) Try to come back and re-read these points at different stages. It is natural only to be receptive to certain help at certain periods of time.

This is an interesting post, because it kind of describes why I don’t quite like this place anymore, but for a different reason. Sure, there are a lot of people who ask the same questions, but to offer them a pre-made list and to wave their questions as “has been asked and answered before” just shows that the ego of the person who’s answering is bigger and more important than the suffering of the person who’s seeking help. There are already a ton of articles on the Tiny Buddha site with lists on what to do and how to get over pain. The people who come here want to interact with others and talk about what is going on in their life.

Everyone who comes here wants to be seen and heard as individuals, regardless of what they write and what they ask. They may be asking for the most simple things, where the answer should be obvious to everyone, but to focus on that is missing the point. People in desperate situations seek human connection, sympathy and understanding, and a place where they can talk about their own suffering without judgment. They’re unlikely to want to be treated as battery hens, each given the same treatment and popped in and out of a machine.

So please, check your ego and have a little heart.

Hi all,

I found this great site about 9 weeks ago by doing a search on how to get over a love. I think the relationship section is a huge help for this. While here, I’ve been reading the other sections and the articles. By far the most valuable aspect of the site is people being able to tell their stories, share solutions, and show empathy. Having a list or two helps re: a quick, comprehensive read – a different yet complimentary help. Just my 2 cents.

By the way I saw this woman today, who I first came here to deal with, and I was my normal self and had no mixed up feelings. Thank you all for helping me through this. Also, thank you for letting me share so I can help others.

Big blue

Thanks @talkingwithtinybuddah and @emmanueller21.

Hi, @theruminant. I’m sorry you feel this way but that is simply not the intention of any of the posters on here. You say posting pre-made lists is negligent of someone’s feelings but, at least in my case, this was a list I forged in tears and embitterment and later refined in the light of rationality. It is not clinical. It is not ego-centric. It is not malign.

What I talk a lot about on this forum is assumptions and expectations and how, when ill-conceived, they make a mockery of relational integrity. Just like this, I don’t see how your assumptive reprimand is beneficial at all; especially given the engaged and very much positive responses proffered by other members of the community. No one’s suffering is greater than another’s, in fact much of the posts on here are borne of residual hurt at the very least. As for the format of list-making – it’s easier and simpler to digest! That doesn’t mean it’s any less meaningful. Again, this is the relationship forum, so lists and helpful, insightful exposition by experienced sufferers is the meat and potatoes of such a website. Yes, there are tonnes of articles already covering such stuff but none should be deemed redundant because everyone’s experience is circumstantial and subject to absolute nuance. That’s why we keep posting and that’s why this topic exists.

As for posting rather than ‘contributing’, I will accept that is one of my weaknesses in this community. I love posting new topics that concern me first and foremost. Realising this about two days ago, I began logging on and simply posting. Oftentimes I’ll just grab the first four topics, read the entire set of posts, and then add my own. Other times I’ll search out topics that interest me. Do I have extensive experience on every topic? No. Do I have anecdotal evidence to back up my advice? No. Am I contributing to a community that offers “people in desperate situations […] human connection, sympathy and understanding”? Most definitely.