attachment to someone I wish to detach from

[Taoway]

Hello everyone i find an inner struggle and find I hard to overcome.

I had a break up with a girl 5 months ago and she started dating someone who was my friend a week afterward. She was almost like the first of many things for me. Even with sex although I wasnt a virgin It was the first time sex ever meant anything. She was a mother of two children and her son really looked up to me. For her the relationship wasnt much of anything new but for me it was some sort of big event.

 

I attached to it and identified with it far too much. I lost connection with my practice my path and everything else. I saw the beauty in the break up after I saw clearer and saw that I really have the freedom to appreciate free flowing love again. And cultivate a personal energy thats dependent on no one else. I really never want to attach to someone like this again.

 

Im wondering if that is some sort of suppression of human nature or will only make me suffer more. But I want to cultivate enough stillness in my self to never truly feel I need someone else.

I would always be open to connecting with a genuine hearted girl but I loath the fact that I may need thst connection to be happy.

 

People generally say that humans need connection and intimacy but I also know its possible to free our aelves from such needs or at least transcend those needs if thst makes sense.

 

What id like to discuss is how can I stop this post break up suffering? It must be caused by some sort of desire. A desire to change after the relationship. I compare my self to her new bf occasionally and get a surge of pain in my heart thinking of them together.

 

I beat my self down a bit thinking im not over her while she seems to be completey in a new picture.

 

Any words from you tao friends would be so greatly appreciated. This forum has helped me thus far. Thank you

[Miffymog]

Few things beat you up as much as the end of your first true love, try not to attribute too much spiritual significance to this. Unfortunately, there is only one thing that will help you get over this - time. Also, getting yourself 'a life' helps. Go out, do things and meet people.

[Taoway]

Few things beat you up as much as the end of your first true love, try not to attribute too much spiritual significance to this. Unfortunately, there is only one thing that will help you get over this - time. Also, getting yourself 'a life' helps. Go out, do things and meet people.

 

Thank you friend, I will take this advice. I have occasionally thought that maybe its not best to think deeply into the meaning of this or that. And I am moving to a new place out of my families house for a tattoo apprenticeship. So that will be very nice. Also am going to join a zen center for a good weekly routine of practice

[dawei]

The fact that you feel something means the detachment carries meaning.   You may need to figure out what that really means.

 

And you seem to want to make your 'practice' a higher priority than a relationship but you shun the latter and are, to be honest, maybe not just attached to but obsessed with the former idea.  Where does the idea that practice is more important than a relationship come from?

 

If it comes from deep within as a kind of destined path, then the relationship would not have as much a meaning.  Remember this: Practice is not natural but forced action.   Being with another person is very natural.

 

I went through something like this and I found that another person is way beyond practice.  I found that in the end, you had better be following your destined path and that might not be as you expected. 

 

You might feel that this relationship was creating an either/or and there was not a balance in the way you would like...  was that because she objected to your practice or you just slowed it down on your own?

 

Theree are a great many lessons to be learned here...  It is nice that you reflect on it enough to want to understand it

[Orion]

Look beneath the heart ache, the sorrow, the grief, and the longing. What do you find there?

 

Be honest.

 

Look beneath it.

 

Stillness is already happening. There's nothing you have to cultivate or suppress in order to become still. While the entire charade and act of trying to locate stillness is taking place, Stillness is watching the whole drama unfold.

 

You are Stillness, right now.