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medaille · 05-18-2007, 02:27 AM

I think we're pretty close, but I think some of our verbiage keeps our points from being completely clear to each other.

I definitely feel that there is a god, or a consciousness, or some sort of guiding hand in the universe. For me it's not blind faith, although some might argue. I can feel it. Sometimes things get too weird and too improbable for there to be any other explanation. Jung called them synchronicities. The first time, I noticed it was when I was in college. I would walk around everywhere, and for a solid week I never had to stop at a crosswalk. The lights would always seem to be signaling for me to walk. I also noticed that I would keep running into the same problems over and over although in different forms or through different people and once I figured out how to deal with them, I would never encounter that problem again.

I think we can agree that it is necessary to be aware of our pain and emotions. It definitely doesn't serve us well to have those emotions building inside us without us knowing it. Those are the kind that blow up at the worst times. But I think once we recognize our emotions as what they are: a symptom of our needs not being met, we don't really have any point of staying in those emotions any more.

For me, once I recognize that I'm feeling anger or much more likely frustration, I say to myself, "Ok, what's happening around me that causes my ego to produce unhappiness?" Then I tell myself that being mad or frustrated is natural, but now that I know what the problem is, I can fix it eventually, so there's no need to be frustrated anymore. It's like I was asleep before and now I'm ready to conquer that challenge since I'm awake to it. I say to myself, what are the billion different reasons that could have caused this problem. Like maybe my mom (a true example for me) is so scared of not having enough and not providing enough stuff for her children that she has no energy left to help her children emotionally. She never learned that she was pushing me away because she only provided for me materially and not emotionally or as a close friend. All of a sudden, I realized that she's not doing it on purpose. She has her own struggles that she's ignoring and are causing her pain. It stopped making sense to feel anger or frustration. From then on, whenever she would do things that would push me away, I would feel sorry for her rather than mad at her. I would want to help her rather than deal with her. It wasn't her making me unhappy, it was me making myself unhappy everytime life didn't go as I thought it should. I would just say to myself, this is going to make me stronger once I figure out how to be happy when it happens. Then I would try to figure out how to be happier. Almost all the time, the answer for me is to realize that I'm trying to control something I can't control or expecting life to be the way that I want it. Then I focus on why the other person might unknowingly be doing what they're doing and find reasons for their behavior that don't make me angry. Often times, I can see that they are angry or fearful too and are just running from their problems. Like they just can't see it. Then I try to help them or comfort them, when they are feeling bad. That's mostly for people I'm close to, but I try to be as compassionate as possible, because most people don't want to make other people feel bad unless they are under super stress and their ego takes over.

I don't know if that helps, but you have my best wishes.

05-18-2007, 02:27 AM	#23 (permalink)
medaille Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 105	I think we're pretty close, but I think some of our verbiage keeps our points from being completely clear to each other. I definitely feel that there is a god, or a consciousness, or some sort of guiding hand in the universe. For me it's not blind faith, although some might argue. I can feel it. Sometimes things get too weird and too improbable for there to be any other explanation. Jung called them synchronicities. The first time, I noticed it was when I was in college. I would walk around everywhere, and for a solid week I never had to stop at a crosswalk. The lights would always seem to be signaling for me to walk. I also noticed that I would keep running into the same problems over and over although in different forms or through different people and once I figured out how to deal with them, I would never encounter that problem again. I think we can agree that it is necessary to be aware of our pain and emotions. It definitely doesn't serve us well to have those emotions building inside us without us knowing it. Those are the kind that blow up at the worst times. But I think once we recognize our emotions as what they are: a symptom of our needs not being met, we don't really have any point of staying in those emotions any more. For me, once I recognize that I'm feeling anger or much more likely frustration, I say to myself, "Ok, what's happening around me that causes my ego to produce unhappiness?" Then I tell myself that being mad or frustrated is natural, but now that I know what the problem is, I can fix it eventually, so there's no need to be frustrated anymore. It's like I was asleep before and now I'm ready to conquer that challenge since I'm awake to it. I say to myself, what are the billion different reasons that could have caused this problem. Like maybe my mom (a true example for me) is so scared of not having enough and not providing enough stuff for her children that she has no energy left to help her children emotionally. She never learned that she was pushing me away because she only provided for me materially and not emotionally or as a close friend. All of a sudden, I realized that she's not doing it on purpose. She has her own struggles that she's ignoring and are causing her pain. It stopped making sense to feel anger or frustration. From then on, whenever she would do things that would push me away, I would feel sorry for her rather than mad at her. I would want to help her rather than deal with her. It wasn't her making me unhappy, it was me making myself unhappy everytime life didn't go as I thought it should. I would just say to myself, this is going to make me stronger once I figure out how to be happy when it happens. Then I would try to figure out how to be happier. Almost all the time, the answer for me is to realize that I'm trying to control something I can't control or expecting life to be the way that I want it. Then I focus on why the other person might unknowingly be doing what they're doing and find reasons for their behavior that don't make me angry. Often times, I can see that they are angry or fearful too and are just running from their problems. Like they just can't see it. Then I try to help them or comfort them, when they are feeling bad. That's mostly for people I'm close to, but I try to be as compassionate as possible, because most people don't want to make other people feel bad unless they are under super stress and their ego takes over. I don't know if that helps, but you have my best wishes.