Addicted to addicitons

You have probably heard...

"It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

"Time heals all wounds."

Although the above may sound corny and even patronizing, they are true.

There is somebody out there for you. But holding onto something that cannot be changed or is not in your control can only be an obstacle that stands in the way of you finding that special someone.

 

Always happy to be of some help brother. The things you say cut so close to my experience that I can totally relate- I've done exactly the things you did, and sometimes one can feel one is being naive or foolish, but I just put it down to being human.

I think you're just a deeply sensitive decent guy who wants to reach out. That's fine. But you also hit the nail on the head about expectation. That's the rub dude. I also thought I was doing these things without expectation, but I was wrong. Deep inside me at least I realize there is expectation- at least for a response. And what my Yoga and Hindu faith and philosophy teach is that beyond being good is another stage- of being good and loving but dispassionately- with no expectation whatsoever. This is a very high state reached only by masters, but by slowly becoming masters of our own minds I firmly believe we can get there.

One thing I always ask myself is "Would you do the same for any other human being in the world? Would you go so out of the way to be nice to them?" And the sad but honest answer is NO! At least I am clear that I am doing this with some ulterior motive- an emotional connection, an ego stroke, love, sex - all of it. That's why letting go is hard. If a male acquaintance of mine were to blow me off for a few weeks would I care as much? So this *particularization* of love is a form of spiritual ignorance. That's why it is eros and not agape- agape is the Greek concept of a much higher love. There it is loving compassion that transcends passion. But for me there is still passion involved in it right now, hard though I try to rise above. I'll get there some day for sure, but being honest is part of this process I feel. I just need to get sufficiently tired of the emotional rollercoaster.

When we're in love we tend to ignore all the messages that God sends us in so many ways! But pain and suffering have a purpose of making us look inward and reach higher.

I'm so glad you are looking at the bright side of things- way to go.

After you've healed a bit, you might reflect on the fact that we are all to some extent trapped in our personalities. There's a great series of books by Don Riso and Russ Hudson on the Enneagram theory of personality- Understanding the Enneagram is a good start. IMO- It is a blueprint to people and relationships. When you read it and identify your type and hers, you will start to empathize with her slowly. Yes, some people have great difficulty acknowledging their feelings- and if their level of development is not very high that can manifest as lying and cheating. But I prefer to ask myself if I have never lied or cheated in my life, and unfortunately I think PMO for so many years is the biggest lie and cheating (yes, mental cheating on a partner is as bad as sleeping around physically imo now). So who am I to judge? I remember a saying in the Christian faith about the log in your brother's eya and the splinter in my eye. So that's how I learned to let it go. Then slowly you realize that people who lie and cheat are all really trapped in a bad place and one starts to feel compassionate towards their struggle.

One last thing you mentioned about being addicted to addictions. I had a few thoughts in morning meditation that I thought I'd share with you- maybe it is useful...
If the mind is addictive, let it become first addicted to good things. Usually this addiction first results in success in work etc then maybe yoga, devotion.
Let the mind then become addicted to the state of never being addicted to anything!
This is being addicted to Pure Awareness.
Let the mind become addicted to being unmoved by the opposites of pleasure and pain, love and hate.
Let it become addicted to mindfulness.
To always being present in the Now.
Let it become addicted to 'Be'ing.
I am that I am.

More power to you on your path! YB

 

Hi there too friend. Look, once you love someone truly, it is very heard to forget him/her. Especially when something made you break up like PMO.

http://www.lostlovers.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000285

Read that story. Go to home>members love story & you will see that this love thing can be both hell & heaven.

 

Hey, great to hear you Typed yourself. I'm a bit puzzled you came up with two Types though. From what I've read usually one is dominant, there are some who talk about 8 with a Wing, but anyway, here's my 2 cents in case you didn't know about this already. 8's are in the Instinctive Triad, and they overexpress their instinctual drives- e.g., sex, as compared to other Types. Twos are in the Feeling Triad and again they overexpress their emotions, to the point of being unaware of their own emotional needs. This might give you some clues as to why things turned out the way they did. For 8's the holy virtue that leads to ascent through the Levels of Development is Magnanimity I believe, and for 2's it is Unconditional Love. You are right to accept where you are, but the Type is only a starting point remember. As we evolve through the Levels of Development, we start to shed our particular qualities and start to blend; in the sense that Healthy 8's and Healthy 2's are great people to be around, as are Healthy levels of any Type. All the holy virtues of the Nine Types are valuable and must be embraced by anyone who's serious about self-growth. To me the types merely signify the particular rabbit hole we can descend into when we are driven to points of insecurity. But by growing we can eventually transcend them. This corresponds to our opening up the chakras in the instinctive, emotional, and thinking (intellectual) centers. Maybe this helps you. It helps me to think it through and share that we are not alone on this path! All the best to you. YB

 

There's obviously a range of valid opinions on this mate. I think it depends quite a bit on the person. I've gone out on the dating scene with what I thought was a good attitude in the past- just to have fun and get to know someone, while not intending to be a playa. I did meet some quality women and had a couple of good relationships that were quite short-lived though. It got me through that patch, re-boosted my ego, but at that time I feel I still had a slightly cynical view of the dating scene. That said, it was a practical and robust viewpoint in that I didn't feel shattered because something didn't work out. I wasn't putting my heart out there then and I was happy for what I got. But on the other hand I wasn't putting much on the table either.

So I'd say, what amount of time is enough for healing is really anyone's personal call. I think we heal in different ways- sometimes by turning inward and examining our self and also by turning outward, meeting people, and getting to know ourselves by interacting with people.

After that dating phase I turned inward for 4 years. I was just not thinking of meeting anyone when out of the blue this woman got close to me and asked me if I liked her. It was like a bolt out of the blue - she's 11 years younger and gorgeous. I'm 48 and I'd never have dreamed someone that young and good looking would ask me out; I attribute it to the fact that I was going about my life just being happy and focused on my interests and really not looking for a relationship, but being friendly. Just saying sometimes it can work that way, but it may not for everyone.

Definitely making yourself more available greatly increases your chances of meeting someone, so I'd advocate the former dating approach just in terms of increasing your probability. But I think it is a special person who comes looking for you- although even then there is no guarantee that things work out, as it didn't for me with this one

Fear of what is holding you back? Rejection?

 

Oh man, Yes that is such a tough one and a legitimate fear. It is really sad and yet natural that our heart closes off when we are hurt. Every time to open the heart to someone is to open oneself to the possibility of hurting- it is to be vulnerable. And yet in it is the ultimate test of our strength. There are as I see it, a few different paths forward that in the end may look the same in essence. One can go out and date and not open one's heart. I think you can definitely have some fun, IF your temperament is such that you don't seek/want/need that complete connection. I believe it is possible to enjoy sex, companionship, even intellectual connection if one is able to be non-attached to the outcome- in a sense PUAs are also Yogis of non-attachment! How else can they move on? This can serve a healing purpose too, but depending on your temperament it can also leave one feeling frustrated and even less trusting in the future. And if you are like me, I tend to want the whole package and I do get attached. I realize now the root of it was actually non-mastery of my sex drive (hence the PMO problem) and also lack of control of my emotions (I had written a post about how I feel PMO makes one emotionally fragile). So either by going out with a lot of women, or through meditation and self-enquiry, or a combination of both, I feel men (and women too) are most successful in relationships when they have good self-control. If I can do without the sex by mastering my instinctual drives, it removes the power imbalance in a potential date considerably. I can see her more for who she is, and assess whether she is good relationship material, or not. If I master my emotions, then I am even better. I can think with non-impaired judgement and decide if we are really a good match. Most of my fiascos are due to the my occasional slips into delusional thinking- overcome by unacknowledged sex drive and/or occasional emotional neediness. In a sense, it is a Catch 22- we got to control the very things we seek in a relationship so the relationship can be successful! Ha! That said, a good relationship should accommodate some of that (I know friends who are not superhuman and are in happy, fulfilling marriages- so I don't beat myself too much up for it. There is an element of luck, chance, destiny, karma too. You may the best guy but the time has to be right. My basic plan is: try to be the best man I can be. Be in control of my sex drive and emotions to the extent possible, not close off the possibility of loving and trusting with my heart, and see if the woman is worth it. Also what I've learnt is that even of one gets into a relationship or marriage, in the end one can't rely on one's partner too much- you got to trust to some extent, else nothing will happen, but the shoe may fall at any time and one has to be prepared for the worst. One of my friends says that it is only God who reciprocates love fully and always. I have slowly come to believe this. Human relationships are approximations of the divine- some come closer than others. But it is how we learn. My 2 c. Good luck YB.

 

Thank you all guys. Every day morning wake up I can't keep looking her social network account, although she already friends off with me.

 

You've got to find a way to get over this girl. The Canadian songwriter Sir Gordon Lightfoot wrote: "And if time could heal the wounds, I would tear the threads away that I might bleed some more." You've got to quit doing that! Let yourself heal. There are so many fish in the sea!

 

It's been a month, since I thought time can heal a little bit, but sometimes at night all of sudden the tear come to my eye.

 

Come on bro! You have great amount of confidence. You can easily get away from the guilt. Whatever has happened was bound to happen. It's NOW, what we learn and how we react with the help of God.
All the best !