I already have bothered myself

Aicha · Post by **Aicha** » Wed May 30, 2007 5:44 pm

Dear Hari, for a long time I was trying to ignore my feelings, because I determined them as frivolous.
I feel myself very melancholy, since my childhood. I always explained it such reasons, as character and psychology. I have many aspirations and desires to make something global, but at the same time I see senselessness of it. Very rare people are interesting for me, and in general I prefer loneliness. In connection with it, I had a certain dual personality, for others and for me. And the most awful, during the moments of a life when I would like to share myself someone, I find it impossible.

In the past, i felt comfortable in a such situation, but not now. My current condiion is like I whant to To fall asleep.
My dayly timetable is full, i tryed to sink in affairs, but it did not help.

What is Your suggestions in my situations, might it be something simple or normal, or I should change something in my life or mind?

sri · Post by **sri** » Tue Jun 05, 2007 9:29 am

Hi

Aichas question to Hari is obviously ment for him to answer, but I hope you don?t mind me sharing a few taugts on it. I am a "new bie", and we can apparently mess things up sometimes

, trust me I?ve been one a couple of times. Please don?t judge me to harsh.

Aicha, what you are writing about is an interesting situation. Interesting because we have all at some time in life (and probably more then once) experianced something similar. However, it is but few that talk about it. And why? Because most of us experianced that when we tried to do so previously, we found that when we most need and want to get a contact with others, it doesn?t work.

What is your first reaction when someone comes and says - I am tired and my life doesn?t work for me? Usually there are two responses - one: you feel compassion and try to comfort a person or -two: you?ve heard it too many times from the same person (or others) and you think that she or he should get grip of their life and go on with it instead of lamenting and being week.

Longer we live, more times we have heard people complain, especially if we find ourselves in a difficult situation, more we choose (this is not a conscious choosing I am talking about) to respond in the manner that second alternative suggests.

It becomes a evil circle. We are tired, need help or inspiration and people come to us asking for the same and we just feel, "Come on, get yourself together, be a man, get up and fight or go and die". Then we don?t dare to go and ask for the help because we expect that others will react the same. And most of the time they will. Then we end up feeling even worst.

So we all depend on those souls that are in the life phase where they can choose the response alternative one. And it isn?t always easy to stay there. Indeed, it can be very difficult. I have pondered over this particular issue already as a pre-teen.
It was in my early teens that I wrote a story In search of love (parts of wich I dared post on Members Writtings for I felt that people here may be able to relate to it). It was in the middle of one of my own personal crisis about ten years ago that I found the manuscript in my garage.

And what did I discover? The girl that was so devoted to be a flower and not a thorn, to be a light even in the deepest of the darkness, to do something good, global or less global, but something that would add to the goodness in the world, yeah, I was very, very far from that.

I too, Aicha, felt that there is no meaning, that nothing really can be done. And the taught strikes me every now and then again. Then, it was that girl that I once was that helped me find the light inside me. Some other times it was the kind souls that had the light and shared it with me.

I have been unfortunate to loose some of those people I found to be friends and inspiration to me, and when I finally found them I found that I was but a stranger to them, not very wanted in their life right now. Then again, I too had a times when I could not share the light with others, as you can guess.

Ultimatelly, what I am trying to say as a add into the discussion is: How do we get the help we need, withought draining ourselves and those we want a help from? How do we keep giving the help withought getting drained and withought hurting others in the times we aren?t able to give help?

And to you personally Aicha I would like to say - do go and sleep. A good sleep is worth gold. Don?t try to hide in overworking. Take a rest. Take a long walk and enjoy the beauty of the nature. Recharge your batteries. Life will get the lighter colours again. Good luck.

Sri

Hari · Post by **Hari** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 11:29 pm

Ultimately, what I am trying to add to the discussion is: How do we get the help we need without draining ourselves and those we want help from? How do we keep giving help to others without getting drained and when we cannot help them, how can we avoid hurting them?

Generally it is true that in this particular forum only I reply to the main question being asked and anyone can comment on this. However, no rule is set in stone, especially here on harimedia, and we shall forgive Sri's adding her two ore to the conversation (ore are Swedish cents, if she was Russian it would be her two kopecks) for I think Sri has added something significant to the essence of Aicha's text. By the way, to make fancy fonts and so on, you need to use only the commands that are available in the edit box of the text.

But to address the original question first:

Usually, the first line of a significant text contains an important expression that indicates the writer's intent. Sometimes a first line is simply an introduction to a more meaningful point, but in your text I see the first line as a clue to what is going on in you.

How long have you been ignoring your feelings and for how long have you felt feeling to be frivolous? I do not need your written answer, but rather you should answer this for yourself. What act or event caused you to start ignoring your feelings? What process was used to determine your feelings were frivolous? On what basis did you make that judgment? Did you find your conclusion to have a basis in the facts of your life and was this conclusion verified by your experiences afterwards?

When you investigate the answers to these questions, you will come closer to discovering what makes you tick, what motivates you, which can lead you to a deeper understanding of what it was you were trying to avoid, or achieve, when you decided that feeling was not relevant.

Feelings are the essence of what we are. Our consciousness is our awareness and the essence of the spirit is its sensitivity and feeling. That feeling is not an irrational, emotional, and therefore frivolous thing, it is the basis of our existence. Although you might say your statement was only meant to relate to how you felt about other people, I see that statement as having significance for yourself as well.

You state you like to be alone and that you presented one side of you to the outside world while you kept yourself, who you really were and what you really felt, to yourself. Many of us feel during childhood that the people around us are not interesting. Some people feel that for the rest of their lives as well. It is not an easy task to find people who are interesting since most people are doing things that relate to their everyday needs. If I look around those who live in my neighborhood, for example, I see mothers and fathers who work to support their homes and families, work to maintain their houses, drive their children here and there, do this and that social obligation, take care of elderly parents, and a myriad of other tasks. Everyone is busy all the time and very few have any time to devote to cultivating relationships with others, especially if some effort is involved. Therefore, by default, most people are uninteresting to other people because they are either not motivated to be interesting or they are simply too busy.

I am sure there are billions of interesting people in this world. One has to relate with them in a manner they find interesting which inspires them to display that which makes them unique. It is that uniqueness in each person that is interesting and discovering it is a real joy.

There are many who are hermits. I cannot say for sure and anyway generalizations are worthless, but it seems to me that most hermit types I know are that way because they are either not equipped with social skills for some reason, they feel that others exploit them or demand something from them, or they feel others have nothing to offer them in return. Some are hurt so badly by previous experiences that relationships seem to be the last thing they want in their lives. Some are traumatized by the loss of loved ones and fear letting anyone come close to them as they cannot tolerate further loss. Some are themselves traumatized by extremely intolerable events in childhood which scarred them for life and which convinced them relationships lead to pain. There are other cases too.

The idea that since relationships cause pain, avoiding relationships avoids pain is interesting. Is it really so that the only source of pain is relationships? What about loss of money, loss of position, loss of physical health, loss of bodily motion, disability, hurricanes, storms, floods, drought, and so on? Surely these are sources of pain. Relationships are merely one form of pain, so why would we conclude that avoiding them avoids pain?

The answer is equally interesting, for relationships are near to the most important thing we have in this world. As man is a social animal, and society means relationships, we have no choice but to throw our lot in with all others and cooperate to make our shared living area comfortable and compatible. Avoiding such relationships weaken our capacity to do this and therefore we must drop off our reluctance and work cooperatively or we suffer. Some may conclude that either way we suffer for in many cases suffering at the hands of others due to their harsh words, duplicity, cheating, selfishness and carelessness is worse than anything the forces of nature can hurl at us.

I find in this point the key to resolving this dilemma. The reason relationships wield so much power over us is due to their being at the basis of all that we need in this world and all that we can be in this world. Even just manifesting the primal urge to reproduce means there must be a mate, friendly relations with our own and other families, relations with one's own children and their friends, as well with all those who assist us in maintaining these relationships. Therefore, it is almost impossible to avoid relationships.

If one manages to avoid them to a large extent, one can also manage oneself into a depression of sorts. One might end up in the situation you describe, namely, you cannot live with yourself under these conditions. Perhaps you feel to some extent hopeless in life? How can you go on? How will you live in such situations? What will save you from this dichotomy that does not seem to have a natural resolution?

What makes a person interesting to you? Is someone interesting because they know some art or have some capacity, or are they interesting because they know how to listen to you and relate to what you feel? I think the former is a type of entertainment that is surface and temporal. How many interesting movie stars marry another interesting movie star and after a while lose interest? I think someone who can listen to us, relate to how we feel and respond to us appropriately is worth more than money can ever buy, but then again, this might be a reflection of what I am and what I want. Perhaps it is what we all really want for I have heard it said again and again, "I need to find someone who understands me."

I have heard people speak about opulence by stating that the more you act as if your life was a constant flow of opulence the more it will really be that way. Some speak about these positive affirmations as being the root re-programming of the destructive routines that have placed us in a repetitive, unresponsive rut. In this mood I would suggest you to start learning how to reach out to others by being a good listener and offering your service to them in this way. You might be amazed at what they say when they finish complaining about those things which disturb them. When they are allowed to vent and you have been so kind as to listen, they trust you and feel free to speak about things which mean something significant to them. This exchange of confidentiality is not only interesting, it is where the essential life force is shared between souls. If you want to get, give, if you want to be loved, love. If you want kindness in your life, show it to others, under all conditions, without expectation of return, without demands or judgments, and your life will change.

And so we come to Sri. Those who have been there for others when they needed it are usually those who have plenty of people ready to assist them when they need it. I know this is not business, but it seems that when you invest in people, they return to you more than you put in. Only ask for what you really need to go on and do not think that the solution to your problems is to drain energy from others to replenish your waning supply. Only Count Dracula would find that solution compatible (is it possible the original Dracula was just someone who drained the life out of others through his demands and expectations?)

Now if you wanted to really help others, the best way to do so is to listen to them. Everyone becomes interesting to us when they listen to us. During a discussion with another person, do not feel the need to speak, but feel the need to hear. Simply the act of hearing another person is often enough to cure them. Many are frustrated on the deepest levels simply because no one cares enough to listen. They feel misunderstood, not appreciated, and therefore useless. Try the art of compassionate hearing. Listen to what is not being stated verbally by taking in all their communications on all levels. By doing so you are a real friend.

If you are in need, having such kinds of friends is what you would value most. Certainly if someone was in pain and you just listened to them but did nothing to relieve their pain, you would be useless to them. I suggest that when you do know the answer to their problems, if only a few of them, you share this without expectation of reward, but when you do not know the answer you admit that but continue to listen empathetically since it is a very valuable service that often solves problems we did not even know we had. And sometimes these problems are the root of that which we presently are experiencing.

What more can we do and what more could we expect from others? We can only give what we have and we should only take what we need. I suppose this is a kind of social manifesto, "From each according to what they have, to each according to their need." Hmmm, it works. To implement this properly you have to know what you have to offer and limit yourself to offering this only. You also have to know what you need and not take more than this.

If you are in the company of an energy vampire, separate yourself as fast as you can. Luckily for us, most people are not like that.

Aicha · Post by **Aicha** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 4:42 pm

I didn't expect that you would replay

), because some time later I realized that your work on this site: lections, forum are already the answer.

THANK YOU!