I feel stuck, purposeless and confused

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, Yonkon said:

 

I have a girlfriend, she's got a anxiety disorder. We live together, this means when i go out for 2 hours she get's panic attacks.This means i can't wander around. I miss being alone. But i can't because she will break down. The last time she said she would kill herself. It's pretty dysfunctional. I love her, it's hard.

 

? 

 

Dont you have to go to work ?  Thats longer than 2 hours .

[Nungali]

3 hours ago, Aetherous said:

 

Well, no wonder you feel stuck!

To me it seems like you're being manipulated, and a healthier relationship would enable you to establish boundaries (rather than her threatening suicide if you attempt to), such as being able to go wherever you wanted for however long you wanted.

You should know that you aren't responsible for appeasing her issues...they are hers.

 

yep.

 

relating to my comments about initiation above  -   it is sometimes said  one has to, in some cases, deny the family .

 

here ya go :

 

Chapter LII: Family: Public Enemy No. 1

Cara Soror,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

In your last letter you mention “family pressure.”  Horrid word, family!  Its very etymology accuses it of servility and stagnation.

Latin, famulus, a servant; Oscan, Faamat, he dwells.

 

A word ought to have more respect for itself!

...

Bless you, the whole strength of the family is based on the fact that it cares for the family only: therefore its magical formula thus concentrated is of necessity hostile to so exclusively individual an aim as Initiation.

Its sentiments are reciprocated.

 

In every Magical, or similar system, it is invariably the first condition which the Aspirant must fulfill: he must once and for all and for ever put his family outside his magical circle.

 

Even the Gospels insist clearly and weightily on this.

 

Christ himself (i.e. whoever is meant by this name in this passage) callously disowns his mother and his brethren (Luke VIII, 19).  And he repeatedly makes discipleship contingent on the total renunciation of all family ties.  He would not even allow a man to attend his father's funeral!

 

Is the magical tradition less rigid?

 

Not on your life!

 

The one serious grimoire of the Middle Ages is The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.  He makes no bone about it.  He even condescends to point out the family as the most serious of all the obstacles to the performance of the Operation, and he gives the correct psychological reasons why this should be so.  You said it yourself!  “Family pressure” was your pungent and pertinent expression.  Just so.

 

I think that “family” should include any body of persons with common interests which they expect or wish you to share.  One's old school or university, the regiment, the golf club, the business, the party, the country: any of these may dislike very much your absorption in affairs alien to their own.  But the family is the classic type, because its pull is so potent and persistent.  It began when you gave your first yell; your personality is deliberately wrenched and distorted to the family code; and their zoology is so inadequate that they always feel sure that their Ugly Duckling is a Black Sheep.  Even for their Fool they find a use: he can be invaluable in the Church of in the Army, where docile incompetence is the sure key to advancement.

...

In the Brahmin caste, the aspirant to Yoga makes it a rule to fulfill his duties to the family and the State; once those jobs are definitely done, he cuts the painter, and becomes Sannyasi.  Many a Maharajah, many a Wazir, to say nothing of less responsible people, plan their lives from their earliest days of wearing the sacred Cord as Brahmacharyi, with these ambitions carefully mapped out; and when the right moment comes for him to disappear into the jungle—the rest is Silence.

 

 

.

But the condition of allowing such apparent laxity is this:  That one should be as swift and terse as Trotsky in any similar situation.

If one's family were reasonable human beings, (But they never are, she sighed) one could perhaps do wiseliest by explaining the situation.  “This Work of mine—you don't understand it, no need that you should—is the only important part of my life.  I mean to be scrupulously careful of your feelings, and I see no reason why my chosen career should damage our relations.  There is only one thing to remember: IF I ever get the faintest suspicion that you are opposing me, or condemning my plans, or interfering in any way, even with the best intentions, THEN—with a single blow I sever our relations, and for ever.”

 

....

 

This too is painful beyond words at first.  Until the process starts, you have not the faintest idea of how you have wrapped yourself in layers of lies."

 

 

[ilumairen]

6 hours ago, Yonkon said:

 

I have a girlfriend, she's got a anxiety disorder. We live together, this means when i go out for 2 hours she get's panic attacks.This means i can't wander around. I miss being alone. But i can't because she will break down. The last time she said she would kill herself. It's pretty dysfunctional. I love her, it's hard.

 

Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060928972/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_NVycDbKJCSVE6

 

Best wishes. 

[dwai]

About feeling stuck. It is a good idea to find a cause for which you can volunteer in selfless service. Maybe help out in a soup kitchen, or something of that nature. Serving others (humans, animals or plants) is a great medicine for this stuck feeling ime. 

 

Being effortless and wu wei is easy when we can let go of the need for “something more”. We all go/have gone through phases where the acquired habits and tendencies of the mind make us feel restless in circumstances when we should enjoy the stillness (and lack of any apparent objective whatsoever). When we are used to stormy nights and days, even a brief interlude of calm skies can become disconcerting. Try and see if the source of your unrest lies in your mental patterns/habits.

 

 

wrt your girlfriend thing. Some people don’t yet realize that their source of happiness and joy lies within them, and not some other person. Encourage her to cultivate her own hobbies and a spiritual pursuit, if you can. Maybe the selfless service you take up can be to help her by signing up for joint classes at a yoga place or a taiji class or a meditation course.

 

Hang in there. 

 

 

 

[kyoji]

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

 

This too is painful beyond words at first.  Until the process starts, you have not the faintest idea of how you have wrapped yourself in layers of lies."

 

 

right in the feels.

[Nungali]

Well, that was a chapter from ' Magick Without Tears '  .....  Crowley  -   he  tends not to pull punches , one of the reasons he is unpopular.

[mrpasserby]

'

[Yonkon]

17 hours ago, Nungali said:

So, I encourage you to undergo the process and find your 'true self' and purpose - not the one that society hijacked you with . Without that, all the religions, cults, practices, drugs,  distractions, etc  ........   meh .

 

I decided a long time ago to make finding my purpose my purpose. Your post was very motivational, i will start this again.

 

16 hours ago, Nungali said:

A student asked his Sufi teacher how to attain and he told him " Go jump in the river ! "

 

3-4 Years ago i day dreamed daily about living and wandering in the woods almost daily. But now i'm afraid. I'm afraid that i will make a fool out of myself, that i will hurt myself and die, that i will ruin my future.  I think there will be a day when i will step into the forest, without a goal, just wandering into the unknown. But this is not today.

[Yonkon]

16 hours ago, Nungali said:

Dont you have to go to work ?  Thats longer than 2 hours .

 

When it all started i had to quit my job. This was bad, because it was fairly high paying, and good because i hated it and i planned to quit 4 months into the future to start studying. I lived on my savings for a while, now i'm completely broke. I started to give piano lessons - this is great but does not pay the bills yet. My Girlfriend say she is now ready for me to work part time.

 

16 hours ago, Nungali said:

This too is painful beyond words at first.  Until the process starts, you have not the faintest idea of how you have wrapped yourself in layers of lies."

 

 This is heavy stuff, thank you.

14 hours ago, ilumairen said:

 

Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060928972/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_NVycDbKJCSVE6

 

Best wishes. 

 

Thank you, will read it when i have the money

[silent thunder]

Repeated, daily actions become unconscious habitual behaviors.

These behaviors, sustained long enough become personality traits.

 

Any action done long enough, the body and unconscious becomes better at the action than the mind that originally directed it.

 

Think martial arts movements, or bicycle riding skills to exemplify the veracity of this.  Eventually actions repeated enough times become hardwired so to speak and operate unconsciously and automatically when triggered by stimuli.

 

My suspicion lately is that when we become consciously aware of feeling stuck in a rut, our localized awareness is saying to us... 'hey, we're out of the loop.  I'm not directing much any more.'  Life is happening to me, I'm not engaging.  And it seems very true from my experience.

 

I'll paraphrase Dr Joe Dispenza... neuro surgeon (who has studied this deeply and utilized it in his own life when he suffered a horrific injury in a motorcycle accident). 

 

If you get out of bed on the same side every day.  Turn off the alarm clock with the same finger, go to the toilet, make coffee, drive to work the same route, perform the same tasks at work, among the same people... these will trigger the same responses as yesterday with only very fractional, occasional differences.  "oh look, bob brought donuts today..." 

 

Performing same actions, prompts same thinking and same emotions from same triggers... how can we expect our experience of life to change?  Where in that process is there space for new actions to arise that prompt new emotional engagement where new thought and experience may occur?

 

Our mind is filled daily with mostly the same thoughts as yesterday.  These thoughts prompt similar emotional responses which reinforce similar reaction and thinking.  When our environments are also usually all the same... we experience routine.

 

Neurons that fire together, wire together.  The science on this seems very reliable.  This is the basis of the sub conscious mind of the body taking over actions from the conscious mind.  Once the neurons fire enough times together, the process forms a highway of signals that bypasses conscious direction and actions become personality traits that happen automatically.  Not unlike a circuit board that regulates and automates multiple, repeated, robotic factory processes.

 

Now that I've preached all that, I have to contradict myself with this little gem that has followed me the last thirty years or so:

 

I love my routine... until I get bored.

Then I crave excitement... until I get overwhelmed.

Then I long for routine again.

 

and here's one of the few curses I've ever cast... I find it to be the most intense.

 

May you live in interesting times...

 

I learned it from a Chinese source, but figure it's universally human. 

 

If interested, here's a 17 minute interview with Dr Dispenza regarding this process of automation of behavioral neural personality traits and how to reprogram them.  Top notch stuff in my experience.  Turns out, interrupting the auto process, is really as simple as meditating.  Quieting the body and the mind for a time opens up space.  Within this space there arises potential for new insight, which can prompt new action which will bring about different emotional states and new neural pathways.

 

Spoiler

 

 

As for mind elasticity, learning an entirely new skill will create new neural pathways and change the structure of brain and mind. 

I picked up an acoustic guitar a few years ago and began teaching myself... now I can fly and shoot green lightning out my bum.

 

It can happen for you tooooooooooo! 

 

[rideforever]

49 minutes ago, Yonkon said:

When it all started i had to quit my job.

 

Why don't you take you apply for anew job ?   

You can send your gf to therapy twice a week, or on a retreat.

I think it's good to be practical even if you are in a bit of trouble.

Letting your career die is certainly not something you owe anyone, I can't see it helping anyone.

Somebody has to get real whilst there is still food in the fridge.

And, if someone is going down, you have to place your feet firmly on dry ground, only then can you pull people out of the water.

 

Also with regards going to the woods, it is good to just try something, for instance find an intentional community of hippies, there is a map at ic.org, and go for a couple of days.   Or wooofing, or solitary cabin rental.   Such little experiments will unstick things, and clarify what you want and can do.

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by rideforever

[RiverSnake]

I do a little bit of energy work. Let me know if you'd like me to reach out and give your life a blast. 

[Yonkon]

17 minutes ago, rideforever said:

Why don't you take you apply for anew job ?   

 

I'm on the lookout right now

 

18 minutes ago, rideforever said:

Letting your career die is certainly not something you owe anyone, I can't see it helping anyone.

 

The place where i worked was horrible, she kind of saved me. I was only in for the money and now i can really see that. But you are right, this is a clear boundary violation

 

10 minutes ago, Shadow said:

I do a little bit of energy work. Let me know if you'd like me to reach out and give your life a blast. 

 

This sounds great!

[RiverSnake]

Done. You'll start to notice shifts in your life in the coming months. 

[Yonkon]

14 minutes ago, Shadow said:

Done. You'll start to notice shifts in your life in the coming months. 

 

Well thank you 

[Nungali]

5 hours ago, Yonkon said:

 

I decided a long time ago to make finding my purpose my purpose. Your post was very motivational, i will start this again.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lost in Translation]

 

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

 

 

 

 

*sigh*. What a wonderful movie... 

 

"It's the cans! He hates the cans!"

Edited June 19, 2019 by Lost in Translation

[manitou]

Hi Yonkon, so sorry to hear about your struggles.

 

I tend to think in metaphysical terms, and in actuality we 'manifest' everything going on around us.  The Intelligence lives within us and in all of life, taking shape as it sees fit.  If you're anything like me, and it sounds like you are, you have a tendency to manifest unhealthy relationships around you.  You will continue to do so ad infinitum, unless you change your own inner dynamics.  There is a reason that you are repeating a particular feeling inside you with each relationship;  a feeling that you experienced as a small child.  It's up to you to find that memory and use it to heal yourself.  All of us humans do this; we all suffer from negative imprints when we were kids, some worse than others.  But the feeling is the thing that gets habitually cycled and duplicated.  As in one bad co-dependant relationship after another.  As someone said above, it's a habit that has been replaying inside you for a long time.

 

At the very bottom of all this is the need to live in a relationship where we are a victim of some sort.  We choose people who are unlikely to heal because they're addicted to their own re-creation of a negative childhood memory.  It's so symbiotic.  It's like the right bolt finds the right nut.  They actually don't really want to get better, and we actually don't want them to get better.  At a subconscious level, of course.  That's where the powerful stuff lurks.  And we're called the Enablers.  We enable them to stay sick because our attention is always focused on them, their every need is met, we tell white lies for them, and god knows the hours we spend encouraging them, yada yada.  You what what I mean.  I know you do.

 

Please feel free to PM me if you want more specific information.  I had to go through years of changing my reactions to an alcoholic husband, and I was able to do it through the Alanon program.  It sounds like you are accustomed to introspection so the concept should be very easy for you to grasp.  I'd be glad to help if you want to try and sort this out for yourself.  

[Yonkon]

7 hours ago, manitou said:

They actually don't really want to get better, and we actually don't want them to get better.  At a subconscious level, of course.  That's where the powerful stuff lurks.  And we're called the Enablers.  We enable them to stay sick because our attention is always focused on them, their every need is met, we tell white lies for them, and god knows the hours we spend encouraging them, yada yada.  You what what I mean.  I know you do.

 

This seems very true. I don't like to see me as the enabler, but what other description would fit my behavior? With every "what's wrong honey?" i enable her victim role and my caretaker role. Crazy how much depends on my own mind and habits. Thank you for reaching out!

[escott]

14 hours ago, manitou said:

 

I tend to think in metaphysical terms, and in actuality we 'manifest' everything going on around us.  The Intelligence lives within us and in all of life, taking shape as it sees fit.  If you're anything like me, and it sounds like you are, you have a tendency to manifest unhealthy relationships around you.  You will continue to do so ad infinitum, unless you change your own inner dynamics.  There is a reason that you are repeating a particular feeling inside you with each relationship;  a feeling that you experienced as a small child.  It's up to you to find that memory and use it to heal yourself.  All of us humans do this; we all suffer from negative imprints when we were kids, some worse than others.  But the feeling is the thing that gets habitually cycled and duplicated.  As in one bad co-dependant relationship after another.  As someone said above, it's a habit that has been replaying inside you for a long time.

 

Wow! This put a knife right through my heart. I, too, have been stuck. For me it's been 3 decades trying to figure it out. I've been following this thread closely hoping to gain something. Mine is a whole different set of circumstances, I don't want take away from the needs of the OP, so I won't say any more. But, I keep reading this over and over again. This is a deep truth that you have given to us.

[manitou]

Escott, if you want some help with this, please PM me.  It's simple but not easy.

[Stosh]

8 hours ago, Yonkon said:

 

This seems very true. I don't like to see me as the enabler, but what other description would fit my behavior? With every "what's wrong honey?" i enable her victim role and my caretaker role. Crazy how much depends on my own mind and habits. Thank you for reaching out!

Don't forget it works the other way around too , which is to say,  you can endlessly play victim here , because folks want to help you. 

Doing that , you can tell yourself that you are 'working on it' , then you can 'log off', and play either the caretaker, or victim ,at home. 

The summary of your sentiments is going to be expressed in what you actually do to make the change. 

The advice you get , the support , the time typing, and the good intentions .... mean precisely zippo , until acted upon.

 

Actions write the story in stone , mental gyrations evaporate into the ether. 

1) The spiritual world is played-out , upon the physical stage. 

2) true humans learn fast , but it is not true , to say all the things we learn , serve us well. 

 

[manitou]

Another thing.  If we're in a relationship where we find ourselves having to walk on eggs periodically around the other person, this very feeling is the same one that keeps wanting to repeat itself.  It's a familiar feeling, it's 'Home' in a default sense.  That's the very dynamic that needs to be addressed; this is done by several means.  Forgiveness of the person who inflicted pain on you as a child is one way, and usually is the most potent.  It's like untangling a chain of gold jewelry, but it needs to be done to effect the change.

Edited June 20, 2019 by manitou

[Yonkon]

5 minutes ago, manitou said:

Forgiveness of the person who inflicted pain on you as a child is one way, and usually is the most potent.  It's like untangling a strand of gold jewelry, but it needs to be done to effect the change.

 

I started to work with the book "how to forgive when you can't" by Dincalci. It's a powerful book with great exercises, mainly writing letters from your perspective and the perspective from the one you want to forgive. I highly recommend it to anyone who is open to the idea of forgivene

12 minutes ago, Stosh said:

Don't forget it works the other way around too , which is to say,  you can endlessly play victim here , because folks want to help you.

 

It is so easy to forget!  That's why it's so important. Thanks for the reminder.

[Stosh]

2 minutes ago, Yonkon said:

 

I started to work with the book "how to forgive when you can't" by Dincalci. It's a powerful book with great exercises, mainly writing letters from your perspective and the perspective from the one you want to forgive. I highly recommend it to anyone who is open to the idea of forgivene

 

It is so easy to forget!  That's why it's so important. Thanks for the reminder.

Actions write the story in stone , mental gyrations evaporate into the ether.