little miss black sheep

Hearing voices

2011-10-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

I have heard voices for a long time, probably as long as I can remember. At age 2 or 3 I had my first imaginary friend, as I grew older I developed more characters who became part of an ever growing colourful inner world. For the longest time my voices where mostly just that, “imaginary” usually secret friends who spoke (inside my head) as opposed to auditory hallucinations that appear to come from an external source, external voices did happen but not frequently. In the past year the pendulum has swung and external voices have become part of my norm.

My imaginary friends where like extensions of my own personality, they were useful and kind to me (most of the time) and often I would become one of my imaginary friends when I had a stressful situation to deal with. They could just pop out, take control of whatever was happening and deal with life for me. Perhaps this started out as play pretend (I can’t remember) but as they developed and I interacted with them, they became more and more real. I now have this vibrant world in my head that I can indulge in for hours. There is always dialogue and voices as each of these friends converse with each other and me. I am much a part of this imaginary world as they are, and they are as much a part of the real world as I am. I know longer know where I end and they begin, or if there is a distinction between them and me anymore. They are part of me and I am real, therefore they are also real.

I have seen therapists about this “problem”, although it no longer is a problem for me. One therapist after talking to me for some time believed that I fit the criteria for multiple personality another thought Schizo was a more suitable label and I’ve had another doctor tell me that I just have very strong ego states and a creative imagination. I left therapy after a while because I realised that I didn’t want to “get rid” of my friends. I developed ways of coping with some of the problems they could bring, mainly memory lapses when one took over and I fell back and more importantly I learned to embrace them and stop seeing myself as a freak. I limited the time I spent indulging in conversations with them, and the ones that had destructive or negative tendencies started to relax more as I worked through their issues as if they where my own, and at the end of the day their issues are my issues.

In my teens I heard my first “outside voices” auditory hallucinations that do appear to come from an external source. I also had my first high/mania, and acted recklessly. The outside voices where always fleeting, lasting only a few days, or weeks and so it was easy to forget about them and get on with my life once they left. My mood has never been stable, always up or down and I was diagnosed with Bipolar and put on Lithium. It was hoped that this would calm things down. Unfortunately my last bout of Mania was bad, I lost my grip on reality and the voices came back. When Manic they were little angels who were talking to me and telling me that Rick was the Buddha. I started to believe this was true and I started to believe that if I hurt myself he could heal me. Not fun for Rick but thankfully I didn’t do anything too drastic because I had a lot of support from a home treatment team and from friends, family and Rick. The cocktail of meds eventually settled things down and my mood started to drop. The voices didn’t go away this time but because I had switched from mania to depression I thought that when my mood was eventually stable they would go away again.

This has not been the case, in-fact they started to get worse. Nowadays I have a real appreciation for people who have to cope with this day in day out because it’s not fun. The external voices are nothing like the voices that come from my internal world in-fact most of the time my outside voices are not friendly. There is a man and a woman and they talk back and forth about me, sometimes stating my thoughts out loud which feels intrusive and embarrassing due to the fact that my perception picks up the voices from somewhere external and therefore it feels like everyone else can hear them too. Sometimes they talk about my appearance or comment on what I am doing. They have many thoughts and ideas but mostly they tell me that other people are trying to hurt me. They have come up with all sorts of extra ordinary beliefs, that there are cameras watching me, someone is trying to poison me, people are out to cause me a lot of harm... It feels as though my ears are picking up sound from somewhere to the left side of the room as if a radio or speaker has been left on. They follow me everywhere and the result is I can’t work or do my job without feeling paranoid that bad things are happening in my workplace. I can’t relax at all and if someone even hints at being annoyed at me the voices jump on that and push it to the extreme. I’ve finally had to take some more leave from work to give myself a chance to overcome this.

My psychiatrist no longer thinks that I have Bipolar, the manias, depressions along with my vivid inner world (inside voices), socialising problems, outside voices and delusions that are not mood congruent have made her diagnose me as Schizoaffective.

http://www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/schizoaffective_disorder

That label scared me a lot, more than any I’ve been given before. There is something about being told that I’m Schizo that makes me feel like my mind is fundamentally flawed. Yet at the same time it is a relief to finally have a psychiatrist who I trust, who I am willing and able to work with long term and who claims to have a clue about what is going on. I’ve switched psychiatrists so many times I can count 6 in total and this is not because I am fussy, the psychiatrists I got through the NHS in the past just never stuck about in the same place very long and so the consequence is I’ve been given many different labels and meds.

My current doctor and CPN are amazing, they have really taken the time to get to know me and my history and are hopefully going to stick around long enough to get me stable. I started a new anti-psychotic (Risperidol), to take along with the lithium and Amytriptaline and so far it seems to be having some effect. I feel calmer, and the voices are less frequent, I am hopeful that I will be able to cope better.

Currently I seriously have to re-evaluate my life. Can I continue working? In my current state, not really. What that would mean for us financially if I don’t get better will be catastrophic and so I am really keeping hope that this will be controllable and these outside voices will go away. At the moment I’m learning to distract myself by blocking my left ear, blasting my ears with music and keeping busy so I’m not focusing on the voices negative remarks. I popped into a hearing voices group last week to get some advice about dealing with them until the meds work. At the moment I want to stay confident that they will work and this isn’t something that will be permanent. Distraction techniques are working to an extent, when I’m at home it is possible to block them out but it is impossible to do anything meaningful or keep concentration. Reading, meditation, and studying are all nearly impossible and my relationships with other people are suffering more than usual. This past year I’ve felt completely isolated from everyone, it feels like I am on a different planet and if I talk about what’s going on in my mind people look horrified. It seems that it is not socially acceptable to talk about hearing voices. I know statistics say that many people are voice hearers but where are they? I am guessing they are either keeping very quiet, or are on the outskirts of society and I haven’t come across them yet.

So just in case anyone is reading this blog who experiences voices I thought I would end with some useful links,

Hearing voices in your head is so common that it is normal, psychologists believe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5346930.stm

Hearing Voices Movement is a philosophical trend in how people who hear voices are viewed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement.

Reputation

2011-07-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

“A great deal of suffering arises because we are conflicted about reputation. Instead of being concerned about the reality of what we are, we’re concerned about what other people think of us. We’re too outward looking.” Lama Yeshe

I thought I’d write a blog about reputation because recently it’s been a concern for me and at least a few of the people I know. It made me think about why this is an issue at all. Why do I care so much about what other people think of me and does it do me any good to cultivate a good reputation?

I am not what one would regard as popular. Although I do have people who like me and who I get on with and I am blessed with a few incredible close friends who know me well enough to see past my social difficulties, it is unfortunate that in most social groups I am never someone people feel warm too. There are numerous reasons for this, principally that I make lots of childish mistakes when interacting with people. I say and do the wrong thing, I have in the past reacted to stuff in a way that’s too fanatical and I’m just not blessed with the social ease that some people have. I never learned what parts of my life I should keep quiet and which parts I should be open about, so I’m usually open about everything and I am starting to learn that apparently this is not the best way to win allies. When it comes to my opinion it has stumbled out of my mouth far too quickly and I usually manage to offend people and put them off within a couple of months of meeting. (I’m working on this) I want to learn to interact with others in a more positive and meaningful way, but I also want to let go of any feelings I have about my reputation.

Despite what it might look like I do care what people think, I would like to be liked or feel wanted in a group and even if it seems like I’m acting in a way that puts people off its never my intention.

My reputation is usually not great, I’ve ether slept with 2 many boys, I’m too mentally ill, or in engaged in some sort of social taboo such as polyamory that make’s people think on the whole I’m a bit of a freak. Recently someone even took the trouble to write to me and tell me I’m a mess and should be locked up. It bothers me that my reputation is usually bad and yet why? Regardless of what my reputation is my character always remains the same. So when someone says something that is true about me, then it was true anyway and if someone says something that is untrue then it remains untrue. I don’t suddenly become an inferior or superior person because of what others believe. What I am remains the same regardless of anyone’s opinion. I know I have some issues I need to work on, but I also know that I have some good qualities that I am trying to develop.

I’m starting to understand that it’s a dangerous game valuing oneself exclusively on reputation. Believe me I have tried and in my situation it just left me depressed and with little or no self esteem. However I also realise that the reverse is true, that if I happened to be well liked then simply believing that I am a good person because other people seem friendly towards me, regardless of my mind or motives is just as destructive. Reputation is an idealistic way of fooling ourselves. When I contemplate this in more depth I recognise that if I built my self esteem around my reputation, good or bad, my entire view of myself would have no basis at all in reality and that would mean that I would be completely unable to make progress spiritually as a person, or a Buddhist. If I believe that everyone likes me therefore I must be good then why would I look in any more depth at my actions and motives? Other people’s opinions are forever changing depending on the situation, how they feel at the time, even just having a bad day can make someone feel less fondness for others, so opinions are empty of permanence and therefore unreliable.

This contemplating started with some negative comments on this blog. It managed to agitate my mind for a day and then I read the quote at the top of this page by Lama Yeshe and I grasped how absolutely pointless it was for me to feel anything at all about the comment be it good or bad it did not change one thing about me. It inferred something that wasn’t true but the anonymous person stating this made no difference at all to the reality of who I am or what is the truth. The comment did not suddenly become true just because it had been written or said and it did not become true because one person believed it to be so. Their continuing to think negatively about me did not have to disturb my mind at all in-fact taking the effort to write the cruel comment had done more harm to their mind than it could ever do to mine.

Loosening my interest in what other people think of me seems to have some very good advantages. It stops me focussing needless energy into acting in ways that will please people for the sake of it and means that I will be more genuine in my interactions with others. It means my actions stop being all about me. Instead of thinking about me, my reputation and what other people think about me, I can turn my attention to things that actually matter.

I’ve decided that rather than try and make other people like me, I will try and cherish them. I want to find a way to appreciate others regardless of how they appear to me, even those people who might harm me. So the person who wrote that comment whoever they might be I want to feel fondness for them, and appreciate their situation rather than waste my energy focusing on irritation or hatred. Perhaps I have done them some harm and they are angry at me, or perhaps they truly believe that what they wrote was true and felt that they were doing some good in informing me what they thought about me. They could have been trying to do me a kindness to change me for the better.I'll never know but it does me no good to believe I have been got at for no reason.

"We ordinary individuals share the characteristic of having our attempts to gain happiness thwarted by our own destructive self-centeredness. It is unsuitable to keep holding onto the self-centered attitude while ignoring others.
If two friends find themselves floundering in a muddy swamp they should not ridicule each other, but combine their energies to get out. Both ourselves and others are in the same position of wanting happiness and not wanting suffering, but we are entangled in a web of ignorance that prevents us from achieving those goals. Far from regarding it as an "every man for himself" situation, we should meditate upon the equality of self and others and the need to be helpful to other beings." Ven. Lobsang Gyatso

Everyone has their story and everyone is searching for the same thing, to be happy, and even if they are engaging in a harmful action it’s almost always because they believe what they are doing is right and can make them happy. I’ve been in this situation myself many times, doing something I have later learned was destructive because at the time I genuinely believed that what I was doing was correct and just. I’ve put my own happiness above others on countless occasions (usually without even being aware of what I’m doing) so I can understand how easy it is to fall into this trap. We all do it without even thinking twice about it because in our head we are usually looking to meet our own needs and we aren’t thinking about other people. This understanding makes it easier for me to feel sympathy for those people I see doing harmful actions, they are just increasing there own suffering in the long run. Fundamentally deep down everyone has some goodness, I want to appreciate this inner quality in everyone rather than focus on their delusions or bad qualities.

The only way to do this is to stop worrying about my own reputation, because if I am worrying about this then all my actions become about me and my mistaken belief that my value changes because of other people’s fleeting opinions. If I’m concerned about what other people say or believe about me then that opens the door for me to get angry and frustrated when I hear negative things said about me. It blocks me from cherishing others because if I am upset about my reputation and what people believe then it will be hard for me to cherish those same people. I need to accept that I have a certain social awkwardness due to my introverted personality and mental illness which unfortunately makes it a little harder for me to fit in, that does not have to make me obsess about what other people think and it doesn’t stop me from cherishing them.

Next I need to work on letting go in the same way when it comes to Rick, because currently I am more likely to get disturbed if someone says or does something negative about him than myself. I’m working on this.

sad

2011-06-20T15:21:00.000-07:00

it appears some people don't understand that it is possible to have more than one health problem at the same time and in-fact some disorders can be connected. What's more saying mean things anonymously is in my opinion cowardly.

On a different note, I haven't had much to say via blogging of late because I am still recovering from the depressive side of Bipolar, after the mania there is for me always depression. That sets off some of the other issues as well and so its not been an easy time.

Fortunately I have great support in place and good friends and family around, Rick is as always amazing.

Jools

madness quotes and poetry

2011-04-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

"but I don't want to go among mad people, Alice remarked.

'oh you can't help that' said the Cat. 'We're all mad here. I'm mad, You're mad.'

'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

'You must be,' said the Cat. 'or you wouldn't have come here' "

Lewis Carrol

Like a Manic Cow

A distorted heap of schizoid mania,

the bedlam coiled in the corner

of the bedroom floor.

Breathing

wildly,

Like a manic cow.

Come down, come down, from this dastard high.

Seductive, sly, like a snake slithering

Little by little.

Just one more moment. Please!

Wretched hunger for more of this poignant drool

oozing out of minds liqurious pie

and dribbling like chronic diarrhea of the mouth.

Come listen to what has no meaning

give caution to my consciousness,

Be with me hard,

Against the bathroom wall.

I will fuck you're mind in ways you never imagined.

By Julianne Renne aka me :P

And some quotes on mental health since my last few blogs have been on the subject :)

“I felt like a race horse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer

suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a

little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like a date on a tombstone.”

Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again."

Sylvia Plath

"I'd rather be mad with the truth than sane with lies"

An anonymous psychiatric patient and poet

Magnus.
by ~flesh-box

When you open up my body,
You're fingering my heart
I'm waking up at night-fall
And crawling darkened halls
Just to escape you, Magnus,
Just to be alone,
I'm suffering just for you,
And I'm doing it on my own.

You lick my flaking lips, Magnus
You tickle my torn-up tongue,
You've got me in your grip, Magnus
I cannot resist anymore.

When you open up my body,
You linger in my veins,
I love you like a lover
And yet I hate you more each day because
You cut me to the bone, Magnus,
You cut me to the bone...
All those nights together, Magnus
When I'm really on my own.
http://flesh-box.deviantart.com/#/dsnuof

Bipolar

2011-03-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages. ~William H. Mauldin

What does it feel like to be manic, to slacken ones grip on reality and for a few days, weeks, or even months and erupt into an altered world from the rest of the human race. I’m not sure I can explain it in terms that people will understand, because I’m not sure I can explain it to myself using metaphors and words. It’s like the world around me has suddenly become so bright and stimulating my mind can’t keep up no matter how fast it races and yet the world is actually exactly the same and it’s my mind that’s been turned up a notch (or at least that’s what the doctors keep telling me).

I feel like I am rejoining the normal world. It’s a slow process... the meds don’t work instantly. I don’t just pop a pill and all of a sudden my brain starts to work conventionally again. In my opinion I’m not even sure that it was working wrong in the first place, there is a part of being manic that feels good, at least its not depression, which in my opinion is the nasty side of Bipolar. Who wouldn’t want to be europhic and feel like they have the strength to lead the world into the next spiritual and emotional revolution? Obviously it has its down side, being that everyone else was so terribly alarmed, but for me at least 50 percent of the time I was happy (the rest of the time I was either frantic, confused or anxious)... still the intense elation was (almost) worth it and I repeated “at least I wasn’t depressed”.

I’m starting to feel well again, because my agitation and anxiety have lessened to a more manageable level. My doctor told me a couple of days ago that he is pleased with my progress, he tells me I’m about 25 percent on my way to being well I was thinking more like 75 percent but I’ll take what I can get. I ran into someone I work with today when I was walking to my appointment in town and I swear she must have thought I looked perfectly happy and well. I felt the need to inform her that it wasn’t my choice to be off work so long but it’s hard to explain. Hypomania is wonderful, it’s like mania with only a fraction of the hassle, and I think many people with Bipolar want to stay hypo manic (to some degree). Unfortunately according to the psychiatrist it’s not good for you. I realise that there is a scale of mania, and I did not reach the top of that scale because I was able to have my rational moments, all the same it is scary to recognize in retrospect just how high I got without any self awareness of what was happening to me.

"the intensity, glory, and absolute assuredness if my mind's flight made it very difficult for me to believe once I was better, that the illness was one I should willingly give up....moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behaviour somehow can be seen as temporary, even understandable reactions to what life has dealt....even though the depressions that inevitably followed nearly cost me my life."
— Kay Redfield Jamison

So what is it like being manic, I think coming down I am in a good place to give a little insight into what actually happens because I can still remember, and to some extent I am still experiencing much of the symptoms just to a much lesser degree than before. For me (and I understand it can be manifest in different ways for different people) it started with a decrease in my natural need for sleep. This is not the type of insomnia one generally complains about because it feels like you don’t need sleep. You don’t feel tired and there are so many wonderful and colourful ideas speeding through your mind that sleep seems like an enormous waste of time. So I started to get up in the middle of the night, just thinking about all the things I wanted to do. I had ideas about opening my own shop, I had ideas about work and how I could improve things for everyone there, and I felt exceptionally productive and happy.

Slowly I started to feel like I had a small adrenaline rush going on most of the time. This wasn’t a bad feeling because it was the type of adrenaline that makes me perform better. A little nervous zeal is often a good thing when it comes to getting stuff done. It was the kind of excitement that I could compare to going on a rollercoaster, or the anticipation of waiting for something really fantastic to happen. My heart would race and I felt exhilarated. It started gradually until I was feeling “exhilarated” most of the time.

Around about this time the anxiety kicked in. So I started swinging from exhilaration, to extreme anxiety. Usually at home or at times I spent in areas of my life where I was free to do as I pleased I was exhilarated and at work and places where people where expecting things from me I was anxious. I also felt really irritated when people where asking me to do stuff, I felt like what was going on in my head was far more important than anything other people might want or need me to do and so I would snap at people and just feel really irritable. It felt like if I was left alone to do as I pleased the world was full of colour and potential, everything else was holding me back from doing something really profound and interesting. Note at this point I was feeling like the most important person in the world. For anyone reading this with any knowledge of Buddhism; I was “self grasping” on a whole new level, in-fact it was way past self grasping, I had a God complex. Unfortunately and ironically my Buddhist knowledge of self grasping was useless because I was becoming deluded at this point into believing that it was justified and thinking I may in-fact be the personification of God, or the very least his little helper. I would like to add that in my less manic mode of being I don’t actually believe in that kind of God, still nobody said I’d be rational J

It was around this time that I noticed something wasn’t right, predominantly the anxiety and irritation where bothering me and those where the symptoms I wanted treated. With the mania came lots of glorious and eccentric ideas, I wanted to be outside all the time (but when outside I felt paranoid that I was being watched), I wanted to talk to people and socialise but the anxiety and irritation made this difficult. I was also aware that some of my thoughts were a little strange. At this point I had the wherewithal not to share those thoughts with other people but they where building in the background. I realised that I couldn’t cope with work because I was close to panic much of the time I spent in an environment that had expectations of me. My impulse was to simply walk out the door most of the time and that impulse was becoming harder to control. I was feeling suspicious and mistrustful believing that people where out to get me and this was especially related to work. People at work where noticing something wasn’t right and that made the paranoia even worse, in the end after talking to my GP who immediately noticed I was manic, convinced me that time away from work was essential if I wanted to keep my job. (I don’t want to dwell too much on what went on at work for me during that time because I am hoping to go back and repair some of the damage in the future).

When the doctor mentioned possible mania it did make some sense because I have been manic before and after taking some time to reflect I noticed the feelings I was experiencing now where very similar to how I felt back then. Years ago after taking Prozac for the first time it pushed me into a manic episode, however because it was after taking Prozac that I experienced mania the doctors did not want to assume I had Bipolar because it is possible that I was just sensitive to this type of anti-depressant. I had other issues that where causing depression and anxiety and I was working at resolving those or at least learning to live with them. After stopping Prozac I quickly crashed to depression again and the episode of mania was soon forgotten.

I agreed to see someone more specialised in Bipolar to find out if this was Mania and if so to see if they could help me calm down. This is despite the fact that my experience at the Royal Edinburgh hospital in the past, (through depression/mania) was not a positive one, In-fact I was meant to be monitored after my last episode of mania to see if it did happen again but I had been so royally messed around that I had stopped attending appointments and forgotten all about it. I had little faith that the mental health profession could or would help me (my faith has since been restored and I have been lucky enough to have the support of 2 lovely psychiatrists and a team of Psychiatric nurses all of whom have been respectful of my wishes and kind). In the mean time all sorts of wonderful, frightening, crazy things where taking shape in my head. To list some of those things;

I started to hear people whisper my name, I would be on the bus and people would be whispering Julianne under there breath, at home alone the same thing would happen it was peculiar, and creepy at the same time. The voices where coming from outside my body so it was like they where actually in the room with me (not in my head) and sometimes when I was really high they would tell me to do things, such as draw a picture of an eye, or to recite prayers.

I started to see colours and shapes at the corner of my eye,

I saw shadows move around the room,

I had the feeling that I was being watched. Sometimes I would see a person in my peripheral vision just watching me,

The TV started to give me special messages about things that would happen in the future, so did books I read, adverts I passed in the street and anything stimulating all had a hidden message. The messages usually revolved around Rick being the next Buddha, spiritual religious leader. He was “apparently” about to become enlightened and start a profound spiritual revolution.

I got messages telling me that we where being watched by the governments economists who wanted to prevent Rick reaching enlightenment because if he did so people would stop buying things and making weapons. I believed they had plans to kill us both if they suspected he was anywhere close to enlightenment.

I started to believe he was not only the reincarnation of the Buddha, but also Jesus, Allah, Guru Nanak and every other world religious figure. I started to truly believe that he was going to unite all the world religions and that he had the power of the universe to do so.

Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces. ~Marcel Proust

I believed I was the reincarnation of Mary Magdalene, and the Buddha’s wife.

The list goes on and on, I had many special and powerful beliefs some of which made me feel really europhic and others made me feel terrified. I did have rational moments too when I would stop and say, “What am I doing/thinking”, “I MUST be very ill” and then I would have some not so rational moments where I felt the need to share my views with people and wanted to do something to prove to the world that I was right. Such as but not limited too, hurting myself so Rick could heal me.

In the mean time I also saw a lovely psychiatrist who very firmly told me that this was Mania and I was Bipolar and so I MUST take medication. He was very keen to put me in hospital which I was very determined to avoid. Trust me the Royal Edinburgh is not a fantastic place to be crazy. I don’t care if it’s a mental hospital I am certain that had I been admitted I would have gotten worse and not better. My Psychiatrist, who is exceptionally nice, was kind enough to give me the option of having help from the “Intensive Home Treatment Team” who basically visit people at home and are available 24/7 to anyone who would otherwise be in hospital. I can tell you it is the strangest experience ever to go from being a support worker myself helping people in there own homes, to being a service user. Nonetheless I am incredibly thankful because these people have really helped me, kept me out of hospital, and I am starting to feel like I am on the road to recovery and on the bright side the experience of being at the other end of a support service has given me a tremendous insight.

I’m not back to my usual self just yet but I am getting there. Mainly I am aware that the medication is keeping things at bay, but not completely. If I am over stimulated I quickly become more and more high. Meditation, mindfulness and a shit ton of Chlorpromazine and Quetiapiene are keeping things at a level where I can think rationally, however the odd beliefs still come (I’m just able to ignore them most of the time). I still hear people whisper my name and at time it still feels like I’m in a different world to everybody. On the plus side there are far more rational moments and the meds that I have really are helping keep me calm. I can mostly function if I plan my day well and keep my environment calm.

My confidence is in ruins and the idea of going back to work and taking on any kind of responsibility is frankly terrifying, but I know that eventually I will be ok and life will get back to normal. When I saw the Psychiatrist yesterday and he told me that he thought I was 25percent better I felt really positive. I can’t be objective so there are moments when I believe I am completely well and there are moments when I know that I’m not. In reality I am relying on other people to tell me what they think and thankfully I have people I trust around me who will be honest. The doctors think that once this episode is over if I take the medication and work hard to pick up on the signs that mania is returning then I should be able to get back to normal and hopefully lead a normal life or at least minimise the damage to my life if and when this happens again. From everything I have read I know that it won’t just go away, there isn’t a cure but it can be managed and the good thing is that now I know that I have Bipolar a lot of the problems that I have put down to my past issues are actually part of Bipolar and so can be treated with Bipolar medication.

I’m not quiet ready to re-join the rest of the world, I have another 4 weeks to work with the home treatment team and to get used to my medication but there is definitely a light at the end of this tunnel. My main worry, and I am sure it’s a big worry for anybody with Bipolar who is trying to come down from Mania, is that I’ll crash to depression. Without medication this would usually be my pattern but I’m hoping that I might escape that at least this once, now I am doing everything I can to manage things with meds and lifestyle. Hopefully I will have something else to write about other than my general craziness soon J

Thanks for taking the time to read

Jools

Mania

2011-03-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

Mania,

I wrote in my last blog a little bit about mental illness, I thought it might be useful for me to update a little, even though I’m not actually sure I’m going to be able to write anything that will be useful to anyone else reading.

I’m still not feeling myself but the good thing is that I am getting treatment and this time I really am going to stick to it no matter what because I know that my being like this is making everyone around me stressed , including Rick and I feel like this is just so unfair on him.

I’ve been treated in the past in regards to my mental health but that has always been mainly for anxiety, depression and sorting out issues from the past. (Lets be honest we all have something to mess with our heads and some are better at dealing with that kind of shit than others) – I didn’t used to be so good, but I thought lately I had got better and any problems I did have where under control and I was happy. I am happy; my problem at the moment is that I’m too happy.

I’ve been like this several times before, and the one time that I did get treatment for what they call Mania was soon after starting Prozac and so my doctor presumed that the mania was likely to be a reaction to the Prozac and took me off it pronto, I got put on another med and was given follow ups with the hospital to make sure the Mania didn’t come back and all was good. The problem was the hospital didn’t seem so helpful, (cancelled appointments, changed times and shitty receptionists) and some doctor and nurse making me feel like the biggest waste of space to walk the earth. .. so I never did follow up with that fully (after a few months I said fuck it and stopped going) I did carry on seeing my GP and things seemed ok in my head mostly so I felt that it was ok, I’d take the meds I was given and hope for the best. Any other issues were all under control.

A number of weeks ago I had a familiar feeling building up. It was a nice feeling, an excited feeling, an indestructible feeling. I knew I’d felt it before, it was mixed with anxiety and all of a sudden I couldn’t sleep anymore. My mind started to race, and race, and race, until all these connections started to happen between what was going on around me, books I was reading, adverts on the TV etc... I have moments of believing Rick is the next religious saviour (I know it sounds crazy but in my head it makes sense) feeling like people are spying on us, or that he is the reincarnation of something important like Jesus or the Buddha.

Ideas started to crop up in my head, things that I could rationalise and yet things I knew where odd. The idea that something big was about to happen to us religiously, spiritually, I felt people where watching us (I still do) I felt excited and wanted to share this with everyone, I can’t calm down. I still have the ability to rationalise things when I talk to people or Rick but at the same time what I believe is making sense (to me if not anyone else) and there are moments when I’m not even sure what’s real anymore. I hear people whispering my name when I know that can’t be possible. I see things out the corner of my eye and I feel elated most of the day and if I’m not elated I’m terrified or anxious.

I’m lucky that I have people around who encouraged me to talk to my doctor and she confirmed what I already knew deep down that I was manic again. This week I have been assessed by a lovely psychiatrist who confirmed that this 2^nd (official) appearance of mania in my life means that I most defiantly have Bipolar. This is a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that it’s treatable and many of the issues I thought where just personality traits or hang-ups for things long past are possibly treatable now.

Currently I feel confused as hell. I trust Rick, I trust my doctor, and yet everything I feel and believe at the moment feels so real to me that it’s hard for me to accept its all just mania. Currently it makes perfect sense to me that Rick might be about to channel a cosmic universal power into the world and save everyone and yet Boy do I know how crazy that makes me sound.

I have hang-ups about being Bipolar, I feel like a disappointment and a failure and then I hate myself for feeling like that because it seems so unfair that I should hold myself to that stigma when really it makes me no more of a bad person than any physical illness. Part of the reason that I am writing this update despite that feeling of” OMG what will people think” is because no matter how manic I may be my intellect is still very much in-tact and I am very aware how vital it is that the sort of stigma attached to mental illness is crushed.

At the moment for me there is a constant adrenaline rush, and a feeling of urgency. My heart is racing and is now (according to the doctor today) tachycardic which can be a symptom of mania itself and can be made worse by the various medications given to treat mania. It means he is worried about putting me on a higher dose of medication but at the same time he wants to get the mania under control and so it’s a catch 22. I need to calm down but I can’t. Someone asked me today if I could just try grounding myself in the present and calm my mind down. If I could calm down I would, I want to relax!

The good thing is that I know I could be worse; I could lose my ability to rationalise with myself at least some of the time and thus lose my entire grip on reality. At present although there are periods where I have no rational there are still periods where I can talk myself down from a crazy idea by talking to Rick, my doctor and others. Going over what my head is thinking with some people I trust seems to help me ground myself back in reality. I have medication now and I just have to find the right tablets and the right dose. So this will pass, (eventually) and normal life will resume. In the mean time I am lucky enough that I don’t even have to stay in hospital I have a choice between that and being visited at home. Staying at home is really good for me, I have been in hospital before and it was an exceptionally stressful time although I’m sure much good work is done there, I am terrified of going back and being locked in, kept away from Rick and my home.

In the mean time, really sorry to anyone who has spoken to me in my less than rational moments and hopefully I will be back to normal soon.

Mental Illness

2011-02-26T12:38:00.000-08:00

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
but I believe only in this moment
of well-being. Unholy ghost,
you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you’ll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,
and turn me into someone who can’t
take the trouble to speak; someone
who can’t sleep, or who does nothing
but sleep; can’t read, or call
for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do
against your coming.
When I awake, I am still with thee.
–Jane Kenyon, “Credo,” from “Having it Out with Melancholy”

I’m not in a good place psychologically at the moment, so I thought it might be a good time to get round to writing a blog about mental illness. I had been intending to do this for a while but its difficult because, although with some people I am very open about what difficulties I have, there are still many friends and groups of people in life, work and family who I still feel uneasy discussing things with or even being around when I’m not feeling right. It’s not that many of these people are bad people who are particularly judgemental or hard-hearted, its simply the case that there is a stigma to having this kind of illness and no amount of caring and sharing will change that reality.

What my actual problem/diagnosis was and still is really isn’t important. Anyone who has any kind of mental health issue goes through similar stigma and has much of the same difficulties when trying to lead a normal, fulfilling, happy life. So it doesn’t matter if I have Bipolar, Depression, Schizophrenia or any other condition, I want this blog to relate to everyone and anyone in this group and not just focus on my own specific problem.

First I want to explain what it’s like living in my head and what I imagine it’s like for many people who have a mental illness. My main symptom (the one that is currently causing me the most disruption) is anxiety. Now when I say anxiety most people imagine a bit of stress, work related, money worries that kind of thing. What I mean when I say anxiety is more than that. The only way I can explain it is to ask you to imagine this:

You’re on a plane and it starts having difficulties in the air. At first you are only mildly bothered, (in-convenient turbulence) but then the seat belt signs come on and the plane gets even more erratic, you notice that the air hostess is looking worried. Perhaps now you are feeling mildly panicked but you have faith in the pilot and you believe that it will all be over soon. Then you realise that there is smoke in the plane and the engine is starting to fail, people are getting thrown around, everyone around you is starting to panic, the pilot instructs everyone to prepare to crash land and you realise that the plane you are on really is about to crash and you are more than likely going to die. Imagine the adrenaline rush that would run through your body at that moment of this realisation. Almost everyone has had some instance in their life when the fight or flight response has kicked in (remember that just now as it will help you get a picture of what I’m trying to explain), the feeling of wanting to vomit, the shortness of breath, the smashing heart beats, the stomach pains, sickness and sweating and imagine that those feelings are coming over you for no reason that is logical. It comes and it rushes over you and then it gradually subsides and you think that it’s over but then a little while later it happens again. It wakes you up in the night, it happens when you are on the bus, at work, in your own home, no place feels safe anymore this intruding feeling interrupts everything you do, when your trying to relax, shower, eat, read, it keeps happening over and over again, and there seems to be nothing you can do to stop it.

This kind of anxiety for me is hell. The fight or flight response is continually being activated for no reason and any small amount of stress sets it off again. I’m only just calming down and it starts all over again. I’m trying to think of a reason why this is happening because if I could find out why I’m afraid maybe I can logically think myself out of it but really there is no reason. When I talk to people who are close to me about it they will try and help by asking me what I’m stressed about and logically talking to me about any stresses in my life; but in reality the stresses in my life are not the cause and there is in-fact something chemical going on in my brain that’s making me feel this way. That means no amount of logic can take the feeling away. If this goes on for more than a few days, maybe even weeks then my mind starts to fill in the blanks. I’m afraid, really afraid and my body is ready to fight or run away and so there must be something to be afraid of. At this point I haven’t slept for more than a couple of hours at a time, for days or longer, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to think clearly. I start to fixate on small issues, maybe I fixate that the people at work don’t like me, or Rick is going to leave because he’s had enough, perhaps the there is a person on the bus with a bomb, or the man behind me in the street is a murderer. So I have to double check things, ask people if they are annoyed to seek reassurance that everything is ok. However because my thought patterns are disturbed any reassurance I get from those around me doesn’t sink in and I start to repeat myself, driving everyone around me as crazy as I am. The longer this feeling lasts the more illogical my thought patterns become until the lines between what’s real and what’s just my own mind are blurred. Reality being blurred is not cool. It’s not blurred in a good trippy LSD kind of way, it becomes like a nightmarish out of control hell. Paranoia kicks in and throw in some auditory or visual hallucinations and before I know it I’m in the middle of a psychotic episode.

Anxiety is a symptom that is part of most mental health issues. I have met a lot of people with a rainbow of issues and I can’t remember one person that didn’t feel anxious.

When you’re suffering from that kind of anxiety the world becomes a scary place and it gets even harder when you have to start explaining to people what’s wrong. It becomes necessary to hide away because the truth is that no matter how open minded a person thinks they are, this country is, their group of friends are, their workplace is, their church is, (fill in blank here) there is always stigma.

I remember telling a family member years ago that I was having therapy. At this time in my life I was having therapy only because I was training in person centred therapy myself and therefore it was necessary for me to undergo therapy as part of the course. This person had no idea I had any kind of problem myself and the therapy was only mentioned in passing in regard to my coursework. However the reaction I got from this person was disgust, I was immediately challenged “why do you need therapy, what a waste there’s nothing wrong with you, you just need to get a grip” needless to say this person isn’t someone I would ever involve myself in a conversation about mental illness with again.

The problem with mental illness as opposed to physical illness is that people who don’t have a mental health problem seem to suppose that you can just snap out of it; that if you were a strong person, or if you had a good upbringing, mental attitude, you wouldn’t have this problem. Let me put the record straight now. I know many strong, creative and wonderful people who have had a fantastic upbringing, who also have a mental illness. Nobody would challenge someone with a condition like asthma, or diabetes and say “snap out of it” “think yourself better” and yet this is a shockingly popular attitude to mental illness. We are in the 21^st century, and it’s been shown time and time again that with almost all mental illness there is a physical/chemical imbalance within the brain and yet still people are coming out with this bullshit. The cause of an imbalance may vary, and yes it can come about from trauma and upbringing. I’m not saying circumstances and life events don’t play a part for some people, but whatever the reasons are there is still something going wrong in the brain of a person who is mentally ill that is NOT going wrong in the brain of someone who is not mentally ill, and therefore what right do they have to tell anyone to snap out of it! I would like very much for those people to have just one day with the same thing going wrong in their brain and then they will know just how impossible snapping out of it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw_I-G1smoo

Then there is the problem of getting help. It seems simple, something is wrong with you and so you go to the doctors. You presume that the doctor will do whatever he/she can to help you get better and manage your symptoms. If you had a persistent upset stomach, or a sore throat you would go to the doctor and they would help, so it shouldn’t be any different with something mental? Doctors know how to treat mental illness these days so this shouldn’t be a problem right? Wrong. Doctors can have just as shit an attitude as everyone else. I have had some wonderful doctors and I have had some stupendously unhelpful ones. Going to see a doctor about a problem like this is exceptionally difficult task because by the time it gets to the stage when you are prepared to go to a complete stranger and tell them what’s going on in your mind, you’re already feeling isolated and scared about other people’s reactions to what you are experiencing. Chances are the erratic behaviour has already attracted some unwanted attention and a few people have already given some negative remarks about how you just need to, snap out of it, get a grip, open up, get on with it etc... So when you get to the doctor you’re frantic.

I was lucky because the first doctor I spoke too at least took me seriously and wanted to treat me. I was started on the standard med to treat depression (Prozac) I was also put on the waiting list for some therapy and sent on my merry way.

PROZAC otherwise known as flouxatine and probably countless other brand names, if it’s an SSRI then there’s a good chance it’s a Prozac type of med. In-fact I would go as far as to say that if it’s the first time you have been to the doctor with depression like symptoms and you come out with a prescription then if you double check the brand name its going to be from the Prozac family. From what I know Prozac is prescribed because it is cheap, it’s also not as harmful in an overdose as some other pills but I’m not deluded enough to think this is the main consideration here when the NHS recommended it be the first med prescribed. I’m sure it’s done wonders for some people with depression. That doesn’t mean it is the best course of treatment for any kind of mental health problem. Unfortunately it’s the first course of action for most patients presenting with depression and I was depressed as well as anxious. I was just glad to get help, I think at that point if they had prescribed me anthrax and told me it make me well again I’d have swallowed those pills. Unfortunately Prozac made me worse. It made me manic, so instead of being anxious, paranoid and depressed I became anxious, paranoid and feeling like I was permanently on speed! Let’s just say that this was not a good time. Luckily my partner at the time had the sense to urge me to go back and the doctor (something to do with me setting fire to the fridge and deciding that I could see dead people). The doctor quickly took me off those pills, and 9 meds later I finally found a combination that worked for me (most of the time).

The therapy I got also helped and I think that was thanks to the fact that I had an amazing therapist who I still have the greatest respect for today and the fact that it was psychoanalysis/person centred therapy and not the most common “NHS cure all” Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). I have had CBT with several different therapists during times when my symptoms flared up and although in the short term in helped manage some acute symptoms it did nothing for me long term. The thing about CBT is that its all about treating the symptoms, calming the patient down, “giving them tools to cope” and this is fantastic in the short term with things are really erratic but in the long term you never have time to get to the root of the problem . 12 weeks is usually the standard NHS CBT course of treatment (in my experience) and for many patients that’s just not enough time. It’s 40 to 50 minutes a time and it’s really impossible to get to know the therapist in that window. I have learned whilst undergoing my own counselling skills course that the reason the NHS mostly focus their therapy on CBT and not other modes of therapy such as PCT (person centred therapy) and psychoanalysis is because CBT is the only one that can show statistical results and its no secret that the NHS just LOVE statistics! “1 in 10 people have this and 1 in 3 people have that...”

With CBT the patient fills in a form at start of treatment, and fills in form at end of treatment. They get asked questions along the lines of ‘on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being calm and 10 being most anxious, how do you feel?’ If the CBT has worked in the short term then the person might have been 10 at the start and then 5 after treatment and the NHS thinks ‘BINGO! CBT cure all for mental illness’. From my experience the reality is that after 6 months the anxiety is back because the root of the problem has not been treated. With person centred and psychoanalytical treatment its more about finding the root cause, it takes longer (so costs more) and the patient tends to get worse before they get better (needs more support in the short term thus more money) and so the NHS thinks too expensive ‘off to the CBT bin you go’. The catch is that in the long term PCT and psychoanalysis is more likely to make lasting results but since most figures work on short term scales, the long term doesn’t seem to exist as far as the NHS is concerned. The psychoanalysis and person centred therapy I had has given me far more benefit in the long run than any CBT program I have been a part of.

I am well most of the time, that doesn’t mean that I’m symptom free because I have my off days but if I manage my medication carefully and I don’t go on all night benders and put myself in all sorts of stressful situations then I am more than capable of living a normal, active life, working, socialising and just generally getting on well in the world of sane people. The problem is that like other long term conditions that are managed by medication and lifestyle changes its still part of me. There isn’t a cure (sorry to break this to anyone who works for the CBT department in the NHS) at certain times symptoms that are not manageable re-appear for no good reason other than my brain feels like it reminding me that it has the ability to wreck havoc on my life. Sometimes a small amount of stress starts off bigger feelings of anxiety that lead me to having worse symptoms reappear (domino effect) and other times it can happen for no reason at all – perhaps some small, seemingly insignificant thing happens and the effect is destructive (butterfly effect). I am lucky I’m well most of the time, sometimes I can go for a year or more when I am completely well and happy. At the moment I’m not right, I know it because I’m highly anxious, fixating and feeling generally irrational. Every-time this happens I feel like I’m failing. I might know logically that this is an illness and it’s no more shameful than having a stomach disorder and yet the stigma and judgements do get me down. I feel frustrated, afraid, and isolated. At the moment I know I’m not right and even though I can have a few hours at a time when I’m ok, I’m swinging back and forward from being a logical rational person, to feeling high in a manic sort of way, or feeling extremely afraid, irrational and paranoid. I feel like all the hard work I’ve put in over the years to stay well and lead as normal a life as possible is being eroded away by this one set back. My relationships, my job, everything rests on me being well. The problem is my own fear of the consequences of my illness taking over completely, makes me more anxious which makes it more likely that I’ll get worse and so it’s a vicious cycle.

I’ve had to take a giant step back from my own life to deal with this which means letting certain people down until I get well again. That sucks and I’m annoyed at myself for not being able to work through it and still carry on with my usual day to day, but I can’t, and past experience has taught me that it’s not wise to try pretend like I can manage. I lost a job once through forcing myself into work in a similar mental state and I don’t want to do that again. I also know that I have been here before and come through it and I can get through it again. This time I’m being a little bit more open with people who I would usually hide away from when I’m not right. This time I also have Rick who keeps reiterating that I’m stuck with him for life and it doesn’t matter how crazy I am he still loves me (by far the most patient man on the planet but I know everyone has a breaking point). So hopefully it won’t last long and I’ll be back to normal soon. That means hoping I get an ok doctor next week who doesn’t decide to try something new and actually listens to me about what works for me and what doesn’t work, and hopefully have understanding people around me who don’t make me feel like I’m the biggest waste of space on the planet.

So please bear with me whilst I’m going through this, and I hope also having read this everyone will be more understanding and supportive of others who are facing similar difficulties.

useful links

http://www.mind.org.uk/ English charity but still has some useful Info
http://www.seemescotland.org.uk/about

The Buddha's head

2011-02-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

I’ve been looking for inspiration for the blog for a few weeks. Today something transpired /concluded and I thought it would be a nice story to share J

I’ve been reflecting a lot recently about what kind of person I am. Thinking about life in a different way over the past year has given me a sharp, somewhat uneasy discernment of my own faults. For example, I know that I can be a very demanding person. As I’ve got older I have mellowed to some extent, but even now if I look at myself from an external viewpoint I can see that at times I am a nightmarish, drama creating, monster. I can be analytical about this, go over the events of my life and understand exactly what shaped my ego into what it is today (a few years of therapy and my own PCT training taught me that) but this knowledge has not prevented me from reacting in extremes. I am far too emotional and I often resort back to old habits whenever I face stressful conditions.

The main problem is that I frequently react in extremes. I am high or low, happy or sad, calm or angry and there is no middle ground. For Rick and for friends, family, ex-partners and anyone who spends time with me this is not an easy thing to tolerate. When I feel emotional I feel really emotional! That’s an incredible advantage when I’m happy and content, but it’s not so convenient when I’m angry, or upset because with the severe emotions come actions that I later regret. Deep down I know that this is not a good way to live my life. What I need is to find ways to ground myself and not be controlled by my past issues, and consequent potent emotional reactions. Although I enjoy the times when I feel happy to the extreme, this is not real joy because it’s easily interchangeable with fanatical anxiety and restlessness. Therefore because I am conscious that something relatively small could happen that will change my mood back to more negative extreme, even in my moments of “happiness” there is an underlying feeling of unease.

I have a persistent feeling of agitation because the things I believe make me happy are always things that can be taken away and so there is a chronic anxiety about when this will happen and the anticipation of the grief and unhappiness this will bring. I have a crushing need to be loved and yet any love I am given I rarely believe belongs to me. Rick is the most loving, thoughtful man I have ever met. He genuinely has the patience of a saint and yet I am incessantly fearful that his love and kindness will change into something dark. This causes me to act in ways that mean I am not always easy to be around. It also means I can’t appreciate fully the amazing nature of the love that we share because even if sometimes I get a glimpse of a realization of just how very lucky I am those moments are lasting because I can so easily burry any contentment that comes my way with my very own bubble of anxious doubt. Somewhere along the line I have learned that I am neither likeable nor lovable.

So in order to assert some control over my fretfulness I will create in my imagination a certain chain of events that have to happen in order for me to feel secure. I have a plan in my head and when things go according to plan I have temporary feelings of security. However things do not always go according to plan and often my make believe security is challenged. My plan can be simple, we will decorate the kitchen in a certain order, A, B, C and then D and even though it might not matter if B and C come in a different order because I have this set order planned out in my head if that doesn’t happen I’m thrown into a fit of anxiety and irritation.

Some months ago I had an argument with Rick over something like this. I can’t remember exactly what the argument was but it was something that I had imagined happening a certain way that was not happening the way I had planned and so I was feeling insecure, anxious and over emotional. I yelled at him, cried and generally acted in a way that was self grasping and centred on me, me, me, my wants and my needs. In that moment it felt like the small thing that hadn’t gone to plan was the end of the world.

Rick is remarkably accepting when it comes to things like this, he knows me well and understands the reasons why I react the way I do. In the first 2 weeks of our relationship I had listed off every negative quality I possessed and told him all of the things that I struggle with and why. He learned all of my history in regards to mental health and he still accepted and loved me regardless. With him there is no shame around my problem, it’s talked about frankly and explicitly, he knows what meds I take and helps me keep a close eye on that side of my health. If things get bad I can’t always see it but I trust that he will and he will help me get back to normal as quickly and kindly as possible. I think he is the first person I have been so honest with because he has never made me feel like it’s something I should hide. This honesty means that he rarely gets annoyed with me and usually he rides out whatever emotional state I am in without getting involved in an argument. I know when it comes to making plans and getting things done in the house he often does things my way so that I don’t get over anxious or feel out of control. However inevitably stuff will happen that is out of my control and I can’t always blame my ungrounded reactions on the fact that I have a mental health problem.

On one occasion some weeks ago, in my frustration I threw something across the room. This used to be a common way for me to deal with anger but nowadays I am usually mature enough to know that this is no better than a child having a tantrum. On this particular day I was stressed and reacting to something relatively small in a heightened emotional state, therefore throwing something seemed like a good idea.

Myself and Rick are Buddhist and we have a fair few Buddha’s in our front room. What I threw (I think it was an unlit candle) hit against the back of the living room wall and bounced of the piano knocking one of the Buddha statues off the piano and onto the floor. As soon as I had thrown the candle I immediately regretted it, seeing the little Buddha statue fall to the floor instantly reminded me how unacceptable my behaviour and actions were. We believe the statues themselves are to be treated with the same respect as the Buddha himself and so knocking him onto the floor in a fit of irrational irritation was as bad as pushing the Buddha himself onto the floor. Even worse was the top of his head broke off and so I had without meaning too just completely disrespected my faith, and everything I believe in all because I was not in control of my emotions.

We hunted high and low for the top of the Buddha’s head, we moved the piano, the chairs, rugs, we searched everywhere and couldn’t find it and so we had to put the Buddha statue back on the piano minus part of his head. The idea of throwing him away wasn’t an option because I felt bad enough that I had damaged him let alone chuck him out with the rubbish. I apologised to Rick and anything I had been ranting about previously seemed silly and irrelevant.

For several weeks every time I saw that statue sitting in the living room I was ashamed, but deep down I still didn’t get it. I knew that responding to situations in such an extreme way usually meant that I would do something I would later regret yet I was still allowing myself to carry on like this. I felt bad about what I had done but I didn’t change anything, I just kept thinking that I needed to minimise the amount of stress I was dealing with so I could stay calm. Thinking along the lines of, if only the flat was tidier, my job was better, I got to spend more time in meditation or with Rick relaxing then I’d be fine and things like that wouldn’t happen. I wasn’t exactly taking responsibility for my actions.

Yesterday I observed someone else who lives there lives in this kind of extreme way. Someone I know who was clearly swinging from one emotional state to another and basically acting in ways similar to how I act out. I saw clearly this persons overwhelming yearning for love and attention and understood exactly why they had certain behaviours. I was also able to see how those negative habits did the person no good and for me it was like looking in a mirror. I was feeling irritated by this person and yet they where doing exactly the kind of thing that I do myself. I suddenly realised just how other people could view me and how damaging it was for me to carry on this way. As I was walking home from the bus stop I suddenly wanted badly to find a way to ground myself and I realised that this is what I had to do if I ever wanted my emotional state to change for the better. I could see clearly why the “middle way” really was the best way to develop personally and spiritually and I made a determination that I would find a way to change my way of dealing with stressful conditions. We got home and I started to prepare a meal as Rick gave the living room a quick tidy I was telling him how I felt that I wanted to try hard to make a change. To my surprise he immediately found the top of the Buddha’s head just sitting at the side of the couch (a place I swear we have looked before). I felt so relieved to find it and it seemed like the entire thing taught me a lesson in a round about way, or at the very least it made me mindful of what I am doing. I glued it back on and he is now sitting back on top of the piano looking as good as new. It seems like now I understand what I have to change it was the right time to find his head and now when I look at him I don’t have to think about how awful my behaviour was. Instead I can remember the fact that I have made a determination to change and stop making the same mistake over and over again.

I’m certain that I won’t be able to just click my fingers and change all my negative habits at once but I think this is the first time that I actually understand that I must change this way of interacting with the world other wise I won’t ever progress in Dharma or be happy and content. I think I could have gone on with this habit for the rest of my life and so it feels really good that I can see clearly where I need to make changes. So hopefully with some work and Rick pointing out to me when I am acting irrational I can start to keep myself grounded and create as little drama as possible.

2010 - 2011

2011-01-16T17:13:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I wrote a blog, and so I thought now we are into the New Year it was a good time to update.

As usual I spent a bit of time over December and January reflecting on the past year and thinking about what I would like to achieve in the New Year. I wouldn’t say these are new years resolutions more reflections and thoughts, with everyone celebrating the new year and talking about what they would like to do in the future this time always feels like a good opportunity to contemplate, get advice from friends and family and try and put some better habits into practice J This new years eve was spent quietly at home with Rick, which was the perfect way to end 2010 and start 2011.

Resolution number one to be less social.

Every year for the past 5 years I have made the same resolution that I will be more social, make friends, go out more often, and learn to be at ease in the company of others (predominantly groups). Some years I’ve had more success with this than others, often I have pushed myself to the brink trying to attain my desire to be more extroverted and accepted in a group environment. It hasn’t ever been natural for me, I dislike crowds, feel uneasy in groups and usually I value the time I have alone (or with just one or 2 people that I trust) far more than I value the time I spend trying frantically to fit into a social scene. It’s not that I don’t like people because I like most people, my discomfort comes primarily from not grasping the subtle rules and decorum of social situations. I don’t enjoy being around tons of people making small talk in the slightest. I find it draining and usually after a short time I just have to get away. If I try hard enough I can put on the facade of an extrovert but after a while the task of pretending is physically and emotionally exhausting. I feel like I’ve spent my entire life trying to mould myself into a more acceptable model of being just to please other people who take personal umbrage to my lack of desire to make endless small talk and stand around at parties looking like I’m having a good time. I found this quote which sums the whole thing up rather nicely

“The mob thinks we are maladjusted. Of course we are adjusted just fine, not to their frequency. They take it personally.

They take offense. Feel hurt. Get angry. They do not blame owls for coming out at night, yet they blame us for being as we are. Because it involves them, or at least they believe it does, they assemble the troops and call us names. Crazy. Cold. Stuck-up. Standoffish. Aloof. Afraid. Lacking in social skills. Bizarre. Unable to connect. Incapable of love. Freaks. Geeks. Sad. Lonely. Selfish. Secretive. Ungrateful. Unfriendly. Serial killers...

They bridle when we turn down invitations. They know we are making up excuses, but they can't handle the truth".

From from Cary Tennis of the "Since You Asked" column.

Despite the fact that “social butterfly” is about as far away from my nature as one could possibly imagine, I have felt disappointed in myself when around friends of a more confident temperament. It seemed everyone else was having a ball with all this partying and socialising and yet no matter what I couldn’t get it right. When I think about this in more depth I can see that there are others who are struggling just as much as I am. A close friend of mine who is one of the most sociable and gregarious of people I know recently told me that he feels lonely and doesn’t believe that many of the people he calls “friends” are people he knows well or in fact people who actually like him for who he is.

The thing is ever since I was a child I haven’t integrated well into any kind of group or social situation. I always felt like I didn’t understand these people who seemed prepared to do everything and anything just to fit in. I did want to fit in (some of the time), and I still do, but not enough that I would give in and surrender my beliefs or values just so that I might be part of the crowd for a short time. I remember all the pressure in school to smoke, drink, fuck around, or just be mean to other kids because the in-crowd had decided they weren’t cool enough to be liked. I never did understand the need to put a white stick in my mouth that reeked and tasted like crap and might give me some even more revolting, possibly life threatening disease in the future? Or lie on my back on some school boys Jacket while he has a quick fumble just so I could say that I was grown up and mature. What’s cool, or mature about that? My lack of obedience in these areas meant that pretty soon I was that isolated (un-cool) kid who was terrified everyday that someone was going to smack me in the mouth or humiliate me in the cafeteria (which happened so often I used to sit my breaks out in the libary or toilet). In my adult life I see that the school yard tactics don’t ever truly change they just get more subtle, and depending on one’s social class less brutal. It is regrettably the case that in groups people are often not collectively nice. Even if individually they all have tons of fabulous virtues, when put together in a group there always seems to be an underlying tone of bitching and gossip.

This year my resolution is to just accept things as they are. I don’t enjoy going out and being super social and that’s ok. What I get out of the friendships and relationships I do have seems far more authentic and meaningful than what I can get out of standing around at a party with lots of people I scarcely know feeling awkward. I think I pushed myself to make this determination year after year because I felt that as a young woman in my 20s it was what I ought to do. In a way I wanted to make up for all those years feeling socially excluded in my teens. I am starting to appreciate that forcing myself into situations like this is foolish. It doesn’t help me make friends, be happy or improve my life. This year I am making the determination that I will not push myself to be more social, and instead I will just spend my time doing things that are worthwhile and meaningful to me. Partying isn’t something I enjoy, and squeezing myself into a social group has only ever caused me stress and upset. I am happy staying home, being with people that I can have a real conversation with (not just small talk), and when I do talk to someone I want to give them my full attention and not a half hearted veneer of niceness that I have created to fit in. This leads me onto my next resolution...

To be less selfish

I have come to understand that I am not a nice person. I am remarkably selfish, and more often than not I put my own needs first without even being conscious of what I am doing. It is also clear from simple observation that almost everyone else is exactly the same, though it’s amusing how many people will deny that they are selfish at all. It’s subtle and it’s really easy to be unaware of what we are doing. a good example is most people would more often than not walk past a beggar in the street without giving a second glance. If we have 2 pound in our pocket would we really give it away to someone else or would we put our own needs first and make sure we had enough money so we didn’t miss lunch, or have to walk home instead of getting a bus? I get that this is part of human nature, its is built into our psyche to help us live and keep us safe from danger, but I have started to contemplate more about my sense of self and why I hold it as more important than anyone else? The truth is that balanced with everything else in the universe, the cosmos, animals, people, and even insects, I am nothing. My desires really are not important when compared to the desires and needs of every other being; the world does not end if my needs are not met. I want to try to be a nicer less egotistic person. Not just a veneer of niceness that’s put on because I want other people to like me or because its more socially agreeable to seem like I give a damn.

I actually want to give a damn.

Most people will reason that they are nice, that they really do care. I myself could argue that I am often genuinely nice to my friends and family, however I am not habitually nice to the people I dislike or hardly know. I can sit on the bus happily reading the newspaper, learning about some dreadful disaster or another in some distant part of the world, or maybe in my neighbourhood. If I don’t know anyone that’s been affected and it doesn’t directly affect me, I can put the paper down and carry on with my day never giving another thought to what kind of suffering others are going through. I have many times walked past a homeless person in the street without thinking twice about giving them help and even when I do reach into my pocket to give some money it is usually only a little of what I can afford to give.

There have been times when someone has said or done something to hurt my feelings and I have wished them harm. I have gloated and felt good about them coming to harm and I have on occasion done or said something to hurt them back. When I think about this rationally it doesn’t matter if someone has done or said something mean to me or about me or indeed anyone I know (though the latter seems a lot harder when it comes to people being mean to Rick). If they said it and meant it then the chances are they have only seen my bad qualities or at least they think they have, or what they have seen has made them feel strongly enough to believe I deserve it enough to justify their actions. Since I acknowledge and accept that I do have bad qualities and that I am not always nice, then it makes sense that some people may meet me and not find me palatable. If there are people who I am certain I have been nothing but nice too and they still wish to cause me harm, then my causing them harm back will only validate to them that their belief was correct. I don’t know how their opinion has been formed or why they do what they do and no matter how awful someone might seem to me they will have good qualities and potentials within them that I have not yet perceived.

I’ve been trying to think sympathetically about the LARP society and people who where not so considerate towards Rick last year, and striving to feel compassion and not illogical crazy anger. I’d say at the moment I’m still swinging in-between anger and rational calm. I think it’s harder for me to keep my mind calm when someone attack’s Rick because for me that feel’s worse than them personally attacking me. I know my faults are many but there is part of my brain that views Rick like a god. I know logically he isn’t faultless and that there are bound to be people that feel aversion to him but my heart doesn’t quite get that logic. (I’m working on it) I understand that I pay inappropriate attention to his good qualities and probably never notice it when he's being less than perfect.

Since I started to learn Dharma I have been striving to transform my perspective and attitude towards others for the better. Now when I see that someone needs help and there is something I can do to support them I try and put my own needs aside and do what I can to assist. Now I could say “look at me, aren’t I a nice person?” Actually, I’m still just as self-absorbed and egotistic as before because I’m only doing it because I want to be nice. It’s still about what I want (me, me, me) but it’s a start. I’m not saying that I didn’t do nice things for others in the past because I have, but not always. Often, like most people, I was so bogged down in my own bubble of stress that I failed to notice anyone else had crap to deal with too. It is incredible how much my life has improved just by making some small changes to my way of thinking. Stopping to chat to a friend who is depressed, or reminding someone how great and wonderful they are when I see that their confidence is low, has given an enormous boost to my own sense of well-being. I have been giving more to charity and giving what I can afford not just the bare minimum to ease my conscious. I’m a support worker, it’s my job to support and help people and I feel like now I can really appreciate the tremendous good fortune I have to do something that is completely meaningful and worthwhile every day I spend at work.

Because of Buddhism I have been attempting to feel, or at least understand on an intellectual level, equanimity. Thus I am striving to not hold some people who I am close to as more worthy of my regard as people I consider strangers, and not deciding that I have enemies who are exempt from this regard. In my line of work it’s called “unconditional positive regard”. It’s challenging and I fall down easily when I find someone who is antagonistic or showing traits that are less than desirable or people who are especially not nice to Rick (those people are the hardest not to dislike). I was getting frustrated with myself because I am starting to get it at least on an intellectual level but sometimes it’s really hard to put it into practice. I mean there are some people who just drive me nuts! Anyhow, I think I have found a solution (for now). At this time it is unrealistic to believe I can love or like everyone, I am a long, long way from any kind of enlightenment. Nevertheless it is entirely possible to feel compassion for these people regardless of their actions and attitudes; compassion is different from love and it is possible to feel compassion for someone even if you don’t like their conduct. Deep down I do believe everyone has the same potential for good and if someone is so caught up in delusion that all they are showing me (or anyone else) is negative hostility then they are clearly unhappy. Usually even with people who have upset me to the point of anger I can meditate on their circumstances and feel some form of compassion. I think compassion is a good start to feeling this unconditional love and regard that is the holy grail of Buddhism.

One thing that is starting to change is my perception of people as being different from me. The idea that I am me and they are someone else unrelated to my sense of self. Every so often I get a hint of a sensation of being more than just me and actually being everything else as much as I am myself. This sense has spontaneously happened in my head since childhood, a fleeting moment of not knowing what makes me, me, and that tree over there a tree, or that complete stranger over there, them. A feeling that I am not really disconnected from anything or anyone else, except that I am disconnected from myself, like the thing in my head that gives me my sense of self is temporarily cut off and I am no longer this person that is Julianne, or Jools or any other part of me that might be related to my ego. My therapist used to call this “dissociation” but actually rather than fear this feeling and see it as something to overcome I am starting to see that it could be valuable.

I have such a long way to go, my mind set is still very much me, me, me, but I need and want to let go of that. I might not care anymore if I fit neatly into a group but I do care about people. I genuinely and sincerely trust that every living being has the capacity for good, even those people who in the past have hurt me or others. I don’t think it is helpful to give even those people who have done dreadful things my resentment because I have spent such a long time either being angry or feeling like I should be angry about certain things. When I have spoke openly about some of the things that have happened in the past nearly everyone I have opened up to have expected me to be angry. I sort of felt like there was something wrong with me when I didn’t feel this anger that was supposedly rightfully mine and when I did feel angry it made me miserable. I can see now how senseless anger about the past is. If I was to walk about with a shit load of anger the world would soon resemble a living hell.

For such a long time I have staggered around in a bubble of anxiety and irritation. I held a lot of anger, and a lot of fear. I still struggle a lot with fear but my anger has faded considerably. I have related to people with this anger and fear mindset as my starting point for as long as I can remember; all my interactions were polluted by my own negative mentality. Since making small steps to change this, it’s like the bubble has burst and I can see the world in a new light. At times it may be hell on earth but there is good as well as bad and when I’m grasping onto the concept of me, and what I want, need, desire, I fail to even notice the small but powerful things that people do around me that are loving, kind and conducive to the good. There have been some small but profoundly significant changes in my mind this past year and that is mostly thanks to certain books I have read, and lessons I have attended about Buddhism and Dharma. This is why my next resolution for 2011 is...

To learn

I want to read more books, ask more questions, experience as much as I can. Not just about little things, I need to try and answer some of the questions that I have been asking since I was old enough to think logically, questions that I could easily put to the back of my mind, never find the answers to, and die having wasted my opportunity to learn. There has got to be more to this life than just getting by, working, eating, sleeping, and waking up to do it all over again. I know deep down this is not it, there is more that I am meant to learn and do with this life. To do nothing would make my existence meaningless. Deciding to go along to that meditation class back in the summer seemed like an impulsive decision and yet when I think back on my life up until now, everything fits effortlessly together to lead me to this point. I have had so many situations in my life that led me to Buddhism and Dharma that it seems inescapable that I would end up exactly where I am today. If I think about the small steps I have taken just in the past 6 months to re-evaluate my mental attitude, I can see the worth of learning and practicing Dharma. Perhaps I won’t ever gain “enlightenment” or maybe I will but it will take me 20 years of reading countless books and sitting cross legged on the floor. The fact is it doesn’t really matter, because every new piece of knowledge that I integrate into my consciousness is one step closer to being free from my own ego, and that is a worthwhile aspiration.

Empty your mind of all thoughts.

Let your heart be at peace.

Watch the turmoil of beings,

but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe

returns to the common source.

Returning to the source of serenity.

If you don’t realise the source,

you stumble in confusion and sorrow.

When you realise where you come from,

you naturally become tolerant,

disinterested, amused,

kind-hearted as a grandmother,

dignified as a king.

Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,

you can deal with whatever life brings you,

and when death comes, you are ready.

Tao Te Ching – by Lao Tzu

Mindful consumption and vegetarianism

2010-11-19T17:01:00.000-08:00

After the rumpus caused by my last couple of blogs I thought it was time to write about something a little more positive. Before this kicked off I had been preparing to write about Mindful consumption and actually this does follows on nicely from the situation I have encountered.

Since we started to learn and practice Dharma we have become more mindful about our life in general. Thinking more about what we spend our time doing, what food we eat, what goods we buy, and things we consume. This happened organically as we became more familiar with a Buddhist way of life. Although it had already become a part of our practice to some extent, I had not come across the term mindful consumption until I read Thich Nhat Hahn’s book ‘Wisdom for cooling the flames” which talks about being more aware of the things we consume and how that affects us, those around us, and society as a whole. When I think of consumption I usually think of food, but really we consume a lot more than that. Consumption can be the TV we watch, the conversations we partake in, the people we surround ourselves with and of course what we buy, eat, drink, and intoxicate ourselves with. To quote from Thich Nhat Hahn’s book which explains things perfectly?

“Our anger, our frustration, our despair, has much to do with our body and the food we eat. When we eat the flesh of an animal with mad cow disease, anger is there in the meat. But we must also look at the other kinds of food that we eat. When we eat an egg or a chicken, we know that the egg or chicken also contain a lot of anger. We are eating anger; and therefore we express anger. Nowadays, chickens are raised in large-scale modern farms where they cannot walk, run or seek food in the soil. They are fed solely by humans. They are kept in small cages and can not move at all. Day and night they have to stand. Imagine that you have no right to walk or to run. Imagine that you have to stay day and night in just one place. You would become mad. In order for the chickens to produce more eggs, the farmers create artificial days and nights. They use indoor lighting to create a shorter day and a shorter night so that they chickens believe that 24 hours have passed, and they produce more eggs. There is a lot of anger, a lot of frustration, and much suffering in the chickens. The express there anger and frustration by attacking the chickens next to them, they use their beaks to peck and wound each other. They cause each other to bleed, to suffer and to die. That is why farmers now cut the beaks off all the chickens, to prevent them from attacking each other out of frustration.

So when you eat the flesh or egg of such a chicken, you are eating anger and frustration. So be aware, be careful what you eat. If you eat anger you will become and express anger, if you eat despair, you will express despair. If you eat frustration you will express frustration. We have to eat happy eggs from happy chickens; we have to drink milk that does not come from angry cows’

This discusses the food we buy and eat which is only part of what we consume in our lives but does have a big bearing on our society, and on our bodies and minds. It was after reading this that I seriously re-evaluated my views on eating meat. I have known this information before. I have been aware for a long time that animals are killed, cut up, and prepared so that we can go to the shops and buy them to eat, and yet I have not really known this. Not on an emotional level. I have turned away from that knowledge because it was easy to pick up a packet of meat or a box of eggs in the shops without really thinking about how it got there. Maybe I might pick up the box that stated free-range but that was done in an un-mindful way. Why would I pick up the box of free-range eggs and then go on to collect any kind of meat? I just didn’t let the knowledge of what was happening filter through on an emotional level. If it ever did enter my mind it was too distasteful to imagine and so I just didn’t think about it and enjoyed my food.

I also started to think about the reality that I could not kill an animal myself. I won’t even kill a spider and so there would be no way that I would ever kill a cow, pig, chicken or baby lamb. I have pets and I could not eat them. I consider all sentient beings alike and I believe that all living creatures are sentient. I therefore do not value my cat over the cow that I was eating in my beef stew and the only reason that I was able to eat meat at all was because someone else had killed it for me, and had presented it to me in a way that made the reality of the animals’ death distanced.

I am not criticizing people who eat meat. I understand that humans are omnivores and therefore there is a craving for meat. There are also vitamins etc in meat that when having a vegetarian diet need to be considered. It involves more thought and I think for a lot of people it’s not easy. Our change to vegetarianism has been gradual. We have cut out meat gradually at first only eating white meat when we where at home but other meat elsewhere if offered, and then no meat at home but meat at work and if offered. Now we do not buy or cook any meat, we do not take meat at work or buy it simply for convenience. I will however accept meat if given it during hospitality under certain circumstances. For example at a dinner party I would not demand that a person cook separate for us at this time because we are of the opinion that if the meat has been bought and will be cooked anyway then we are ok with that for the moment but we are giving it some serious thought. The main person I don’t want to offend with this is my Mum who I know gets a lot out of cooking and having us over for dinner. It would upset her to have to cook separate, she would not feel confident with vegetarian meals and she would miss it greatly if we did not come to dinner.

“Buddha - Self: The "Secret" Teachings of the Buddha in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Vol. 2"When we bring mindfulness to the dinner table, it suffuses the rest of our life as well. We become more sensitive to the well-being of animals, of the environment, and of ourselves and our families. We are more aware of the choices we make in all areas of our life. We enjoy food more, know that, while the obtaining of even plant foods necessitates some suffering, the amount and kind of suffering is dramatically reduced when we leave meat off our shopping lists and out of our kitchens. We become more aware of how meat consumption feeds violence and anger."

We have found generally that not eating meat hasn’t been a big sacrifice. In the past when I was vegetarian (as a teenager) I did miss meat a great deal. I assume that was because even though I didn’t want the animals to die and thus didn’t want to eat dead flesh, I had not meditated and attained a full comprehension of this. Now when I think about eating meat it is not all that attractive because I am thinking of it as dead flesh not food. Occasionally when preparing food for others at work I have been hungry and the thought of slipping a piece into my mouth has briefly crossed my mind, but as soon as I familiarize myself with the knowledge of the animal’s death and suffering that desire spontaneously recedes. I then find that what I am craving is food because I am hungry and not the meat itself.

"The eating of meat cannot in any way be considered to be helpful to the practice of the dharma, neither can the slaughter of animals be considered to be consistent with the Buddhist teachings of compassion (metta , ahimsa , and karuna ), of loving kindness, or of the nature of the evocation of the enlightenment-mind. The cruelties associated with the slaughter of the animal kingdom for human consumption, the pain, fear, and distress suffered by the animals in the entire process of being fattened for butchering, as well as the environmental disasters wreaked upon our planet through the meat industry, are very well documented, and should be understood by all who claim to be developing bodhicitta, or who wish to."~ Bodo BalsysAhimsa : Buddhism and the Vegetarian Ideal”

I have done some reading on what actually goes on in a slaughter house, and how most of the meat industry works and even though it claims to be ethical, there really is not a way to kill animals that does not make the animal suffer. Every sentient being tries to avoid death and animals are no different to humans in this respect. They would not choose to be killed and eaten just as much as I would not choose to be killed and eaten. When I think about what these animals go through I actually feel genuine remorse for there unnecessary deaths. If I where to stand in a slaughter house I think I would not be able to watch what was going on, I would be crying and pleading to let them all go. I remember as a child there was a slaughter market close to where we lived and I would see the sheep/cows, baby lambs all grazing in the field waiting to be killed. It really disturbed me, I think had I been older I might have been tempted to go try and steal one of those baby lambs. The slaughter house moved out of sight and it truly was out of sight out of mind. I wish in a way that it had remained, I think I would have come to this conclusion far sooner.

"We can do no greater harm that to kill another sentient being. Killing is the ultimate expression of indifference to the well-being of others. All, except in the most extreme circumstances, cherish life. In the contemporary hell of the modern slaughterhouse animals cry out and cower in terror when they realize that their life is nearing a premature end. All beings, except in the most desperate circumstances, try to escape death."~ BodhipaksaVegetarianism

The more research, reading and meditation I do around this subject the less and less appealing meat becomes. In a way I hope eventually it turns my stomach because I feel like it should.

Food is a central part of mindful consumption, but not the only thing that we consume. I have also been evaluating my intake of alcohol. Rick has already made the commitment not to drink and I am considering doing the same. Since I started exploring the reasons for and against drinking I have not had a drink. I haven’t made up my mind up with this, it feels innocent enough having the odd glass or 2 of wine, and yet I know that once I have consumed this I am unable to meditate. It is intoxicating my body no matter how small the dose and I may be relaxed but my mind is listless. I am more likely to be unmindful or harsh, and what enjoyment I do get from that odd glass of wine is not so much so that it would make me very unhappy not to have it. I have gone over a year without drinking because I just went off the taste and I only started having wine again when I met Rick. He was also a wine drinking and it was nice to relax in the evenings with a few glasses. Now that he is no longer drinking I am happy with my fizzy water or ginger-bear. I find this harder to give up than meat because with meat I can see unmistakable suffering caused to the animals, but with a glass of wine it is not so evident although I fully appreciate that alcohol can cause suffering it feels more indirect than meat.

When I take into further consideration the 5 precepts of Buddhism (for a lay person) the 5 states;

“surāmeraya-majja-pamādaṭṭḥānāveramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi”

“I undertake the training principle of abstaining from intoxicating drinks and negligent states of intoxication.”

There is some debate on this precept, some people saying that this means anything that intoxicates us and so any alcohol is wrong. Other people believe that the crux of the matter is “the not becoming intoxicated” because of the original wording, or possible translation of the wording being "substances which cause heedlessness" are to be avoided. This implies that the crux of the matter is not to become heedless, and so a small amount of alcohol is ok. I am also considering that there are some possible health benefits from drinking a small amount of alcohol.
What I think I am likely to decide for myself is to have only a very small amount of alcohol on special occasions. This means I am not tempted to just buy wine when I am stressed/or seeking relaxation and so I learn other ways to relax and be social. However I have not made up my mind. One of the things I respect most about Buddhism is that there are no grand rules that we must follow; Buddha encourages us to make up our own minds. One of my all time favorite quotes from Buddha is;

“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever after due examination and analysis, you find it to be kind, conductive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings – that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide"

From the perspective of Buddhist culture the 5 precepts are only suggestions that we can willingly choose for ourselves. There are no 10 commandments from a God that will force you into the fiery pits of hell if you disagree. We are accountable for ourselves to decide on what is good or bad for us, and for those around us.

Along with what we eat and drink we also consume things such as magazines, conversations, surroundings, TV programs, films, and books. We are bombarded with information relentlessly and although some of it we have no choice but to consume, there are things that we can avoid. I am going to try to refrain from watching violence and killing for fun, either in films or TV programs because it seems that it desensitizes. When I pick up a book I want to be aware of what I am reading, if I feel it is causing me to feel anger or hatred then as I would in any situation in my everyday life I should put that book down and contemplate the reasons why, try and establish some compassion and understanding and then if need be choose not to consume. That does not mean I will turn a blind eye to the suffering of the past or present, but when I am allowing that information to sink in, rather than just allow it to filter through my consciousness like a sieve, without any real feeling or wisdom, I want to fully appreciate it, acknowledge it and it actually mean something.

When I choose to be around people I will attempt to be around people that are not trapped in pessimism and negativity. Although I will always help friends when they are down, I am aware now how dangerous it is for me to be around groups of people that have a negative feeling, or cause me or others distress. When in the past I may have kept struggling on to try and fit in or help people see a different insight, the latest events in my life have taught me a worthwhile lesson; sometimes I need to retire from such an environment and surround myself with things conducive to peace and contentment.

It is clear when looking at the world that a great many people are unhappy and stuck in endless cycles of consuming things that give only temporary happiness. When it comes to suffering people are often making others suffering to make up for there own suffering and then that results in more people wanting to cause suffering. I see many people stuck in an unhappy rut. We are not yet at the point where this species is only thoughtful and ironically it seems it is humans who are the most inhumane species on earth. We generate so much needless suffering and I myself am a part of this. I think the more I meditate, the more I understand that meditation is something that the human race in general could gain from, it could be something separate from the Buddhist faith. I do not think you have to have faith in the Buddha and in spirituality to derive benefits from meditation and attempts and mindfulness. I found this story very insightful when trying to describe the benefits I have had from applying meditation and thought to my daily life;

“One day frog saw turtle looking down at him. ‘Turtle,’ frog said. ‘You have no idea what a great place I live in. When I am restless, I hop along its coping. When I am tired, I rest at its crevice along its wall, when hot; I swim in its water or play in its shade. Why don’t you come down and see for yourself how wonderful it is?’
Tempted, the turtle prepared to jump. Placing his left foot in, he suddenly caught his right foot on the railing along the wells edge. He retreated and said, ‘Frog, your quarters are so small I daren’t go down. Why don’t you come and visit my home in the ocean instead? It’s tens of thousands of miles wide and thousands of yards deep. In times of floods, its waters rise only a little, in times of drought; its waters hardly fall at all. Surely that’s more interesting than your well?’
On hearing this, the frog became silent and could only stare at the turtle in amazement.”

What we consume in-pacts greatly on the world around is. Every living being, not only animals but plants and bacteria are part of the universe. We are the universe and it is us. If we pollute our environment to suit or convenience, we are damaging parts of our self because we and the universe are one. There is no such thing as I, except in perception alone.

“Until there is a more meditative dimension in the peace movement, our perceptions of reality (and thus our ability to help occasion understanding and transformation) will be terribly crippled. Whatever our religious or non religious background and vocabulary may be, we will be over-looking something as essential to our live and worth as breathing”
Thich Nhat Han.

I believe this applies to all things and I hope that humanity is moving towards such a goal. Some people believe that we will perish because of our destructiveness to the planet, ourselves and each other. I hope for another possibility; that we will begin on a new path of peace and love as a nation and world together. Perhaps that is idealistic but it pushes me further into developing my own mind so that I can hopefully escape Samsara (the cycle of death and re-birth) and eventually attain enlightenment and help other beings to do the same (as a Buddha). One of the fundamental things that I can do in this life is mindful consumption. I will most certainly make many blunders along the way and I am a long way off a point where I can say that I am even a fraction of the way there. But I try. and every mistake I do make is well considered and not taken lightly. What the past few days have taught me is that sometimes what I believe to be an insight is only an idea to others. I can force my idea onto others but then it is only an idea and not real insight. I want to work to create the conditions so that other people can share the insight through their own experience and understanding. I can only explain so much and then it is really up to them. I think often I am unwavering when I see something is wrong that I must try and put it right, especially if I see that it makes people suffer. I am starting to understand that there are times when this will not be possible. That suffering will happen and that no matter how hard I try and share my insight and make it a collective one people may not be receptive. It takes a lot of skill and patience to achieve this balance and I am working on it J I can honestly say that the past few days may have caused me a lot of tears but it was a turning point in my understanding of myself and others. I am now choosing what to consume in a more profound way than what I put in my stomach.

Peace and love to all
Jools

Reflection from yesterday

2010-11-18T00:49:00.000-08:00

So to say yesterday was a bit of a nightmare would be an understatement. Along with receiving some personal bad news when I was at work, there was also the drama of my last blog post. I anticipated that some people may have been upset but I didn’t expect to be threatened and have a shit load of aggressive emails and comments. I spent a long time last night talking things over with Rick who has been extremely compassionate and sort of propping me up in regards to my current state of mind.

I didn’t write my last blog lightly, it wasn’t something done on the spur of the moment and in a fit of rage. This kicked off months ago and I explored other options of making myself heard first. I was speaking to Rick about it for the best part of a couple of months. I did come to the conclusion that the information within the appeal should be shared, not only does it stress the necessity to make the change of attitude about the drinking of alcohol apparent, but there are many other complications that have been highlighted about the disciplinary procedures in general. The officer’s change over time, people take on new jobs and responsibilities within the society and I believed that the more people informed about this, the more likelihood that they might re-examine things if they ever take on these positions in future. Yes it was going to cause a bit of drama, I don’t feel it needed to cause as much drama as it did however at the end of the day I felt something had happened that was very wrong. Not only did I feel it was wrong, I felt it was something that in the future could easily happen again if the right measures where not in place. If something bad can be prevented then I strongly believe that all steps should be taken to prevent it.

I have ended up feeling like I should be wearing a gag, there seems to be this atmosphere of not confronting or disagreeing because it could cause the “volunteers” stress. I now fully understand that people wanted to keep this under-wrap.

The result of yesterday was a decision made by Rick that he did not wish to be a part of the society anymore. Not because he opposed the reprimand given but for many other reasons. This is exceptionally sad and part of me feels like I have taken away something he enjoys. He assures me that is not how he feels and that he is making this choice for himself for his own reasons, yesterday was just the last straw. It is still very sad that someone who has played for 11 years has left because of all this. I have also been informed by a couple of people that it is apparently against the rules to say anything negative about the society as it could cause the society disrepute. This is interesting if it is true.

When I first opened some of the emails and threads on buzz I was both upset and angry. However on reflection I cannot feel any strong dislike or anger towards those people who took it upon themselves to be passive aggressive or out right threatening. They believe that there society and friends have been criticized and have taken it from this negative perspective. That’s ok, I wish them no ill will and I hope that what happened to Rick is never repeated again.

I didn’t sleep last night, despite the pills that usually knock me for 6. I can feel my state of mind waning because of this and other things and I am trying very hard to not let this knock me down. I’ve felt anxious and upset over this for a few months now and I do admit that I was somewhat fanatical with trying to make it right. I find it difficult to let go when I feel that something is unjust. Because I know that Rick was not the only person who had this problem made it even more pressing in my head. Not sleeping did give me the opportunity to meditate quietly in bed beside Rick and evaluate my actions. In retrospect I cannot see what else I could have done other than let this go. If I see something is really wrong and I turn my back because it might make me unpopular if I speak up then I don’t feel like that makes me a person with values. I know that my intention was not motivated by malice. I know that my intention was not to make people unhappy or get revenge. I tried my best to write the appeal in a way that was clear it was the system in place I was challenging and not an assault on the people in power. I am guessing this handbook and procedure was wrote a long time ago and so there is a very good chance that different people have had the positions over time.

From the feedback I have received I now know that this was somewhat a waste of time but I also know I tried and did everything I could. I didn’t just ignore the situation because it was the easiest thing to do. People are now well aware that the lax attitude about bringing your own food and drink to events has changed and will result in very negative consequences. This is even if the venue have personally told you that it’s ok. Now I am certain that people will not make this mistake again and hopefully have saved someone a lot of trouble. Maybe in time when people have calmed down and no longer see my words as an act of sheer bitchyness they might have a re-think about there disciplinary procedures. Who knows?

Along with Rick I know longer feel I could come back to IOD. I’m sad about that because I did enjoy some of the games and there are a lot of nice people in the society, yes even those that had a go at me via email and buzz are nice people deep down. One person who made a very passive aggressive comment in his own buzz was someone I liked as an ST and role-player and although it’s disappointing to see such a comment it doesn’t mean my regard for him or anyone else as a person has changed. No matter what the circumstance deep down everyone has the potential to be nice as much as mean and anger and frustration can make people react in ways that are not very pleasant.

We are still providing accommodation for people who are visiting Edinburgh for the game even though we will not attend the event ourselves and I hope it goes well and is enjoyable for everyone.

I really did try my best to do everything in a way that was not nasty or personal, but I hold my hands up and admit that there where times that I reacted because I was angry and frustrated and therefore I am sure I am guilty of some comments/posts that where a little passive aggressive. I have also tried my best to fit in and make friends in IOD and even though that’s been difficult there are some people who I feel I managed to talk to easily both IC and OC.

Ricks Appeal

2010-11-17T06:01:00.000-08:00

I have decided to delete the IOD appeal,

the purpose of sharing the information was to highlight a serious problem within the society and to make other members aware of this. However, now that we have gone as far as we can go with this situation and we have both decided that we know longer wish to be a part of the society and expose ourselves to the negative and unhappy atmosphere any more I do not feel that there is any more need to keep the appeal on this blog. This blog was never intended to be about IOD, and I am sure that everyone that may have benefited from having the information has now had the chance to read over it.

would like to wish everyone in IOD good luck with there group and I hope that it improves from this point.

Anger mindfulness and compassion

2010-11-08T18:21:00.000-08:00

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. Buddha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU1La7k-ajs&feature=related

I have just finished a Dharma book about anger and so I thought that I would start a blog about anger, how I cope with it in day to day life, and how I am seeking a way to change my experience of anger.

http://www.amazon.com/Anger-Cooling-Thich-Nhat-Hanh/dp/1573229377

I acknowledge that I often have a short temper, notably at certain times of the month. Unfortunately my PMS tends to last 9 maybe 10 days and thus I really have to learn to handle my anger/moods in a more positive way. I have started to be mindful of my anger, not so I can suppress it because I don’t consider that wise, but because I want to learn what drives it. I want to turn that energy into something less harmful.

When I first started meditating and learning about Buddhism I had the understanding that anger was wrong. It was something to conquer. It did not occur to me that it was something organic, something natural that is intrinsic to our human nature. It was a flaw to be repressed and denied. I have since done more reading and thinking and I have come to the realization that anger is an inherent part of being a person, and so repressing it is not only impossible but also unwise. It is however possible to transform it.

I now appreciate that my anger is my issue. Whatever caused the anger is secondary and separate from the feelings that dwell within me. Any external event does not have to cause me to feel angry, and it is my perceptions and delusions that are causing the feelings of anger. Of course I do not deny that there is much injustice and negativity in the world, but I am learning that all things can be dealt with more gainfully when I am not reacting in anger.

I think one of the reasons people struggle letting go of anger is because they feel that letting go will make them weak. This belief can be on a conscious or un-conscious level. There is an assumption that showing kindness and forgiveness instead of anger when someone has wronged us shows weakness. When someone does or says something that is wounding to us we suffer, in turn we will say or do something back to cause the other person to suffer with the misguided idea that causing the other person to suffer too will reduce our own suffering. “I want to make you suffer because I suffer” In reality what happens is the other person then does something back to us and things spiral far and beyond the initial conflict. Pride stands in the way of forgiveness and compassion and destroys relationships. It is astonishing what people will sacrifice for the sake of there pride. I am guilty of this, many times in the past I have thought long and hard about how I might get revenge on the people that have hurt me. At times I have caused others suffering because of this and I got some temporary relief from my own feelings of anger and suffering. In the long run though such action did not do me any good, it either caused the person I was responding to; to react with even worse intention or it made me do things that I am now ashamed off. Even when I only fantasized about the ways in which I could cause suffering to that person the intentions made my mind un-peaceful and did nothing to help resolve the conflicts both externally with the person and internally within myself. If you are Buddhist then you will also be aware that such intention will create the seeds of negative Karma. Intent can cause Karma even when no action is taken.

Despite the fact that I do not wish to react to anger with negative intent and actions, this does not mean that I deny that I am angry. When a person wrongs me or someone I care about of course I feel angry, disillusioned and frustrated. What I realise is that reacting in that moment of frustration does not help me solve the problem and so I am practicing using breathing techniques and mindfulness to create a different energy within my mind so that when I do attempt to resolve the external problem or conflict I am not simply reacting out of spite. I am taking care of my anger, acknowledging it and then taking the time I need to build up compassion and understanding for the person(s) who have hurt me in the first place. Generally it is clear after some contemplation that the intent of the other person was not to cause me grief. Unless they are reacting because they believe I have made them suffer in which case they are trapped in the same cycle of causing suffering to relieve there own suffering and since this is a cycle I myself have been trapped in many times, it becomes easier to understand there point of view. Mostly in the past when I have felt unhappy by another persons actions or words I have been so overwhelmed by my bad feelings that I have never stopped to consider that the other person might suffer also. I believe I am the only one suffering and I want to right this injustice.

This stems from my own self grasping ignorance. That I am one self, separate from everyone else. When I contemplate long enough to grasp the reality that all beings are interrelated, then my distress is no longer the most important thing. It becomes obvious that the other person suffers deeply. No matter how bad there actions may seem to me at the time, they do suffer. Many people have not been given the tools in there upbringing to allow them to live peacefully in the world, and many people are lacking any profound understanding or motivation. They are trapped in repeating cycles of pain and discontent and so it becomes difficult for me to feel angry at those people who are acting in a destructive ways. After spending time being mindful and contemplating the circumstances that those people may be experiencing it becomes easy for me to change the energy of my anger into compassion. I did not deny my anger at any point in this process and it was only by accepting and taking care of my anger that I am able to bring about a change in my perception.

This isn’t an easy thing to do, I still struggle at times. There are many situations in my life that make me angry or frustrated. To use one example I am in a living arrangement with Rick (my current partner) and Chris (my ex partner). This is not an easy living arrangement because no matter what the reasons for myself and Chris ending our romantic involvement, and no matter how positive that ending was, there are still external events and problems that led to that decision being made. Living together means that those problems continue to play a part in our life’s to some degree. Often after a break-up even when the couple still want to remain friends they will give each other some distance. Chris and I have not been able to do this because for financial reasons living together is the best and only sensible option. Recently I have had a few people inform me that Chris had vented about our break-up and new situation to others. It is tempting to retaliate by also venting to friends and family. (at times with very close family I have) However I realise that this would not do myself, Chris or anybody I vent to any good. I was at first disappointed and angry that Chris had spoke ill of me to others, but I see that this situation is not easy for him either. I take responsibility for the part I played in the ending of our romantic relationship. I can see there are things that I have done that contributed to the breakdown in communication, and even though it would be easy for me to only focus on the things that Chris has done that have hurt me it would not be a true picture of the situation.

The truth is there are 2 sides to every story. Both of us have been hurt by the other over the past 6 years, and both of us have also experienced good and bad together. My venting about the bad times will not lessen any of those negative experiences. I do not believe that venting is constructive to resolving conflict. In the past some therapists have recommended venting and expressing anger to get it out of our system. However my experience of venting in this way has led me to believe that venting is a way of rehearsing the anger. It might help in the short term but does nothing to help me generate a more peaceful mind in the long term. So if I go to friends and tell them all the things that Chris has done to hurt me, then I will be channeling all my energy on the negative feelings and not seeing the complete picture. Then when I am next at home with Chris I am even more likely to respond to him in a nasty and harmful way. If I do vent to people about Chris, then there is a good chance that those people will inform Chris and he will be further hurt by my words and in turn he will also speak ill of me. In the long run that does not do either of us any good.

Of course there are times when I am angry and frustrated with Chris but when I look at the bigger picture I can see that he has also brought a lot of good into my life. I may not be romantically involved with him anymore but I still have some love for him. He is the father of my baby and regardless of the fact that my baby died he will always be the father and therefore we are forever connected by this experience. All the mistakes we have made in our relationship have given me an insight into how I want my next relationship to be and hopefully will make my relationship with Rick even stronger. I appreciate Rick more because of Chris. To quote from the book I have just read,

“Please do not believe that love is not in you. It’s not true; love is always in you. It is like the sunshine, even when it rains the sunshine is always there a little bit above the crowds. If you go above the clouds you see plenty of sunshine. So if you believe that there is no love in you, that you only feel hate for the other person, you are wrong. Wait until the other person dies. You will cry and cry and wish that he could come back to life. This shows that the love is there. You should give love a chance to manifest, while the other person is still alive. To help love re-appear you have to know how to manage your anger. Anger always goes together with confusion, with ignorance.” - Thich Nhat Hanh

We came to a joint decision to end our romantic relationship because we did not share an outlook on life, have the same goals or ideas about what kind of relationship we could enjoy or share much of the same interests and values. The difference became so vast that we where starting to argue more than we enjoyed spending time with each other. That does not mean that I cannot value him as a person because I can. He is not a bad person just not the right person to be my partner and likewise I am not the right person to be his partner.

There is much that Chris does that provokes an angry reaction within me, but my internal reaction to him is my problem, not his. When I think on a deeper level about him I can clearly see that he is not happy, he suffers a lot and is trapped in a cycle of depression and de-motivation. I think this lack of purpose has caused him to miss out on a great deal of opportunities. His mood and conduct because of this often frustrates and upsets me, but when I look at my conditions I see that I can go away meditate and calm my mind until I create a more peaceful, constructive energy. Chris does not yet have the skills to do this and I believe he is genuinely depressed. When I look at how unhappy he is then it becomes difficult for me to feel anymore irritation about things such as money, housework or what he may say to others about me. I am sure over the time that we will continue to live together there will be more challenges to come. I am not at a point where I am convinced that I will discover my anger in time to contemplate and turn it into compassion (before I snap at someone). I am still breaking the habit of responding to stress with some form of verbal vent of aggression, but I am trying and the more I read and meditate the stronger I become and the easier it is to take care of my anger before I cause myself or others any damage.

The very least I can do is to learn to recognize my anger before it overcomes me.

“Once we recognize our anger, we embrace it with a lot of awareness, a lot of tenderness. Practitioners of meditation do not discriminate against or reject their internal formations” - Thich Nhat Hanh.

The more I practice this for myself, the more I see just how much harm unrestrained anger can do to people and relationships. Sometimes I feel like everyone around me is angry to some degree. I see relationships completely destroyed to the point that people believe that they are unsalvageable because of misguided anger. When I look at 2 people who are at war with each other usually I can see very clearly both sides of the story. That neither party has deliberately tried to hurt the other and the entire problem has been a breakdown in communication and misunderstanding. To use my family as an example there are many members of my family who are no longer on friendly terms, and because I speak to mostly all of them I can see that none of them have wanted or desired this divide. The real cause of this is simply a lack of communication and compassion. Everyone has suffered to some degree, but every person concerned believes they have suffered more or that they are the only ones who suffer. In reaction to there perceived suffering they have dealt with this by more harmful words or actions and in return the other person has put up more barriers and the entire conflict escalates far and beyond the initial problem. I would put money on the fact that nobody actually knows what started this in the first place.

Nobody wants to say sorry or show compassion because nobody believes they have been in the wrong. Pride gets in the way and people don’t want to show weakness by being compassionate or the one to take those first steps to resolve the conflicts. The result of this mindset is extremely sad because it could lead to the rest of there lives being led with this bad feeling towards each other remaining. Perhaps they might never talk again all because nobody wanted to be the first one to pick up the phone or write a letter. The truth is it doesn’t matter who is in the wrong. People are wrong all the time and never know it because in there perception they are right. One thing that really stood out when reading Thich Nhat Hahn’s book on anger was this particular paragraph,

“You have to start negotiating a strategy. No matter how much the other person can do you have to do all that you are capable of doing yourself. You must give one hundred percent of yourself. Whatever you can do for yourself you do for him or her. Don’t wait. Don’t put forth conditions saying, if you don’t make the effort to reconcile then I won’t either. This will not work. Peace, Reconciliation and happiness begin with you”

I am 26 years old, my life experience is somewhat limited but what I do believe is that sometimes it really is necessary to let go of any conception of who is right and who is wrong, and just understand that everyone has a different perception. Whatever started the conflict, whoever harmed who first, it doesn’t matter. There is rarely any situation where one person is completely innocent and one person is completely in the wrong and so no matter how much the other person has made you suffer there is a very reasonable chance that you have also made them suffer. If you look deep in your heart and feel certain that you have done that person no wrong then really contemplating about what may have caused the other person to act in the way they have can often give enough insight to turn anger into sympathy and that is a start. The alternative is to allow the divide to carry on for a long time, perhaps never being on friendly terms again for the remainder of this life. I believe that is seldom the correct course of action especially when the people involved are family, because they are an extension of our-self often the people we have had the most life experiences with. It amazes me how many times I have heard the phrase, of course I love them, of course I miss them but… (Add condition for reconciliation here)

At the end of the day I cannot force people to see my insight. I cannot give them my desire to nourish a relationship for the better. I can only hope that at least one person comes to the realization themselves and begins the journey of trying to make peace. Trying without conditions, trying without limits, trying even when the person we are trying to reconcile with does not have the same insight. What the feuds of people all around me have taught me is what I do not want in my life. I do not want to get stuck in this kind of spiraling situation that seems to only cause heartache, and I do not want to take sides in such a conflict. Several times now in my own relationships I have pushed pride and conditions to one side and simply freed myself to accept the other person. Even when there point of view is very different from my own that is ok I will keep trying. I can say sorry honestly even when I have initially believed that I have done no wrong because regardless of the conditions leading up to the breakdown I am genuinely sorry that it had to happen at all.

In a sense I am extremely lucky to have had such favorable conditions in my present life that have given me the opportunity to learn meditation and practice Dharma. My karma has been good enough to make it possible for me to experience this kind of learning. Not everyone has had this opportunity and so when resolving conflicts with people who are not on the same path as I am it becomes my responsibility to take the lead and to do the most work. From a Buddhist perspective my doing such will result in positive Karma. From the perspective of the other person hopefully it will help to break a cycle of unhappiness and frustration. I am thankful that there is not one person who has done me wrong in this life that I continue to feel anger towards long term. That is an extremely precious gift that completely frees my mind from a great deal of pain

Why do I write about real people and real life?

2010-10-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

Make no judgments where you have no compassion.

Why do I talk about real life people and events in my blog?

I have had a few reactions to my writing about real life events and people in my blog, some people saying that they have found reading about my interactions with them interesting or informative and others feeling affronted or upset taking meaning from something I have said that was not intended to be unkind. So I thought I would tackle this and clarify why real life people and events are discussed. I rarely name people within the blog except Rick and Chris on occasion, but I do recognize that when I am writing about people and events that have happened it is easy for someone to identify themselves or others.

This blog has evolved to be about spirituality and in particular Buddhism, Dharma, and how this shapes my life and relationships. One of the fundamental doctrines of Buddhism is being mindful, really looking at every thing we do and trying to understand perceptions and feelings. To do this it is necessary for me to look at and examine any interaction, specifically the challenges that come up in day to day life. This was never intended as a way to rant and be mean about other people. One person may cause a difficult reaction in me on one occasion but that does not mean that they are always perceived to me in this way. What I am striving to explore is my own perceptions and issues. This is not about me pointing out anyone’s flaws because what I perceive is not necessarily what others perceive and I recognize that I do not know what happens internally within other people. Therefore I have no right to judge anyone. Any problems that come up in me because of relations with another person are my problems.

One instance I can use is my writing about my perception of Rick being wronged. I am writing about this because I recognize it created a lot of disquiet within me. It was interesting to observe how fierce my reaction to something negative happening to him and how powerful my unhappy feelings became. I am never trying to judge the people involved in the choices and circumstances that led him to that point because I cannot know what triggered each isolated decision in a chain of events. What I do believe is that this was a seed of karma coming to fruit because the conditions for it to do so transpired. When this situation is perceived in this way it no longer becomes about what is fair, or unfair and it is no longer about any of the people involved. The angry feelings I experience are my problem and looking at the situation is about resolving my peace and wellbeing.

Being rational does not magically make all my discontent and frustration dissolve. Although I know logically nothing is fair or unfair and those ideals are just impressions that reside within my mind (they are not permanent or reliable). My mind however has thought of these conceptions as reality my entire life, letting go is like slowly ripping of a plaster of certainty that has existed for so long it has become something I believe is truly part of me. What I am trying to awaken myself too is the truth that what I discern as unfair another may accept as fair, and on any given day my own view of fair and unfair may alter. Therefore how can such concepts possibly exist? Undoubtedly the people who felt it necessary to punish Rick harshly felt that they where acting in a reasonable, just way, and clearly I feel that they where not. On this occasion nobody is right or wrong. What I can grasp on a rational level is that the concepts of fair or unfair do not inherently exist therefore nobody has been wronged. On an emotional level I am still at a stage where seeing something happen to Rick that is potentially harmful to him affects my own peace of mind and wellbeing. What I am writing about in my blog is my way of being mindful of this acknowledging those feelings and trying to resolve them.

Other situations that I have discussed and will continue to discuss are situations when I react on an emotional level towards someone. There are many people who have difficulties alike or contrasting to my own, and who on interacting with will leave me feeling some kind of emotive resonance. There are other people who I will immediately feel cautious around not because they are bad people, but because there is some kind of transference, or they are emulating something I am uncomfortable with within myself. I can say truthfully at this point in my life that there is no one person I dislike and view as inherently bad. Even those who have harmed me in ways others judge on the level of reprehensible, I have some level of compassion or regard for, even if I cannot tolerate any kind of interaction with them. There are people in my day to day life who challenge me and who I am anxious interacting with but those are not people I actively dislike or wish harm too. If they are mentioned in the context of this blog it is not intended to be bitchy or snide and like any other situation that is testing, it is purely an analysis of my own mind.

In all human relationships, at times things do occur that cause anger and un-rest; a temporary annoyance or aversion to a person(s), and rather than let this exacerbate I have started to meditate on these feelings to understand things from the other persons perspective. It is incredible when doing this how apparent it becomes that we are seeing things always from our own point of view, only thinking about what makes us happy, and seldom considering the other persons reasoning. One book I was reading recently “The miracle of mindfulness” by “Thich Nhat Hanh” there is a useful suggestion for a meditation to help grow compassion for those people that one may find difficult or dislike. I have found this so useful to do when someone hurts or upsets me that I thought I might share it here.

“Sit quietly, breathe and smile the half smile. Contemplate the image of the person who has caused you the most suffering. Regard the features you hate or despise the most or find the most repulsive. Try to examine what makes the person happy and what causes suffering in his/her daily life. Contemplate the person’s perceptions; try to see what patterns of thought and reason the person follows. Examine what motivates this person’s hopes and actions. Finally consider the persons consciousness. See whether his view sand insights are open and free or not, and whether or not he has been influenced by any prejudices, narrow-mindedness, hatred or anger. See whether or not he/she are a master of themselves. Continue until you feel compassion rise in your heart like a well filling with fresh water and your anger and resentment disappear. Practice this many times on the same person”

This can be done about one person or a whole group of people. I found it particularly useful when dealing with my own anger about the LARP society’s treatment of Rick. I found that when I reflected on every person who was involved in that set of affairs individually, I could see that none of them where bad people, that made it easier to feel compassion and love and not let anger about specific decisions and events cause me to wish those people harm or suffering. It is really important to me that I do not let my disillusion of one incident cause me to have negative intentions towards others. It is very easy to just hate and not consider another persons perspective. I am starting to realise that even though anger is a devastating emotion it is far easier to feel angry than it is to feel compassionate. I am also starting to realise the benefits of unconditional regard.

“Those who are without compassion cannot see what is seen with the eyes of compassion”

To stay angry would leave me blind and that small insight is the crucial difference between despair and hope.
I did for a while ponder being more cryptic in this blog so that it would not be as easy for people to identify themselves if the decided to read it. However I realised that it would be impossible for me to continue being open and mindful here and the more cryptic I am the less I am being honest. Being cryptic would perhaps lead to even more misunderstanding of the words I am writing. Therefore I am hopeful this post goes some way to explaining my reasoning and stops people assuming I am ranting for the sake of being mean. I think in this day and age there are a lot of hidden sarcastic commentaries and so people are often looking into words that are meant to be taken on face value and seeing something more. I want to assure everyone that sarcasm is something I rarely do and therefore if I write something in this blog then it means exactly what it says and nothing more. If I am thanking someone for a challenging situation then I am genuinely thankful. When I say I am angry I really do mean that this is my problem and nobody else is to blame. Other people may highlight my perceptions to me but that does not mean they created those perceptions. My aim is to eventually feel the same amount of regard for people no matter how the act towards or around me.

Dharma and Meditation

2010-10-21T05:05:00.001-07:00

“Meditation is not evasion; it is a serene encounter with reality”
Thich Nhat Hanh

A number of people who are interested in meditation practice have asked me what benefits I am getting from it and what I find easy or difficult so rather than answer all individually I thought I would give a general answer on my blog. Markedly these are benefits that meditation has brought to my life and I think for everyone it is a personal journey. I am also now unable to separate what value has come from the meditation and what benefits are from learning and practicing Dharma however I fully believe that one can meditate and have definite life changes without being a Buddhist. That being said I will also talk about the benefits and challenges of trying to incorporate some of the philosophy into my life as although loving and being kind to everyone sounds like an awesome way to live it is not always easy.

I used to have a lot of difficulty meditating on my own without the help of a teacher, class, or even just a friend/partner to talk about things with. In the past I found it hard to concentration my mind. I wasn’t sure what I should be meditating on – if anything and I felt like my mind would just run off instead of being focused. What I have started to learn is that meditation is contrary to doing nothing; even though my mind can be peaceful it can also be at its most active.

This is where I see the value in prayer. If one believes in a God and focuses there mind on talking to that God, contemplating and trying to understand the nature of the universe and reality, then it is a little easier to direct and control the mind. Any kind of contemplation on compassion, love and acceptance is adding to those persons well being, and those whom they have regard for, be that Christian, Sikh, Muslim or any other religion that believes in God. It does not actually matter if God does or does not exist in the sense that those monolithic faiths perceive, the point is that if the person praying is trying to attain a peaceful mind then by focusing the mind on positive thoughts they will realize enlightenment to some degree. The nature of prayer however is not always peaceful contemplation.

I used to feel a rather fierce loathing of almost all religion because I had tripped upon so many people making sweeping judgmental statements about anything they professed that there God did not like. I was tired of it. Tired of being told that there’s was the only way, and tired of the intimidation of hell from every corner of religion; if you didn’t agree with them and there prophet then off to the fiery pits of hell you go. Everywhere we are all condemning others to hell and it seems that when everyone is busy judging others and preaching that there faith is the only way nobody is really achieving anything, let alone getting close to understanding the nature of the universe and unconditional love.

And so…

I gave up on religion. I decided that above everything else I just wanted to be the best person I could be, and regardless of life being eternal or my existence being one short lifetime, I wanted to make the most of it no matter what. I wanted to meditate not because I sought to believe in some idea about reincarnation or nirvana but simply because my mind is often mayhem and I wanted to feel calm, I wanted to be happy. I had an interest in Buddhism simply because I felt that it was the most peaceful religion I had come across and because nobody so far from that faith had ever made me feel like I was being judged. The philosophy I had heard about being kind to each other and not harming living things seemed nice. Nice enough that I was willing to learn more and at the very least accept being around Buddhists so that I could learn from them how to meditate. So when I walked into that class it was for this reason alone.

The main benefits from meditation so far are –

that my mind is more peaceful. This does not mean that my mind is in the most peaceful state possible but when I compare it to how I was before I started meditating I can see a substantial improvement. The danger with that statement however is how do I explain a peaceful state of mind because I imagine for everyone peaceful has a very unique interpretation? I can see just by being around Rick that my peaceful mind would be interpreted as chaos if he where to experience it internally himself (he is far calmer influence than I am). I am a stress bug, and I tend to be on the sensitive/over emotional side. Peaceful for me at this point is just calming down from stressful situations quicker than I have been able to do in the past. I am not at a stage where I can sidestep stress but I am more self aware when I start to feel any emotion be that anger, upset, joy or anxiety and meditation has given me a more natural ability to watch my own mind. This means that things don’t sneak up on me, I detect the subtle signs of upset or anxiety quicker and I start dealing with it before I am too overwhelmed to think clearly.

One of the useful similes that our teacher used was comparing our mind to the sky. The sky is blue always, even when it’s covered in clouds the blue sky doesn’t go away it is always there underneath and the clouds are just temporarily covering it. If you fly above the clouds it won’t be long until you see the clear blue sky. The natural state of our mind is tranquility but there are continuously clouds and emotions forming and dissolving. Being aware of the clouds and the clear tranquil sky above all the turmoil makes us conscious of there temporariness and allows us to appreciate the peaceful sky above. I have been practicing a meditation where I watch my mind. I simply see what comes up and observe as an on looker. Rather than say I feel upset, or I feel anxious I observe as an outsider… and that gives me some distance from any negative feelings and allows me to practice and get better at connecting with the calm above the storm when things are difficult. I have a LONG way to go with this practice but every once in a while a stressful situation comes up where I can see a real difference in how I react and feel and that spurs me on to keep practicing.

We do a lot of contemplative meditations, focusing on unconditional regard and working through negative feelings I actively use my imagination to let negative thoughts and feelings go. There are other nights when I am focusing on the heart chakra and focusing my mind on clear white light. During class we have had various guided meditations and we go over these at home on our own most evenings and then discuss after. I think at the moment we are meditating for 30 or 40 minutes in the evening with the occasional evening off if we feel too exhausted. I would have thought some months ago that this was an exceptionally long time to be doing nothing but actually that time passes quickly and I know now that meditation is the complete opposite of doing nothing. My body may be still but my mind is perhaps at its most active and focused at these times

I have experienced some peculiar headspaces over recent months while meditating. I am uncertain if I would describe these as spiritual in nature but they are certainly strange. Both myself and rick have felt a warm tingling in the middle of our chest that seems to spread though out entire body. It’s a very pleasant feeling. We have also felt our conscious move for brief moments down into her heart area. I have experienced a feeling like I am looking at the edge of something, and yet actually that something is nothing at all, a feeling of falling into a vast emptiness. This was only for moments and actually scared me enough to pull my concentration back but after I felt a calmness that lasted hours. It felt like any worry or anxiety could simply dispel into this emptiness. There are some nights when I feel like I struggle to focus and I’m uncertain if I am getting benefit and yet any night that I meditate I have no trouble falling asleep which is usually difficult for me. If anything meditating is worth it simply for the relief of my insomnia.

Out in my daily life is where the real test transpires. It is easy to get myself into a calm headspace when I am secure in my home, safe and warm with Rick and some nice candles and incense to help me generate a positive mind. In real life when I am out at work, interacting with people and coming into contact with situations that are externally stressful it is not always easy to keep the momentum of my evening meditation going. The more I learn the more I realise just how many delusions I have. I am far more aware of all the angry feelings I create throughout the day and how often I am allowing external situations to become my problem. So often I am conscious of a destructive thought or feeling that often I wish I could go back to not noticing. I get frustrated with myself because I understand the logic that everything is generated from my own mind despite the external situation and yet I haven’t been able to make that leap of applying that logic to my emotions.

Everything I live through is generated from my own mind. When I have a problem it is made in my mind and no-where else. Our teacher described this by using a car as an example. When the car breaks down people often say I have a problem because the car has broken down. The let the fact the car has broken down ruin the rest of the day, perhaps being in a bad mood and feeling like it is generally unfair and yet when you re-examine the situation it becomes clear that the car breaking down is the cars problem and how you react to the situation is your problem. There are 2 separate problems. I can allow external events to cause my mind to run riot or I can remember that the external problem is separate from my mind and not let the clouds form in the first place… the latter is far more difficult than it seems especially when dealing with other people.It is dealing with other people and maintaining a positive compassionate mind that I currently find tough. It’s not easy to see people treat others unfairly or cruel and not have a disheartening emotional reaction. Some weeks after the initial problem about Rick being treated poorly I am still having moments when I feel genuine anger and although I acknowledge that the anger is destructive and unhelpful I am unable to push the anger away. What I have been able to do is see the feelings that are coming up in me as my problem, separate from the initial problem with Rick. I can also fully appreciate the fact that this reaction being so forceful is because Rick is someone that I love and respect and therefore when others do not appreciate him the way I do I find that inconceivable. For a number of weeks I tried to suffocate the angry feelings and try and push myself into more positive frame of mind of tolerance and regard however it was when reading the book The miracle of mindfulness – by Thich Nhat Hanh that I started to understand that it was not helpful to repress such feelings. This particular paragraph put things in a different light;

“We should treat our anxiety, our pain, our hatred and passion gently, respectfully, not resisting it, but living with it, making peace with it, penetrating into its nature by meditation on interdependence”

By feigning that I don’t feel discouraged and saddened I am not respecting my feelings or giving myself any compassion. At this stage in my life there are going to be moments where I will feel angry, that doesn’t mean I have to act those feelings out and make others suffer because by being aware of what’s going on means I am prepared for any situation where I may be confronted or overwhelmed thus I can prepare myself when dealing with certain people and strive to treat them with as much compassion as I treat Rick. Today I have spent time just watching my mind and accepting any emotions or thoughts that surface without putting them into the category of negative or positive.

“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.”

What I can see clearly is that although I would still have a similar standpoint if the same events had happened to another person I know that my emotive reaction would be milder and far easier to rein in. It would therefore be easier to argue with rational rather than emotion. I am allowing these feelings to come up in meditation and just watch them from a distance to try to let them go with grace. It is essential for me to be aware that this is still causing unpleasant feelings internally and apply the logic that such feelings are transient and fixable within me. Outwardly the external situation is now impossible to resolve, to do so would necessitate my giving several people a brain transplant and that is on the side of slightly impractical.

Another interesting metaphor we learned at class, you can cover the ground in leather, or, you can just wear shoes. So I cannot change the situation but I can do what Rick is doing and not allow it to become my problem. Through this entire problem he has accepted the fact that this is his Karma and that’s ok. I cannot do any more externally to help those in control see things from a different point of view and in life normal everyday people will always see things from there side. The person I was 6 months ago would have allowed this to carry on making me angry and perhaps gone on to feel bitter enough about the society in question that I gave up altogether. I am still extremely dismayed and it’s unfortunate that I would no longer be able to look someone in the eye and say that this society is any different from any other LARP group when it comes to politics and such. However I am prepared to carry on being involved so that perhaps in time I can restore the damage to my moral around role-play. Although it is disappointing to see my partner treated poorly by a society that he has worked hard for and continues to do so I appreciate that the events have added a challenge for us both especially Rick to practice patient acceptance. Life would be very easy if there where no challenges like this one but there would be no opportunity to practice Dharma. If Rick can rise above this because he likes the people enough to be compassionate and accepting then I should strive to do the same. What I am grateful for and one of the benefits I can now see from that particular challenge is the fact that it has really shown me just what an amazing person I am with. Where many people would have ranted and raved (myself included) he was able to keep a peace of mind that is normally reserved for enlightened individuals.

So…

I would like to Thank the society, and those people who created this experience for us because without them progress could not be made. It has helped me know my mind better.

I find any and all social situations a challenge. I don’t really enjoy being in social groups and I find more often than not I am happier just being at home or around one or 2 people who I like and respect. In larger social gatherings especially around hobby groups/socialites politics and hypocrisy start to come into play and regrettably this is a facet of human behavior that I do not understand. I thought that if meditation helped with my stress levels I might start to enjoy being in a larger group because I would be able to relax more. So far although it is starting to get a little easier my preference is still to avoid these situations or at least I can only tolerate it for so long before I need to withdraw for a little while. Perhaps what I am starting to accept is that I do prefer taking a backseat in this kind of social group and I’m ok with that. I will never be part of the in crowed and I’m not sure it’s necessary for my happiness.

One thing that Meditation and Dharma have changed for me is my perception of any event both positive and negative. Any experience that I find challenging is what intensifies my resolution to do better, be better and live more in the moment. Any person that wrongs me or hurts me is giving me an opening to feel compassion and so ultimately nothing is negative and in effect the entire concept of positive/negative becomes non existent because they are only such due to my perception and perceptions can always be changed through mindfulness and meditation.

Karma

2010-10-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

Before you begin on the journey of revenge, dig two graves. ~Proverb

We went to a class at the Dharma centre about Karma last Saturday and I thought I would contemplate this in my blog. The class was immensely intriguing and we also got to meet a lot of like minded people. It’s lovely that there are so many kinds of people interesting in Buddhism, young, old, male, female and clearly from many different professions and walks of life.

One of the first points that our teacher raised is that there are many narrow and mistaken points of view about Karma (in regards to Buddhism) Karma has undoubtedly become a fashionable belief/idea and many people have been able to perceive and get a glimpse of Karma in there daily life, leading them to the conclusion that cause and effect is a lot more substantial than just luck, or happenstance. However what people fail to understand is the vastness of Karma; how it affects everything we do from the smallest insignificant event to the huge life altering situations we find ourselves in. We are experiencing and creating Karma every single minute or every single day that we live, not only in our actions but also in our thoughts.

Karma is fundamental to Buddhism; to reject the notion of Karma means you reject Buddhism. Many people of different faiths have some ideas about Karma and other religions deal with cause and effect in a similar way. It is very logical to think that if you do good things in life, then good things will follow, and if you do bad things then bad things will follow. The idea of some natural justice is also reassuring as everyone at some point or other has been wronged. Often the belief is that we experience the consequences of our actions after death and a God decides for us if we spend eternity in hell, or heaven. A lot of people have a view that Karma in Buddhism is along the same lines, that it is some kind of natural righteousness for wrong deeds done and its almost tempting to believe that there is someone deciding for us what Karma comes our way.

The class taught us that Karma does not work like this. Buddhism does not believe that there is a God or being deciding for us what Karma we deserve and in-fact Karma is not really about justice or any other human ideal. Karma is just a natural phenomenon; it is simply cause and effect. There is nobody deciding what cause equals what effect. To say that Karma is justice like saying that gravity is justice, if you jump from a tall building you will start to fall (cause) if the building is high enough it won’t be long until you reach terminal velocity (the effect will be that you are injured or die) however gravity is not thought of as justice. Buddhism believes that Karma works in the same way it is just natural cause and effect.

~ Contrary to popular misconception, karma has nothing to do with punishment and reward. It exists as part of our holographic universe’s binary or dualistic operating system only to teach us responsibility for our creations—and all things we experience are our creations. ~
Sol Luckman

Karma is a hidden object we cannot see it but it is all around us, its effects are sometimes apparent and sometimes not. To use Gravity as an example again, Gravity is also a hidden object we do not see Gravity but we experience its effects every single moment of our life. Karma is the law of cause and effect in our mind. We all have a mixture of negative and positive thoughts and actions and so everyone’s Karma is mixed. Buddhism teaches that much of our experience of Karma was created in past lives (but not all). When we weigh up our life carefully we can often see a pattern. Some areas of our life run fluently and other areas are fraught with tribulations. There are many people who live a long and exceptionally healthy life however that doesn’t mean that they are free from suffering or (negative Karma) indeed that same healthy person may endure immense difficulties in relationships or work. This made me consider areas in my life that have such patterns.

I have experienced very positive Karma in my romantic relationships. In my current partner I have met someone that I click with incredibly well, someone who shares my ideals and values and even in my previous relationships that have romantically ended most have completed on a positive note and I still hold high opinion of my ex partners.

I am in a job that I love, and despite the fact that I do not have a lot of money or material things as far as western standards go I do not live in a part of the world that is rife with poverty. I never go hungry or cold and I have my own flat that is comfortable and safe. Compared to most of the world’s population I am exceptionally well off.

Nevertheless there are areas of my life that I do not have such good Karma. My health is a good example. Although I have never experienced a devastating serious physical illness I have been plagued with little flaws in my body that have given me a lot of physical pain over the years, migraines, bowel problems, being prone to bouts of sickness when I see others far more fortunate to miss out on the stomach bugs and flues doing the rounds I have often felt somewhat jealous. I have experienced problems with my mental health that have had considerable impact on my life and relationships. I have experienced difficulties with friendships frequently finding it difficult to make connections with people on a level that is not romantic or sexual.

“The power of intention is the power to manifest, to create, to live a life of unlimited abundance, and to attract into your life the right people at the right moments.” ~ Wayne Dyer

Looking at the areas of my life where there are possible consequences of negative Karma gives me a vague picture of where I am more fortunate and where I may have areas I could develop. It also stops me viewing these circumstances in terms of fair or unfair because when you start to comprehend and value the concept of Karma the notion of fair and unfair is no longer pertinent. If I am self cherishing and worrying about my own happiness above everyone else’s I may believe that many of the events in my life that have past and will come to pass are unjust or unfair. I can suffer with this idea, permit it to make me more pessimistic and angry however when I look on all the events in my life and I see the bigger picture really appreciating the areas that I am fortunate and patiently accepting the areas where I am not so fortunate. I can see that in reality nothing I experience is unfair and I should remind myself when thinking about any suffering that has past or will come my way that there is always someone else who has experienced much greater suffering.

Understanding this does not mean that I should sit back and feel depressed and helpless believing that because I have already created so much negative Karma in this life and in past lives there is nothing I can do but accept all the negative events that will eventually ripen. Karma can be changed. Karma concerns specifically our mind because it is formed principally in our mind. We have to mentally think of an action before we can physically act and in-fact just by thinking and pondering on negative ideas we create negative karma even if we never get the chance to act on such impulses. The same goes for positive thoughts and intent. Our intention is more important than our actions. Whatever thoughts we have and subsequent actions we perform leaves us with an imprint on our very subtle mind. This is the part of us that is passed on from life to life. This imprint remains until all the conditions come together for that imprint to ripen. Certain circumstances may need to be present before we can undergo the results of the Karma we have created and this may take several life times or more but if we do nothing about those seeds they are guaranteed in time to ripen and we will undergo whatever effects have been caused (good, neutral or bad). Nonetheless before that seed/imprint ripens there is always a possibility to change our Karma by creating more positive Karma (merit) and by purificication.

Buddhists believe we can change our Karma by purification. To do this we must think about our mind and find out what Karma we may have or may be creating. Most people find there mind is more prone to negativity and thus have more negative than good Karma. We need to try and change those negative currents in order to change the potential for negative Karma – to cultivate positive intentions and avoid all negative intentions. Everyone regardless of faith will agree that 2 people may experience the same situation and perceive it in a very different way. A simple example of this is one person waking up looking out of the window and thinking “I hate the rain, I wanted it to be sunny, its not fair that its raining on my day off” they then go on to feel despondent for the rest of the day, not motivated to do anything and feeling pessimistic and aggravated. Another person on waking thinks “It’s raining today, I find the rain beautiful and refreshing” they go on to have a positive day enjoying the sensation of the raindrops and the subtle sounds and atmosphere of a stormy day. This is a very simple example but it can apply to any situation.

I am learning far quicker than I ever expected that through mindfulness and meditation it is possible to change those negative attitudes. The effects on my peace of mind and well-being have been profound. I am at such an early stage with all this and yet I already catch myself when my thoughts turn to negativity and I am able to change those old patterns and prevent small irritations from ruining my day. I am still working on the bigger things that get me down but at least I now believe it is possible to change my attitude to any situation.

The Buddha taught purification practice which relies on 4 thoughts,

Regret – “I wish I hadn’t done this” being self aware of our thoughts and actions and understanding when we have done or thought something to cause suffering and in turn created for ourselves negative Karma. So thinking about all the living beings we have hurt or caused harm too. Regret does not necessarily equal guilt it is simply understanding that we have caused ourselves negative Karma. Guilt is self centered people tend to focus on themselves when they feel guilty however one can regret wisely.

Reliance – Going for refuge to the Buddha and trying to repair some of the damage we have caused because of our harmful action. Saying sorry, wishing sincerely that the suffering will end and making peace and repairing the damage caused in our own mind.

Opponent Force – Being determined not to repeat the action however being realistic about what we can achieve. Also the act of giving, to make up for some of the suffering we have caused.

Promise – Committing to change in future and taking realistic action to change, example “I promise I won’t get angry again for the next hour”.

If everything we do is creating Karma both good and bad then it seems wise to be mindful of our thoughts and actions. There are many people who decide on a rational level that very little good can come of destructive thoughts and actions, even non Buddhists frequently agree with this and yet it is rare to come across somebody who really takes the time try and break these kinds of inclinations. Believing in Karma means letting go of the idea of luck and if there is no such thing as luck – only Karma then we can make a positive impact on our lives and future lives by creating positive merit instead of negative. By wishing other people free of suffering and doing all we can to help alleviate suffering we are doing something to change our situation. I can admit that I often have fleeting thoughts of I could do this, or I could do that (to benefit another person) and often those thoughts are quickly forgotten and replaced by more selfish thoughts. I am trying very hard to change this because ultimately I am no more important than any other living being. Just looking at the world around and observing all the war and poverty it is apparent that we are depleted on good merit. Gradually people are focusing more and more on there own happiness and wellbeing and forgetting to be kind to each other. I am asking myself now what good does this achieve long term? If I look back over my own life I have felt at my most peaceful and happy when I am not putting myself first and instead doing something to help others.

Currently I am going to great lengths to try and see the positive in other people no matter how conflicting our points of view or actions I am starting to see that every single person or living being adds something of value to my life. Even those people who have hurt me have taught me patience and forgiveness. I can see from the way my life is unfolding that I have a mixture of Karma good and bad and even though there is still part of me that is very wary of the idea of Buddhism as a religion I still agree with the philosophy I have been taught so far. I certainly do not believe it will do me or anyone else any harm if I try and change my attitude and focus on making more good Karma. At the very least it will be interesting to see where this takes me.

Reflecting on a year

2010-10-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

The blue sky opens out farther and farther,the daily sense of failure goes away,the damage I have done to myself fades,a million suns come forward with light,when I sit firmly in that world.
I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken;inside “love” there is more joy than we know of;rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds;there are whole rivers of light.
~Kabir~

Yesterday was my year anniversary with Rick and I thought it be nice to mark the occasion by writing a short blog (a somewhat informal blog).

The entire year has been a happy one. That doesn’t mean that I have not had stressful or challenging times but I feel a profound awareness of contentment that I haven’t experienced in a way that has been more than fleeting up until this point. That is partially thanks to Rick and also thanks to doing a lot of self development. More recently embracing the values of Buddhism has helped me learn how to deal with anxiety and altered my perception on life in general to a more hopeful attitude. My social skills have improved and being a member of IOD has also made a big difference to my life and although I acknowledge that socializing and interacting with people is still a challenge for me I feel like its steadily becoming something more attainable. The catalyst for most of these changes has been the happiness I now feel in my relationship with Rick and so I think it’s worth reminding myself how thankful I should be for what I have.

When I first met Rick, which was a year past April, there was an instant pull. I remember sitting in his company and being mesmerized by him. If I am completely honest I am not usually attracted to men immediately in this way; which is why perhaps people have noted that some of my previous partners have not been what one would call traditionally handsome. However I tend to fall for a person as I get to know them and the physical appeal comes later. This means how they look is not important to me because I can be attracted to any physical shape or person if I connect with them in other ways. Men in general are not that desirable in my opinion. Physically I am much more inclined to look at woman in this way but that is not to say that I am Gay and in-fact I try my best to evade putting a label on my sexuality because frankly I think at best its unnecessary and at worst it breads fear and separation. When I am attracted to a person I just am, they can be any race, size, colour, gender, but when it comes to men the attraction is rarely physical in the beginning.

Rick breaks this rule. From the moment I met him I was very attracted to him and I still am. Everything about him absorbs me. When he is near it is physically strenuous to draw my attention away from looking at him. I often find myself talking to someone else when he is in the room and having to prompt myself to look at the person I am talking to and not just focus my gaze on him. I feel as though my eyes are addicted to him. It’s not just his face, or his body, in the strangest way possible it is everything down to the shape of his mouth, his wrists and hands and even feet. Even the smell of him attracts me to the point that it frustrates me when he baths because it takes a while for his natural smell to return. I’m attracted to the sound of his voice, his accent, the way he says certain words and the phrases he uses. I adore the way he smiles or frowns and how his lips move and head tilts as he talks. I could sit and just watch him all day and be content.

The day back in April when I first met and had a conversation with him I knew at once that I wanted to get to know him more. I remember contemplating going along to places he might be just so that I could accidentally bump into him again. I’m not sure I believe in love at first sight but I am betting that those who do would perhaps be describing a feeling similar to this. A completely unexplainable attraction to someone I really didn’t know.

It was 5 months until I saw him again as due to life events and being pregnant dating was not really an option. Fortunately thanks to a mutual friend who set us up on a date/night out I did eventually get my chance to meet him again. Surprisingly I was really nervous and insecure about this first date because I found it hard to believe that someone as attractive as he was would be interested in me (although I had been informed by said mutual friend that he was). I didn’t believe I could be that fortunate. I still have those self-doubting moments where I think this can’t possibly be my reality.

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

On that second meeting I was tense. I was sitting with a bunch of friends with him in-front of me and us both knowing that our mutual friend was trying to set us up and that we both liked each other but there was a knot in my stomach making me feel sick and I suddenly had no idea what to say. Gradually I became more comfortable as we started talking and talking and then I have a powerful memory off him touching my hand and it feeling wonderful and just perfect to have him touch me. We ended up sitting closer and closer holding hands and talking. Everyone else left and we stayed behind before slowly walking hand in hand to catch them up as we passed down one of the side streets off the town I got the nerve from somewhere to pull him into me and kissed him hard on the lips.

I used to feel slightly disapproving of people who had whirlwind romantic relationships. I felt that it only reasonable and right that people take there time and really consider the consequences of making commitments too soon. I thought I should be very careful of saying words like “I love you”. The only word I have to describe the first few months of our relationship was cyclone. We spent the first 2 weeks talking incessantly about everything and being pretty much incapable of keeping our hands of each other (not much has changed in that department J). I think if it wasn’t for work or other commitments we may not have ever gotten out of bed. He told me he loved me after 2 and half weeks and he had moved into my flat within 3 months. I think that people may have thought and might even still think that we are completely mental but in reality it is the best thing I have ever done. The start of our relationship may have been unusual due to the polyamory set-up and it may have been far too manic and rapid for any sensible person but really there isn’t a single thing that I regret because it feels like my life up until now has just been leading up to this point.

LET us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go,

through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask,

“What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

If someone could create for me the perfect man/the perfect partner, then they would have created Rick. Intellectually, mentally, spiritually, physically everything fits perfectly. I sometimes have to remind myself that he is not this appealing to everyone because every once in a while I come across someone who doesn’t get on with him and he is so wonderful to me in every way shape and form that it’s hard to understand why other people don’t feel exactly as I do. Perhaps some people might say it’s unhealthy but I completely adore him, worship him, would do anything for him even follow him to the ends of the earth and back. The fact that this wonderful person is telling me that he is equally as in love with me as I am with him still astounds me.

I am not sure I believe in the concept of a soul, or at least not in the modern sense of the word but if I had to pick a word to describe our relationship I would call him my soulmate, my twin soul, twin flame and all those other things that I thought only hippy crazy people believed.

I think I should probably stop gushing now.

Following on from the last blog on unconditional regard

2010-09-28T12:38:00.000-07:00

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism. (Albert Einstein)

Following up from my last blog and recent class with http://meditateinedinburgh.org/mahabodhi-centre/resident-teacher

Last nights class again focused on unconditional regard/love but in a bit more detail this time.

One thing that came up is how we often love/cherish our partner at the start of a relationship. When things are new we want to do everything we can to make that person happy and in return the start of a new relationship is often the best part, we get the most out of it because we are really cherishing that person. Sadly as time goes on we start to demand more and give less and thus there is a cycle of both persons not being happy because “my needs are not being met” and yet we are not considering that we are expecting our needs be met and not pausing to reflect what we are giving to this person we are supposed to love.

If I truthfully look at myself and my own past relationships I can see this pattern undoubtedly. With Chris for example I got distressed and angry because he didn’t meet my needs. I wanted a tidy house, I wanted someone who would spend time with me at home, and I wanted a lot from him that I felt he didn’t give. Essentially I wanted to be happy. I assumed that if he did these things I would be happy. If I turn this around he could certainly have felt the same. He wanted someone who accepted him without seeking to change him, someone who wanted to go out socialize more and meet friends to do the things he wanted. I also did not meet his needs. The consequence; we stopped cherishing each other.

I want to avoid this pattern with Rick and so I endeavor to be mindful and aware of what I am doing to cherish him. In my daily meditation I will remind myself that when I let something go, even something as simple as feeling like I can’t be bothered to make him lunch (which is a small thing that I often do because I love him) I am allowing myself to become complacent and the result will be that I feel less content because it is the cherishing that I get the most happiness from. The things he does for me just add to our love but as soon as I feel that I have a right to those things and put my own needs above his will be when I stop feeling as satisfied and happy in this relationship. It is cherishing and loving him unconditionally that gives me the most fulfillment.

I often think on what unconditional love means. Is it possible and can there be some kind of limit. People can do dreadful things and if we stop loving someone because they have done something dreadful does that mean that we never loved them unconditionally in the first place? I think with Rick I would love him regardless of what he did, I may not choose to stay around him if he where doing those things and making no effort to stop but that does not mean I would not love him. I would perhaps walk away from the romantic relationship but I would dedicate my time and energy into helping him.

I want to gradually urge this outlook further to friends, family and strangers. Sometimes it feels unattainable to have a caring attitude towards everyone but when I think about how it makes me feel when I get stressed or angry at people I realise it does me no good. Hating someone and wishing them harm only serves to disturb my own mind. I am by no means at the point in my life where I have regard for everyone unconditionally. I can read awful things in the paper that have happened to people hundreds of miles from me and if I am candid with myself I am rarely moved to do anything to help these strangers. I tend to empathize mostly with people or circumstances that I have previously myself experienced, I do not stop to consider that there are many things in this world that cause suffering most of which I have been lucky enough to avoid. I am privileged at this point in my life regardless of what pain I may have experienced in my past. The suffering of any person or living being in this world could just as easily be happening to me.

When I spoke in my last blog about people who challenge me I did not mean to cause those people offence or harm. There are many people who challenged me and the situations I wrote about in my last blog where just situations that have happened most recently or that were at the front of my mind at the time of writing. I value the fact that those things happened at a time in my life when I am starting to do some self development and see the world from a more rational perception. No matter what my opinion is of any one person that opinion changes continuously depending on the situation or knowledge that I have about them at the time. Nobody is inherently good or bad and my perception and opinion is based on a very narrow view of them, there are to many variables to make it of any useful significance. When I consider what goes on in my mind and my own motivations and ways of relating to the world I know that with any person that I meet and interact with I am getting only a tiny pin prick view of who that person is. Like me they will have some desirable and undesirable qualities but usually those qualities are not intentionally created to hurt others.

To use myself as an example, I know that I sometimes lose my temper and can be extremely harsh to people. Later I’m inclined to regret those outbursts but I am aware that a person seeing me in this mind frame would think me overly harsh, and perhaps simply malicious. They are unlikely to be-friend or like me if there main interaction with me is when I am in that state of mind. However usually I react this way as a defense, when I feel vulnerable or when I think someone is about to hurt me (such as get in there first before they do) my impetus for acting this way is not because I inherently want to hurt others it is a delusion I have formed to shield myself. Despite knowing this is a delusion and outbursts of this sort do nothing to protect me from future hurt I have gotten into the habit of reacting this way and so I have to work hard at breaking this habit.

Another example is attention seeking behaviors. This is often seen as intrinsically negative. Often people with this trait lose out on friendships and regard. I want to admit here and now that I have in the past been attention seeking and intermittently slip back into this pattern. My motivation for doing this isn’t to annoy the pants of my friends, and family it’s generally just the case of me feeling desperately low about something and not knowing how to ask for help in a more constructive way. For a long time I felt upset about something I did not feel I could talk about openly with any person. I needed some relief and that meant that other things became a bigger issue. As I get older and work on my own issues I am learning more and more how to cope with negative emotions. When I see others acting out in ways that are assumed as creating unnecessary drama, or attention seeking I try and remember the place I was in 4 or 5 years ago and remind myself that even now I may still act this way from time to time. Suddenly that person is not an inconvenience or nuisance but a real person with the same perceptions and feelings as I have and thus has as much right as I do to love and attention. It is easy for me to have compassion for people with the similar qualities as I have because I can understand possible motivations for such. However I want to extend this to all undesirable behaviors because with any person I do not know what drives them to act the way they do and to assume that they are doing something out of spite or malice says more about my negative world view than it does there’s. It also serves me or the person in question no good if I respond to them in a negative way. It won’t change there behavior towards me (or others) and viewing them as bad does nothing to help keep my own mind in remain in a positive state.

Never by hatred is hatred appeased, but it is appeased by kindness. This is an eternal truth. (Buddha)

I used to have a very negative view of people, actually that extended to the world in general. I was afraid everyone was a person who wanted to hurt me. I’d gotten into the pattern of focusing on only the negative and seeing no goodness in people anymore. Surprisingly what changed this attitude was losing my baby. Possibly the most awful experience in my entire life and yet it showed me that there is a fundamental kindness in people. There are situations when a complete stranger will go far out of there way to care for another human being.

In the hospital I was entirely vulnerable and at the mercy of those people, doctors and nurses looking after me. The care I was shown at this point in my life changed my entire perspective of the human race. I remember being terrified of giving birth and in an extreme amount of pain due to the normal contractions of labor and the fact I had a massive infection in my womb. The midwife's looking after me where on 12 hour shifts, rushed of there feet and frankly must have been exhausted. Yet several sat with me over the 2 days that I was in this state. If I was alone for any length of time ether because Chris had gone for a moment or he was asleep someone would come and sit with me. At 4am one nurse sat with me for over 3 hours holding my hand, talking to me about the baby and what to expect and make sure that I had some pain relief to get me through the worst of the contractions. I was very afraid of looking at my baby after I delivered. I knew it would be dead and I didn’t know what to expect. The midwifes where incredibly respectful and understanding because I was so distraught they took him away immediately after he was born, cleaned him for me and then when I was ready brought him back wrapped in a shawl and in a tiny Moses basket.

They took the time and effort to care for his tiny body and when I was handed him I was not afraid to look at him or spend time with him. Had they not been so patient with me and went to so much effort I may have been to afraid to have ever looked at him and that would have been something I know now I would regret. They took photos of him for me so that I would not forget how he looked and arranged contact with a charity that could help me arrange a funeral/cremation. None of those things where essential parts of there job, they didn’t have to be so patient with me or give me so much of there time and attention and yet they did. One midwife was in constant contact with my own Mum who was too ill to be with me so that she wouldn’t be worried about what was happening or how I was being looked after.

I cannot deny and I am sure Chris would agree that the entire experience was the saddest thing we have ever had to deal with but the way that it has changed my perception and attitude to the world and to life in general has added a great deal of value to my life.

One of the challenging situations I had to deal with after this happened was a Christian acquaintance suggesting that I needed to consider the possibility that God took my baby because I was not a Christian. It is not the first comment by members of other faiths that have gotten to me on an emotional level. It can be challenging relating with people from other faiths and religions. I have gotten past that particular comment however from time to time I do come across Christians who swing to the fundamentalist side of there faith. How do I deal with someone telling me I am going to burn in the fiery pits of hell because I don’t believe what they do? How do I respond in a positive manner when they insist that they are right and I am wrong and how can I possibly appreciate those values that I see as profoundly harmful to others?

It’s not up to me to change there opinions. What they get out of there religion and beliefs is not for me to judge it is my belief that only that person themselves can make judgments about what they do. There are people who are Christians who are very good people and when I open my mind and think about the fundamental reason why any person would be Christian or a member of any faith it is because they desire to be a good person, they desire love (from god). I cannot feel negative about anyone looking to be loved. Having the bible tell them what is right and wrong gives sanctuary in there actions. If I do A then Y will happen, if I do B then X will happen. There is a list of right and wrong, good and bad and there must be some real refuge in feeling like there is a God looking out for us. These people tend of have very real experiences of there faith, many feel they have been touched by god, (or Jesus) and more significantly they are convinced that there way is right, often feeling that it is the only way.

“John 14:6 [Jesus speaking] "I am the way, the truth, and the life: No man cometh unto the father, but by me".

“John 3:16-18 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. {17}”

“{18} He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

So the bible is very clear that If you do not believe that Jesus was the son of god, or if you do not believe in God and follow some other faith no matter how good you are as a person, no matter how kind, considerate and caring you will not be accepted into the kingdom of heaven and instead you will remain eternally in hell and the people who believe in the bible believe it to be complete truth, the word of God.

So…

When you are a Christian and you care about people that are not Christian that must be very unsettling because it’s only natural that people would not want those they love and care for to end up in hell. This is the key to the debate. No matter how much I dislike this view these people truly believe that I will go to hell because I do not believe what they do. Thus they really want me to believe what they do because they yearn to save me, in-fact they feel it is there duty to do so. This is not because they are trying to disrespect my faith. My faith doesn’t even come into it, I could be the most peace loving enlightened person on the planet, or I could be a demon worshiping Satanist; in the fundamentalist Christian opinion I will still go to hell because I do not believe in the bible or God. With that in mind it is impossible for me to feel angry at these people because there actions are motivated by compassion not disrespect or hate. No matter how much I believe there compassion is misplaced it does not take away the fact that there actions are done out of kindness. Furthermore there is nothing I can do or say to persuade them that I am perfectly safe and it’s not my place to try and change there faith. What I can do is try to be patient, be thankful that I do not share that view and try my best to respect and see the value in them as individual people who are trying to do the right thing.

I believe that Jesus was an enlightened man. Is he the most enlightened man that ever walked the earth? No, this is not my belief but I still see value in his teachings even if I do not agree with every word he is alleged to have said. I do not trust or believe that what is in the bible is the word of god, or indeed that if one is fundamentally sticking to all the principles and rules in the bible they will be the best people that they can be.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. (Siddhartha Gautama - The Buddha), 563-483 B.C.”

This is my belief, however others that have looked at the bible, have been moved by it and came to the decision that they trust it to be the word of God. I respect that and I hope that it brings them peace and contentment in this life and for whatever future lifetimes that may follow.

Reflecting after the weekend on unconditional positive regard

2010-09-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

I am finally getting around to writing about Mondays meditation class. I haven’t felt that I could write anything constructive till now because I have been processing a lot of emotions since the weekend.

Monday night we had a class at the Mahabodhi Centre with Paul Ashton http://meditateinedinburgh.org/mahabodhi-centre/resident-teacher.

I arrived at the class on Monday feeling provoked and edgy. A fantastic weekend had turned into an emotional nightmare by the Sunday evening and by Monday morning things had gone from bad to worse. I was not a composed, peaceful, or rational thinking person on Monday and so I hoped the class might do me some good.

I had been feeling disappointed in myself for being unable to contain my overwhelming feelings of frustration and rage especially when Rick was able to remain graceful and calm despite the fact that he was the one taking the brunt of negativity. Nonetheless I do believe that anytime something like this has happens it is an opportunity to grow and learn.

The talk on Monday was about unconditional love. Something that in reality is far harder to comprehend than I would initially believe. When I thought about what unconditional love means on a large scale and then compared that to my own somewhat narrow view on the world I started to realise that most of my perception is still centered on me, and my world and my feelings. We talked about how we label people as friends, enemies and strangers and how these labels are forever changing and therefore un-reliable. What does letting go of those labels mean? Can we really love everyone unconditionally? I know at this point in my life I have trouble even liking everyone there are many people who act in ways that make me perceive them to be bad people and what about the strangers? How can I care about people I don’t actually know, people I have never met and might never meet?

Starting with the people I think of as friends. I judge them based on how they interact with me and how I perceive them. There are some people that were once friends that I know longer consider as such and that is usually because they have done something that I regard as undesirable. I let my affection for them go and either dissipate valuable energy hating them or simply ignore them and go back to thinking of them as strangers – people that don’t exist to me. Except they do exist and they have there own feelings, purpose and perceptions of life. There is no way of me knowing what motivates them or what encounters they have that make them function the way they do. They can have delusions and ideas that are not compatible with my own and yet if we strip all that away, take away all the negative experiences and go back to the raw potential we can see that no matter what these people do they exist and they have the same budding as anyone else to be good or bad.

So the conclusion I came too was that I should not judge people on how they act. I should not judge people at all because I do not know there thoughts or motivations.

At this point in my life I admit I find that difficult but that does not mean I disagree that it is possible. It was after the class that I started to re-evaluate my own feelings towards people in my life.

There is one person who at this point in my life I am often agitated, perturbed by. This person has know idea how I feel about them because our interaction is actually narrow but despite that for various reasons they have an impact on my emotional state and often I find myself thinking poorly of them.

The reason being, this person appears to me to be patronizing, constantly sarcastic to the point that it appears they are trying to make everyone else look stupid and difficult to get to know or even have a conversation with. I feel they are always looking down on me and others and to make matters worse often treating someone I care about in a way that I consider to be mean. After Mondays class when we left and talked about this person I was able to view them in a different light. I don’t know what triggers them to react the way they do but instead of viewing it as something very negative I had a think about what I do know about this person. That they are remarkably insecure and perhaps unhappy, what I do know about there life there have been many things that have happened that could have made it difficult for this person to be happy. There is a possibility that they sarcasm and such are simply ways this person has of shielding themselves and since I do not know what causes them to be so closed off I really have no right to judge based on some small interactions. I guess others could argue that it is equally possible that they really are just mean and condescending but it does not do me any good to view people with negative and destructive assumptions and rather it is far more beneficial to give people the benefit of the doubt. Any energy I have spent feeling upset or frustrated at this person is wasteful. It won’t do me any good and if I react in a negative way I am likely to simply cause the situation to get worse. If instead I turned that into unconditional positive regard and started feeling some compassion for this person perhaps in some small way our interaction might change for the better and at the very least I will no longer be taking up precious time feeling disturbed and irritated.

The next thing the class got me thinking about was attachment. When you consider unconditional love for everyone it is natural to take a moment to consider those we love anyway. I have always been puzzled about how Buddhism views attachment in regards to love. Especially when it comes to normal lay people who have husbands, wife’s, children, friends and other family because if all attachment is corrupt then how does one begin to feel love for the people close to them without being attached. In the end I realise it is not possible or at least it does not feel like something I can do. What is more realistic is I monitor the attachments I do have and try and love unconditionally regardless of my attachment. I also believe it is important to consider my attachments when they cause me or the people I love problems.

My attachment to Rick has recently caused us problems. After the incident at the weekend I realise that I am slightly over protective. I could see that my emotional reaction to something happening that caused him suffering was at an extreme level. Had the same thing happened to me personally I would not have felt such extreme emotions but because it was Rick who is someone I love unconditionally my mind became so disturbed I was unable to think rationally. I could believe that this is perfectly ok and normal because I love Rick therefore I do not wish him to come to any harm and thus I will feel angry and upset if others seem to be causing him pain. However when I think about this on a deeper level I realise that part of the reason that I felt this was because I perceived it in an unhealthy way. Rick is MY partner and you are hurting something that belongs to me therefore I will be angry at you because you are hurting something that is mine. He does not belong to me and he has his own feelings and rational which I completely ignored in my fit of fury. Anything that has happened over the weekend has been towards him. The unfairness and insensitive comments where directed at him and not me, the consequences of those things will affect only him and yet he has been more graceful and calm than I could ever imagine.

What happened to Rick was dreadfully unreasonable. For one mistake he will have consequences that could possibly take years to recover. It seems that any hard work he has done in the past and will continue to do in the future despite this situation has been forgotten. The fact that it is unfair does not mean I have any right to rage at him and anyone else nor is it useful. I do not know the motivation of the person(s) who came to the decision and I probably never will. It may or may not have been motivated by anger rather than professional conduct or it may be the case that the person simply felt that the mistake he made was worthy of a 5 year punishment. I do not know and it’s not helpful for me to be angry. What I am trying to do now is feel compassion for those that made the decision and let go of any negative feelings developing because of this situation. I am partially hopeful that given some time they may realise that what has came to pass is unreasonable and even if that does not change the circumstances for Rick perhaps it may be different for someone else in the future.

What this situation has taught me is that I am extremely lucky to be with such a person who can carry on doing his thing, (in his own little world) without any hate or malice to the people and society that have done this to him. He has taken responsibility for his mistake and will accept a punishment lasting years if the people in charge decide this is what he deserves. He has not even stopped to consider the fairness or unfairness of it and more importantly he has no ill regard for anyone because of the events. Part of the reason I am so passionate about defending him is because fundamentally he is a good person. That does not mean I think he is perfect or he won’t make mistakes but since I have known him he has always taken responsibility for those mistakes and spends time reflecting on how his actions are affecting others. It is not that he is better than anyone else or more deserving of love its simply that I see so much value in his self awareness and ability to try and do the right thing. In the year that I have had the privilege of being his other half I have been aware that I have found something really precious and rare. It is as though he is unspoiled. There are many good people who get dragged down by life experiences and I almost feel afraid that any hurt caused to him will change that goodness he seems to hold. It’s usually something I only see in children, a sort of pureness.

I am attempting to spend the next week reflecting in my meditation the meaning of unconditional love and remembering the kindness that I stumble across in my daily life. I am trying to remember that people are doing me kindness every day and often I do not stop to reflect on this. I used to have a very negative view of the human race because I often spent more time thinking about the bad things our society has and forgetting that there are many things people do everyday that are kind. I hope to eventually find myself able to let go of negative perceptions and at least give every human being the same regard in spite of how they may act or appear to me because fundamentally we all have the ability to be good its experiences along the way that throw us from that course.

To be Thankful

2010-09-14T18:08:00.000-07:00

After my second meditation class with Paul Ashton http://meditateinedinburgh.org/mahabodhi-centre/resident-teacher were we had a talk on being thankful I have taken the opportunity to examine my life and see all the things I have that make me remarkably privileged.

Starting with the concept of just being born human, something I confess I had not given a lot of though too. I have never considered the possibility that the chances of me being born at all, let alone born with all the advantages of being a human being is actually extraordinary. There are by far more animals and insects in this world than people. Because I am born human I have the advantage of self awareness, intelligence and a great many other things that animals and insects do not have. As a human being I may use and develop this self awareness to varying degrees but the point is I have the potential to develop my mind. Along with the advantage of being born human I have also been born into one of the richer countries in this world. So even though by western standards I could easily consider myself to be poor if I compare myself with the rest of the world I am not living in poverty. I never go without food, I have access to clean drinking water, a safe house to live and sleep. I do not live in the middle of a war zone and I have enough money that I can afford gas and electricity and all my basic survival needs are met. I may not have a lot of money but I can afford luxuries that many people in this world could never afford. I do not live in a country where I am repressed. I am free to practice any faith, be that Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, or even Wicca in-fact if I wanted to I could call myself a Satanist or a Witch and nobody would stop me because it is my right to practice whatever faith I wish. There are places in the world where people have to meet in secret to worship in a way that they want. There have been times in the history of the country I now live in where people have been burned, hanged and had all sorts of dreadful suffering due to there faith.

If I am honest it is difficult for me to fully comprehend these facts. I can look at the statistics, I can see people struggling to survive on my television set who are hundreds and thousands of miles away and yes I do feel for them but I do not believe that I really realize that these people are just like me. They have thoughts, feelings and it could be me in that situation. It is hard to step out of my comfortable world and empathize.

Along with these huge advantages there are also lots of smaller things in my life that I sometimes forget to be thankful for. I have a job that I love. That is rare. I know many people who live only for the weekend and dread waking up in the morning to spend the day doing something that gives them no fulfillment. There may be things about my job that could be better but at the end of the day what I do gives me a feeling of well being. I have genuine regard for the people I work for, and the people I work with. I have freedom at work to be creative and use my initiative. I have opportunities to develop and become a better more patient and understanding person through work. The company I work for although not perfect is still a very good company especially when I compare it to other places I have worked. I can sometimes feel negative about work because like everything there are always little things that I think could be better. If only I had more money, more weekends off, less stress, less evening shifts etc… I often feel aggravated on my travel time home from work which can take me up to an hour and half. When I remember why it is that I decided to take this job a fair distance from home; the fact that it was a great job and one that I knew I would enjoy, makes that hour+ worthwhile. I want to try and think on the positive things about my job so instead of being a little bit dissatisfied I want to remind myself how lucky I am that I have a job, and that I usually look forward to going to work.

I am also thankful for my home. It has caused me the most stress over the last few months due to the fact that it needs some work and that work will be costly. I can also feel a lot of pressure and stress around money. However gradually my home is becoming a place that I can enjoy. A sanctuary and place I feel safe. For a time there will still be stress around money and current living arrangements and lack of space but there are things we have done and plan to do that will make it a much nicer place to be.

The thing I am most thankful for perhaps the most is having such a wonderful supportive partner. How lucky we both are to have been born in the same lifespan, to have then met each other, and to fit so perfectly. To have met at times in both our life’s when we are ready for this kind of relationship. Having someone that loves me unconditionally and someone who shares all of my core values has been an incredible experience. I think I have felt happier this year than I have ever felt in my entire life. Every-time I look at Rick I feel a warm and happy glow. It is nice to have someone to meditate with and discuss the changes and values I want to create in my life long term.

When I view romantic love I do not consider someone to be my other half. He is his own person and so am I but we are enjoying developing our awareness together as a couple and exploring and challenging each other to strive to learn more and become more peaceful and content as individuals. Rick seems to compliment me perfectly. In regards to Buddhism I am not sure if romantic love is always considered attachment and thus not something that is always viewed as positive. However I cannot count my blessings without counting Rick as one of those blessing as well as my friends and family.

My plan this week is to continue the meditation we learned during the class on Monday where we contemplate the things that we are thankful for, and then try and hold the feelings of peace and contentment that gives us. I can definitely say that just thinking about this as I go about my day is already giving me a feeling of peace and happiness.

Dealing with difficulties and keeping a peaceful mind.

2010-09-12T17:50:00.001-07:00

Dealing with difficulties and keeping a peaceful mind.

Being conscious of what I want to attain in my mind is helpful. I want a composed and peaceful mind that is not easily influenced by external stress. I want a mind that feels compassion and love for every living thing. Achieving this not at all easy. I do not sit on my high horse looking down at everyone else believing myself to be better because I am trying to wake myself up and see the world from a different perspective. I do not believe I can achieve this simply by the knowledge alone that it is possible.

What I have had most trouble with this week is dealing with stress in general. It has felt like a stressful week. Working 6 days with little time to myself to rest, or meditate and having some financial difficulties added with the fact that I am still currently living with an ex partner who although I have the upmost regard for, it is still sometimes difficult to have gone through a huge change of relationship (what most would term a break-up) and yet still remain in each others space before any real processing has been done.

I want to hold my hands up now and say that I have not been compassionate, kind, loving or peaceful around or towards Chris this week. He has been my main challenge and I feel I could be dealing with things better. I am often seeing my point of view, and putting my wants, needs and feelings before his. I am seeing the world from my usual perspective of myself being the centre. I am trying to work through this and find a way to be calmer and to handle the various issues that come up in a way that is not hurtful and destructive to our friendship.

It is possible for me to list many things about Chris and about our situation that I find difficult. I can list all the reasons I choose to end our romantic involvement and I can rant and bitch. In the short term that ranting may even make me feel a little better but I know from experience that in the long term anger and bitterness are not constructive and simply damage both my own peace of mind and that of someone who deep down I have a lot of regard for. As much as I can focus on the flaws and mistakes Chris has made if I take a step back I can see many things I have done and said that have hurt him.

Part of me feels that if we had space and some time apart to process our feelings now that our relationship is no longer romantic we would find this much easier to cope with. However that is not possible or practical as financially the 3 of us living together is the best option. I also feel that my simply wishing for the situation to be different and dwelling on the negative aspects of our living arrangements will over-shadow the amount of learning and growth that could come about due to this circumstance. Yes it is difficult at times but that does not mean it is fruitless, nor does it mean that it has to be un-pleasant. At this point in my life this particular relationship challenges me I am trying to see that as an opportunity rather than a curse. I do not look upon Chris as my enemy however this quote does sum up the way I would like to view this situation.

“In one way, having an enemy is very bad. It disturbs our mental peace and destroys some of our good things. But if we look at it from another angle, only an enemy gives us the opportunity to practice patience. No one else provides us with the opportunity for tolerance. Since we do not know the majority of the five billion human beings on this earth, therefore the majority of people do not give us an opportunity to show tolerance or patience either. Only those people whom we know and who create problems for us really provide us with a good opportunity to practice tolerance and patience”
Dalai Lama

Chris may not be my enemy, but he is someone who currently challenges me. Working through the issues around our break-up and re-negotiating our friendship and bounds is difficult but it is giving us both a chance to grow empathy for a point of view that we do not yet understand. Our main concern at the moment is having different views around our home. Around how a home should be and what time and energy is put into creating an environment we both enjoy. We are sorting out financial things that have built up over time and are now causing a great deal of strain however we are in the fortunate position that any difficulties we are facing can be solved.

I received some news today that put all my stress, worry and anger into perspective. Some things cannot be changed or taken back and regardless of how hard and frustrating things might seem to me now as I experience them, in the scheme of life my problems are tiny and almost insignificant.

and so I will try to do better.

Selflessness and Compassion

2010-09-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

Let your love flow outward through the universe,To its height, its depth, its broad extent,A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.Then as you stand or walk,Sit or lie down,As long as you are awake,Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;Your life will bring heaven to earth. Sutta Nipata

Tonight I attended a Buddhist meditation class in town. It’s something I have been thinking of doing for a long time but since I am cautious of organized religion I gave it some serious thought before attending. In the end Rick and I both decided to go along with an open mind. The experience was positive. The guided meditation was valuable and I feel I learned some basic skills that I can take into my own meditation practice at home. I enjoyed the talk on some of the philosophy behind Buddhism as it has given me some food for thought.

One of the topics we touched on is the idea of selfishness. This seems a severe topic to be explored but it wasn’t put across in a harsh way. We are all selfish, and when you examine your mind and really think about your motivation, even in acts that might seem selfless it is possible to find some selfish reasons and thoughts that are part of the motivation. This is because we are all the centre of our own worlds. We perceive, feel, and see the world through our own eyes and so it is in our interests to put our own needs first. What I found interesting is taking myself temporarily out of this mindset and trying to see the world in a different way. That every living being, human, or animal all have basic needs and wants. Everyone is seeking happiness and everyone has felt or will feel suffering. People and animals rarely do things they know will cause them suffering. If everyone feels as I do, and has the ability to feel happy and sad then I am not the centre and it is only my perception that makes me think and act as if I am. In reality I am no more important or unimportant than any other living being.

It is difficult to keep this mindset for long because it’s not the natural way of perceiving. However when I was able to momentarily step out of my own world, and my own way of perceiving I was able to realise fully for the first time that my own wellbeing and contentment is no more important than any other person or living being. My own feelings towards any living being is irrelevant I do not need to know them personally, they could be at the other side of the world and have nothing in common with me but because they exists and the feel just as I do they are as significant and insignificant as I am.

It puts into question then, why do I continue to seek out my own comfort and wellbeing and why do I often lack the awareness of the feelings and needs of others around me. My self is my primary concern only because it is necessary that I fill my basic needs such as food, warmth, and water in order to survive. However that does not mean that I should not develop awareness of the needs of others or that given the choice I should always please myself first.

With this knowledge I felt like I am able to step back from my own perception of the world and appreciate that I am in a position where my basic survival needs are met and I am in a place where I can affect other peoples life’s for the better.

I would like to strive to do this in a way that is not motivated from self-interest. (This is easier said than done). I may endeavor to be a good person and yet I rarely go deep enough into my consciousness to consider what my motivations are. I choose to be a support worker because I want to help people but if I think deeper I can see that at least some of my drive to work in this field is based on the fulfillment and feelings of wellbeing I get because I am helping people and so even the desire for that feeling of wellbeing is based on my own desires. Bringing this awareness into my consciousness does not mean that I will not have selfish motivations but by making myself aware of them I can make better choices.

Another point is how hard it is to view all beings as equal. There are people whose opinion I will find abhorrent, there are people who I will disagree with, misunderstand, feel furious at and yet they are just as important as I am. How to even begin to change ones outlook to one of complete acceptance and equality? This, I feel I have been striving to do for well over a year. I have started to view each individual person with unconditional compassion. A quote from the Dalai Lama;

“Your love and compassion towards your friends is in many cases actually attachment, This feeling is not based on the realization that all beings have an equal right to be happy and to overcome suffering, Instead, it is based on the idea that something is ‘mine’ my friend or something good for ‘me’. That is attachment. Thus, when the person’s attitude towards you changes, your feelings of closeness immediately disappears. With the other way, you develop some kind of concern irrespective, of the other person’s attitude to you, simply because that person is a fellow human being and has every right to overcome suffering. Whether that person remains neutral to you or even becomes your enemy, your concern should remain.”

This is a very hard concept to embrace. How difficult is it to feel empathy for those people that show us none, or who go one step further actively hurt us. Why should there needs and wants be considered important if they seem to be deliberately causing others harm?

From my experience and I am only 26 years old so I will admit that my experience is still limited. I have gained nothing from hate. There have been many people in my life who have hurt me in some way, or shown me no regard. There are those I have hated for years and it has done me no good. Usually it causes my mind to be disturbed, and tense. It is only at times in my life when I have not only let go of that hate but actively attempted to feel some compassion for that person that I have felt any peace. No matter what that person has done to me, no matter how bad the deed done or what affect it’s had on my life, letting go of the anger and hatred has always been a positive experience.

I can say now that I hold no grudges. There are fleeting moments of annoyance, agitation, or anger over another persons action’s but now I make a point to let it go and try to give that person the same regards as anyone else. It seems it is the people that challenge me that I learn the most from. Today’s talk and guided mediation has built on what I have already been trying to do and given me an even wider perspective. My aim this week is to meditate and keep bringing my awareness back to unbiased compassion. I hope to keep stepping out of my world and my perception where my own thoughts and feelings are the centre of my world and continue to bring my consciousness back to the knowledge that this is only perception and not reality.

I am certain there will be moments when I am directing anger towards another person. Like everyone else I have moments when I want to stamp my feet and swear at people because they are doing something I deem unfair but I am hoping if I work hard on this those moments will become even fewer and I can hopefully gain a more peaceful state of mind and thus effect the people around me in a positive way, even those who are not able to return the good goodwill.

Comparing

2010-08-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

““Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.”

Erica Jong

I thought I would start an update on how I am experiencing monogamy after so many years of polyamory.

I don’t feel monogamous. I know that is in-fact the only word to describe how I am living but it doesn’t feel the same as monogamy ever felt in the past. There is still openness and we have carried much of the ethics developed because of polyamory into our new kind of relationship. I don’t feel constrained in the sense that I am not permitted other partners and we are still communicating openly about other people we are attracted too. I don’t feel like we are closing our relationship to other people and yet I equally don’t feel like we will add anyone new. It is a strange place to be – or at least it is a strange place for me to be after a long time of sexual liberation and freedom; where I could act upon any romantic/sexual chemistry. There are still a select few people in my life that I can look at and imagine being intimate with yet I don’t feel deprived of the chance to experience them despite being exclusive to one partner.

I realise that what I have gained in the years of polyamory I could never have gained if I had not opened myself up to that life. Sexually I no longer have any inhibitions. I don’t feel guilt for experimenting and allowing myself the chance to explore that aspect of myself with more than one man. I used to think that I didn’t want to sleep about, that my worth diminished the more people I slept with. This is mostly due to upbringing and old fashioned values around female sexuality. I then went through a rebellious stage where I felt like I would just fuck whoever I wanted and not give a dam. That was fun when it lasted but it wasn’t really me because although I am a very sex positive person I also have a very particular type of man that I am attracted too. I like intelligence, open mindedness and someone who also has the ability to be self aware and explore the deeper levels of intimacy through being physical. Just getting off, for no reason other than the feeling alone has never been something that satisfied me. Let’s be honest if all I want out of sex is an orgasm I can do that with my hand. I want more and to get more out of sex it cannot be a casual one night affair. I am in a place now where I have accepted my kinks in the bedroom and I have no hang ups about being a female with an exceptionally high sex drive. It is incredible how society subtly female sexual liberty as something distasteful. Nowadays this is not usually a direct attack and more on a subconscious level. We are conditioned to expect men to think about sex all the time and not woman. I must be in the minority because it’s on my mind 90 percent of the time and if Rick is in my direct line of sight you can guarantee it is crossing my mind repeatedly.

I have been thinking a lot about why I feel so relaxed now about the exclusiveness of my relationship and yet even now the word monogamy makes me feel uneasy. I suppose that it is the connotations of monogamy that I dislike. The idea that you own a person, that they are property and are not allowed to love or to feel for anyone else. The control that is implied through monogamy. I know many couples who would rather keep quiet when they connect with another member of the opposite sex for fear that even thinking about intimacy with anyone else is unfaithfulness. It is the idea of going against basic human nature and fooling yourself that nobody else is attractive to you except your partner that gets my back up.

This feels different because I do not see us as only part of a couple. We often use the world soul-mate or soul-twin to describe the way that we feel but we do not feel this means we are 1 half or a whole and rather we are 2 separate whole beings who fit together seamlessly. We are free to communicate our attraction for anyone else. There are many people in this world who we will love and learn from and attraction is also a very chemical thing. Just because it happens does not mean I will act upon it and it’s not something I feel should be kept secret.

It so happens that we are exclusive because we have recognized that with the way we want our life’s to develop together it works better if it’s just us. I have learned through experience that the one downside to being polyamorous is that no matter how much love you have to give there is only so much time especially when a relationship is new it does take a lot of time to build a solid foundation. Being intimate and in love with more than one person is hugely rewarding however it is also exceptionally demanding. There is constant compromise because you are trying to meet 2, 3 or 4 people’s needs. It has taught me to be more tolerant, more thoughtful, and a better listener. I used to be hot headed, I am less so now because I have learned to deal with my feelings a lot better than I ever could in the past. All this development is making me understand myself and others better. I don’t imagine that anytime soon we will open things up. At the moment I don’t imagine it happening at all but I would never rule it out.

With this relationship a year in I can see that we want to head in the same direction. Although I have learned the art of compromise I seldom feel that we have to use it because it is not often that we want different things. That is not to say that there are not little things where we have to give and take but the bigger picture, the ideal image of where we would like our relationship and future to head is similar. I have had the privilege to have experienced several different kinds of relationships. What I have found is often my quirks go against what the other person wants or needs. I like to be at home, I am not really interested in being out and about several times a week. In the past I have had partners who where opposite to this. At the time this was a good thing, it meant that I challenged myself to be more extroverted, more social and meet new people. Now I am more settled and with a partner who enjoys being at home as much as I do. The years I spent pushing myself to go out mean that I don’t feel like I have missed out on something because I was to afraid to try and now I know that although I do have the confidence to interact with groups of people in social situations despite the fact it does not come naturally to me I am choosing to take a step back and allow myself time to enjoy and value the time at home. Having someone at home who isn’t feeling pressured or coursed into staying in when they would rather be out makes that time even more cherished.

With this relationship because of all the self exploration in the past I feel that I have been able to reach a new level. At the risk of sounding incredibly corny I have found what feels like a kind of perfect love, the type that’s too good to be true. It is nice to be so wrapped up in someone else, and to feel that they are equally as wrapped up in me. I am still very much in aw of it all and without a certain level of awareness around my own feelings I could easily to be overwhelmed with the intensity of it.

I am still very involved in the subject of polyamory and monogamy, I am very pro- poly, and I feel like western society at the moment pushes people into monogamy and any kind of sexual freedom especially for females is seen as negative. I see positive and negative in both polyamory and monogamy and now I feel like I am somewhat in the middle. In an exclusive relationship but still feeling like part of me will always feel good about polyamory because I have gained so much from it.

enlightenment

2010-07-26T16:31:00.000-07:00

“You are not the source of each other's Love. You are helping each other to access the LOVE that is the Source."

What do you do when you discover something so huge that it is overwhelming? Something that has your heart hammering, your pupils dilating and sweat dripping because its so incredible you physically react to it in ways that are powerful enough to bring you to your knees? What if that is just the tip of the iceberg because how you feel, your spirit, soul, or whatever it is that you believe makes you the person you are and more than just a physical being is responding in ways that words cannot describe?.

I strongly disagree that one person completes another because I believe that everybody is whole. I do not usually use terms such as “other half”. I do not think of myself as only part of a couple. I am me, one complete soul living and learning autonomously. My partner is also a separate being on this mortal coil to gain little bits of enlightenment until he is ready for whatever comes next and what comes next we are not meant to understand. If we could appreciate that now our entire reason for existing, for feeling, for developing and pushing ourselves to experience more and more would be gone. I am but one tiny being in this universe that is possibly infinite how could I realistically understand its purpose.

Soul mates
Twin-souls
What these terms have come to mean and what they where intended to mean seems to have been lost. I do not believe we have only one Soul mate. I have a strong belief in reincarnation however I am not arrogant enough to claim that I am right and all the other religions and faiths in this world are wrong or indeed that the atheists are wrong. I believe what I believe because personal experience keeps bringing me back to this path and because I have a very strong gut feeling that I should/need/want to learn more about this.

I have many debates with friends who have a rainbow of faiths about my own faith and I have always enjoyed learning more about what they have faith in. Faith interests me. I have said many times that I had a somewhat spiritual experience that pushed me onto the path I am on and I have rarely shared what that experience entailed. That is mainly because it’s something that is almost impossible to put into words.

I was 16 years old and on my way back from London. I was at a very low point I’d had an awful time and ended up very ill. I sat on the train and I started to read my book. It was a poetry book of modern poems. I love poetry, reading it and trying to write it in my own amateur way. I was aware of someone sitting down next to me but I didn’t look up. The stranger got themselves settled and then I was vaguely aware of someone peering over my shoulder at what I was reading. I didn’t look up because I didn’t really feel like I wanted a conversation. A girl’s voice with a strong Russian accent commented that I must enjoy writing poems because most people who read poetry also write. I looked up at her to be polite and said that yes I did write but I wasn’t very good. When I looked at her I knew her. I didn’t know where from or how but I most defiantly knew this girl. A look of recognition passed between us and then she said out load “you look very familiar” I laughed and said so do you. I assumed she was someone that I had bumped into before so I asked her if she was heading to Edinburgh. She told me she was and I asked her if she knew anyone in Edinburgh and suggested that maybe we had friends in common or we had met at some point and hadn’t remembered. She told me that she had arrived a couple of days ago from Russia and that she had never visited the UK before now. That was extraordinary because I had never visited Russia but I knew this girl the feeling was so profound and unexplainable that I could not just pass it off as insignificant. More importantly it was a feeling that was shared between strangers. She kept saying that she felt like we had met before and we where both baffled at how strong this recognition felt despite the fact there was no logical reason.

We spent the next 7 hours (train was delayed) talking. We talked about anything and everything. About what this feeling or recognition might be and why we shared it. About or faith or lack of it and how disillusioned we where with the world and life in general. We exchanged poems as we both liked to write and we talked about our lives and our hopes for the future. I told her things that I hadn’t told anyone before. When the train arrived at Waverly we parted both agreeing that it somehow didn’t feel right to exchange contact details though we where not sure exactly why.

This kind of encounter is something you need to live through to appreciate. It was more about feeling and intuition than anything that is easily put into words. The feeling of knowing her was so intense I can’t explain it through words. The entire encounter was like dehjavu and yet so much more than that. The dehjavu feeling lasted the entire 7 hours that we where together. I had goose bumps up my arms and the hairs on the back of my neck where prickling. I felt a feeling close to the feeling one gets when you meet someone that you are attracted to and yet the feeling was not sexual. Beyond the physical feeling I felt something else that really is impossible to put into words. It didn’t feel like it came from me or her it felt like we where both creating an energy together.

After this chance meeting I spent a long time thinking about and looking into the Buddhist faith. Especially in regards to reincarnation because at the time it was my only explanation for the feeling both myself and this girl felt. It was as if we had some friendship or relationship in another lifetime. Over the years I have come to evaluate and try and understand each relationship in my life. Whether reincarnation is fact or not does not take away the value of looking deeper into each encounter and experience and seeing how the relationships or events (however fleeting) have impacted on my life. It has meant that I have gradually started to stop thinking on events as fair or unfair, bad or good, negative or positive and start to see all things no matter how difficult as an opportunity to grow.

Since my recent breakup with my long term partner I have looked very closely at all my previous relationships and from the perspective of my spiritual beliefs I can see how each one has impacted on me. My first relationship at 17 was the classic high school romance. So very intense and yet back then I was perhaps more in love with the idea of love itself than I was with him. There was never any real security that he loved me back and he was not always particularly nice to me and yet I carried on loving him unconditionally until the day he left me. When that relationship ended it broke my heart. At the time, him ending our relationship felt like the worse thing that could possibly happen. I learned later on that there are far bigger heartaches than losing your first love. I had to cut all contact with him just to get over him and yet now years on I have been able to let that hurt go. Seeing him now as an adult I just appreciate that he was the first man I ever loved. Looking back in hindsight after several other relationships I am more able to see that there are different levels to love and what was felt so intensely then was so because I had never experienced that kind of romantic love before. It was incredible at the time but nothing compared to what I have experienced since.

Then there was Chris, the man I had to work out karma with. Chris is a soulmate and I still believe that now even after we have decided to end our romantic relationship. With Chris I was able to work through past Karma. It is my belief that before I was ever born there was an agreement with Chris to do this.

This idea is one that I came to on my own and later studied. It is called a soul agreement and the theory is that before we are born into our human form we make agreements with other souls to meet in this lifetime and hopefully learn from each other. This does not mean that everything is predestined and although I believe something’s are destiny I also trust that we have free will otherwise we are not really learning at all and are merely puppets. The souls understand that certain people will get together and are likely to grow together, or learn from each other. There is also the possibility of resolving karma that may have built up over several lifetimes (Karmic soul agreements)

My relationship with Chris was and in a way still is passionate and fiery. It was very much the kind of relationship that is hate/love. We’ve had some wonderful fights, and even greater make-up sex. He has sustained me through the worst of my depression and looked after me when I was sick physically. He taught me that there are good people in this world who will look out for me. I would never have any qualms about spending 6 years of my life romantically involved with this man. Conversely I also have no regrets about our relationship moving on to a different phase because for me it feels like we have worked out a lot of karma and have been able to end things in a way that allows us to carry on being close friends. I get a very strong sense that now was the right time to end things and so does he. This means that we don’t have to part on a negative note and can hold onto our friendship and love without one person wanting more. Chris is a soulmate because he had to be a part of this life. We had to make our baby and we had to lose that baby because everything is exactly how it is meant to be. I would go to hell and back to change the fact that we lost Samson but I also accept that by losing him I have gone through one of the worst heartaches anybody can imagine and I survived, Chris survived and we survived.

There have been other less serious romantic relationships when Chris and myself where polyamorous, some lasting months other only weeks and one more than a year. All of these added a fresh layer of knowledge and understanding to my life and all of them even the ones that hurt me the most I value.

I am no longer polyamorous though I still support, and keep many of the values that I have developed because of polyamory. I still live with 2 men that I love and still consider family. The only difference is that I am no longer sexual with Chris. It feels very strange calling him my ex or calling our change in dynamics a break-up because to me a breakup is a termination of relationship and in this circumstance there is still a close relationship it has just changed from a sexual one to a friendship. It feels like we are between friends and lovers and there is no word in the English language that defines us. I hope that Chris will always be a part of my life I do not expect that we will live together indefinitely although for the foreseeable future this arrangement will continue. I do expect that he will be my friend and confidant for life.

I am now for the first time in years in an exclusive relationship and from the very beginning this relationship has opened my eyes to a different kind of intimacy. Before I met Rick I didn’t believe in love at first sight and I am not even sure that I do now. What I do know is that there was something between us from the very first moment I saw him. There is no way to describe what I felt that first meeting. We did not immediately get together or meet again. I did not pursue the attraction and feelings because at the time I was already pregnant and my love life was already complex. I did not forget him and thought lots about how I may orchestrate another chance meeting. It wasn’t until I lost my baby and life started to settle down for me that the opportunity to meet him again came about thanks to a mutual friend. I never imagined the attraction or feelings would be mutual.

It is never difficult to be with him. I do not need to think about what I say or do around him. I was able to tell him only a few days into our relationship things that would normally take me years to have the confidence in someone to reveal. I am usually a very open person however there are some things that I do not share easily. It was a relationship from the start, there was no slow build up like I am used too or would expect, and everything just clicked into place from our first date. There was and still is an intense attraction on a sexual level yet I recognize that even if circumstances where that we could not have a sexual relationship I would still be unable to give him up. I have experienced love in many ways and those of you who are familiar with my past poetry will know that there is usually a raw edge to how I interpret love. There is usually a mix of pain and pleasure, with him there is nothing painful about our relationship aside from the sometimes frightening intensity of it all it is very easy to be together.

Whatever it is that we have it is new to me. It has been and continues to be a learning curve. It is only in recent weeks that I am starting to feel more stable. There is no doubt in my mind that we are meant for each other and that is a very soothing thought. I can’t imagine the things that we might share together in the future, a year is not that long in the scheme of life but it feels like an exciting place to be. Being with him makes me want to explore spiritually in more depth once again. Not because he is a very spiritual person but because the depth of our bond makes me think about what it all means. I can’t settle on believing that it’s all for nothing, that all this learning and developing and the little bits of enlightenment I am attaining with each new experience are meaningless. There is also the thought of what happens after this life and the astute realization that we all die; including him. That even if I love him from now until my life ends, our lives do end and what then? The past few weeks have been full of reading and thinking about faith and I am in the headspace now to continue with that as an adult. The last time I truly looked into this was at 16 years old when I was very caught up in so much emotional turmoil and also very inexperienced. 10 years on perhaps it is time to go back and evaluate some more. I am by no means some kind of new-age fanatic nor am I ever going to be a good Christian girl. Even some of the teachings in the Buddhist faith don’t feel right just yet but I want to know more and in my opinion the best way for me to do that is not to set myself limits by reaching out to only one set of guidelines that some organized religion has set out to be the only truth and instead respect and learn about all faith and what it means to people individually and what it means to me. I have no desire to join any mass group of people because although I can see so much value in some of the organized religions I have a strong desire to make this a personal journey. I know that I am now more content than I have ever been and that is not because my life is empty of difficulties its because of those challenges and my starting to accept that both the things that give me peace and the things that cause me pain are of equal value. A sense that the I cannot have the good without the bad..

A Positive End

2010-07-08T17:28:00.000-07:00

Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.~Vincent van Gogh~

It is official; I am tentatively dipping my toe back into the world of monogamy. That may come as a shock for some I am sure others will relish the opportunity to smile smugly and pronounce that they where right all along and polyamory really doesn’t work.

The reason for this is largely because after 6 years, my relationship with one of my partners felt like it had developed into more of a friendship than an intimate relationship. I am not keen on the phrase split-up or break-up because that implies a complete breakdown of a relationship and love; that is just not the case with us. It’s been more an even process, a change over time. It has been a positive ending to just one part of our relationship and that means there is no fuss, nothing worth gossiping about, no great big fight or anything remotely that dramatic.

It is also not a case of me leaving him for my other partner because the decision was based on the individual feelings and unrelated to anybody else but him and me.

I notice, going through this with him that people often presume that one party has to be wronged in some way during a break-up. People often believe that they have to take a side. Perhaps not in a blatant way but in a subtle way. In our case I am well aware how things can be perceived. No matter how open I am about polyamory and what that means in regards to agreement and honesty from all persons involved there are still some people who view more than one partner as cheating.

Being in the kind of relationship that we have has given us a wider grasp of our own feelings and an appreciation of each others needs. I do not regret the time, energy and work we have put into each other. Thinking about endings and relationships has highlighted how glad I feel that we don’t go about things with our eyes closed. It seems so easy to fall in and out of love without really having any insight. I believe that because we where always aiming for candid communication it meant that we where able to realise that it was time for change before we felt stifled or started to become bitter.

I feel like even though a part of me is sad that things have changed I am also very lucky that we are both able to keep a level of closeness and friendship that most people would expect to lose in these circumstances. This is part fluke, (because we both agreed and decided that we wanted things this way and therefore it’s easier to accept) but also because we where able to tell each other what we thought and end things at a time that felt right. I would rather be in a happy relationship for 6 years and then continue a close friendship with someone who has shared a part of my life than be in a relationship for 40 years and spend 34 of those fighting and miserable.

And so…

Chris is someone that I have loved for 6 years and will continue to love. I am lucky to have him as part of my life in the past, present, and hopefully the future.

Now, we will both be on a journey to see what is next and for now I am taking a step back into monogamy. The main reason for this is because at the moment I am very focused on other goals. I have no desire to date. I loved being poly but it’s not easy to find 1 person to fall in love with let alone 2. The reward of being poly are great but it does require work and for now I comfortable with it just being myself and Rick. For me this will be an interesting change – for most people it’s the norm. I am curious to know how normal feels (it’s been a LONG time) I would never rule out polyamory again and I still encourage anyone to look into it and if it feels right try it. It can work, I have no regrets.

Social Interaction

2010-06-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

I have been re-evaluating my long term hang-ups around social scenes and social interaction.

For countless years I have frustrated myself around my lack of social skills. I have made the new years resolution “I will be more social” for years and never attained any momentous personal development in the area. It used to bother me. I am always left with an acute awareness that there is something I lack, some essential quality that would allow me to “fit in” some personality trait that I am obviously missing. I do not know what this quality is; only that I lack it.

Do not confuse this with shyness. I am not generally shy. I can at times be quiet but I can also be fairly extroverted. I can in the right mood talk and laugh with complete strangers. My problem is developing deeper levels of relationships in wider social structures. My difficulty is relating with groups of people long term. Every social group has its own structure where everyone has a place. I never feel that I truly have a place in any group which results in much paranoia. My paranoia is an irritation and yet I am aware that it is based somewhat in reality.

I have been searching for that thing that I lack as far back as primary school. A about a week ago I stopped searching completely freeing myself from the burden of trying to push myself into whatever social group I may be around at the time.

The worse time in my life socially was high-school. Those people who tell you that high-school is the best years of your life are lying. For me, and I am sure many others high school was dreadful. I did not fit in at all. Not with the geeks, the cool kids, the chavs, or even the other misfits. I was mostly totally alone. I could list hundreds of negative comments that where said to me over and over again. Slut, Whore, Raj, ugly, thick, stupid, too fat, too thin, breasts to small, to big, bitch, cow…
Along with the verbal stuff I got my head smashed into a wall, kicked in the back, slapped across the face by a much older teenage boy, spat on, punched, and constantly being threatened with violence. All that was bad, but the thing that really pushed my confidence and self worth through the ground was the fact that the teachers just didn’t care. They honestly had no desire or motivation to help any of the children/teenagers in that school with bullying issues. A teacher stood and watched as my head was smashed against a wall and then several others joined in and started kicking me when I was on the floor. He looked me in the eye and he walked away. Then when I complained that nobody intervened he denied ever seeing the incident.

The deputy head told me that if only I conformed a little bit more. Went along with the crowd a bit more often then people would like me. I remember her saying “it’s just the way YOU are Julianne” I understand kids can be cruel but really there is no excuse at all for the adults to ignore that level of bullying.

5th and 6 year the physical attacks stopped. The outright verbal abuse also stopped but years of me being the social outcast meant that people just treated me like dirt or ignored me completely.

So perhaps the bullying at school has meant that I just didn’t develop the social skills that other people develop over there teenage years. Maybe those traits are ether present or not and my lack of them caused the problems at school. I will probably never know.

Since then I have always felt lonely and so always hoped that one day I might suddenly learn how to interact and be social and make people like me. The loneliness drove me to keep trying, again and again to fit in and everyone of those times I’ve failed.

Doing some research I found a list of 6 key social skills,

The main social skills are as follows:1) The ability to remain relaxed, or at a tolerable level of anxiety while in social situationsRegardless of how skillful you are in social situations, if you are too anxious, your brain is functioning in way unsuited to speaking and listening. In addition, if your body and face give the unconscious message that you are nervous, it will be more difficult to build rapport with others.

This is something I find impossible. With any new people, especially groups my anxiety levels are through the roof. I am usually good at hiding how terrified I am however my heart is usually pounding; I get a huge overwhelming urge to just run away. This happens until I really know a person and it can take me up to a year or longer to feel comfortable in someone’s company (depending on how often I am in there company) I have yet to ever feel comfortable in groups of more than 3.

2) Listening skills, including letting others know you are listening
When you had dinner with Gladstone, you were left feeling that he was the most charming person you had ever met. But after dinner with Disraeli, you felt that you were the wittiest, the most intelligent, and the most charming person.Dr Warren Bennis PhD, University of California
There is little more attractive and seductive than being truly listened to. Good listening skills include:
Making 'I'm listening' noises - 'Uh-huh', 'really?', 'oh yes?' etc.
Feeding back what you've heard - "So he went to the dentist? What happened?"
Referring back to others' comments later on - "You know how you were saying earlier…"
Physical stillness, eye contact and attentiveness while the other person is talking.
Listening skills I am usually good at because of my background in person centered therapy the problem is getting rid of the anxiety long enough to have a proper conversation.

3) Empathy with and interest in others' situationsA major part of social anxiety is self consciousness, which is greatly alleviated by focusing strongly on someone else. A fascination (even if forced at first) with another's conversation not only increases your comfort levels, it makes them feel interesting.

I don’t believe I have any problem with empathy. Other people’s feelings, life events, recent or past usually do interest me.

4) The ability to build rapport, whether natural or learnedRapport is a state of understanding or connection that occurs in a good social interaction. It says basically "I am like you, we understand each other". Rapport occurs on an unconscious level, and when it happens, the language, speech patterns, body movement and posture and other aspects of communication can synchronies down to incredibly fine levels.Rapport is an unconscious process, but it can be encouraged by conscious efforts.
Body posture 'mirroring', or movement 'matching'
Reflecting back language and speech, including rate, volume, tone, and words
Feeding back what you have heard, as in 2) above
I don’t believe any of this happens with me in a natural way. I am usually too anxious. I find it extremely difficult to connect at all with other people because the way they think and there reality’s can often seem worlds away from my own. There are a very few people that I have really connected too and they are the people who I have had lasting friendships with. In my entire life that is less than 6 people.

5) Knowing how, when and how much to talk about yourself - 'self disclosure'Talking about yourself too much and too early can be a major turn-off for the other party in conversation. Good initial small-talk is often characterised by discussion of subjects not personal to either party, or by an exchanging of personal views in a balanced way.However, as conversations and relationships progress, disclosing personal facts (small, non-emotional ones first!) leads to a feeling of getting to know each other

This again I have some serious problems. I am rubbish at small talk, it usually feels forced. I have been told frequently that I said something inappropriate or asked question that is by far too personal after the fact. The pressure not to say the wrong thing makes the anxiety grow and then talking at all becomes so stressful that I tend to want to withdraw completely.

6) Appropriate eye contactif you don't look at someone when you are talking or listening to them, they will get the idea that:
You are ignoring them
You are untrustworthy
You don't like the look of them (!)
This doesn't mean you have to stare at them. In fact, staring at someone while talking to them can give them the feeling you are angry with them. Keeping your eyes on them while you are listening, of course, is only polite.Of course these are not hard-and-fast rules, eye contact for instance, varies between cultures, but in general, practicing these will improve your social skills if you find social situations difficult.
Any eye contact usually increases the anxiety dramatically and so I often look elsewhere. If I am consciously trying to make eye contact I seem to freak the other person out. (Perhaps because it’s forced)

And so,
I am indeed a social retard.

However, I am no longer making the new years resolution to be more social. I am not lonely anymore. I have a few; very close relationships in my life that mean I don’t have that same longing to fit in to some group. It’s ok if people don’t like me because I don’t need them too. Very gradually I have felt myself accept when I am rejected by a group in an obvious or not so obvious way. Recently if I am in a situation where I am completely overwhelmed I have let myself go and sit alone for a while. I know the way I think things through for reasons I would rather not disclose on this blog, will always be different to most others and so there is always going to be a larger gap for me to cross before I can be accepted. I still hope in time it might improve but for now I am going to stop beating myself up for not being liked.

Spirituality

2010-05-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

Spirituality

The things and events of time and space... the stuff that's surrounding you now, your memory of recent events, all simply reveal where you've been, not where you're headed.

It is rare for me to talk about my spiritual beliefs and I can sometimes be brazen about my distaste for any organized or strict religion. It is often assumed therefore that I am an atheist. This is not the case. I do have some faith and I am very interested in learning more. I would never claim to be certain about any religious path but I do have a drive to learn more and so far my beliefs sway strongly towards a particular area of spiritually.

My own spiritual beliefs are not so much beliefs and more a strong pull in one direction, that direction is reincarnation. I have a deep internal pleading to explore this more and so I have for some years done research on the topic. One of the ideas that I have adopted is the idea of young and old souls.

Awareness of soul age can be abused. It is easy for some people to look down on the younger soul ages and deem them to be of less value than someone of a mature or old soul age. However that is not true and people doing this are often younger mature souls who have developed enough awareness to know that the possibility of a soul age exists but not enough awareness to know that every stage of learning and development is significant. It is worthwhile understanding soul age simply because it makes sense that people are at different stages of development through lifetimes in the same way that they are at different stages of development in one life. If we know that someone is a child then we can appreciate why that person is behaving in a particular way and it is easier to understand them instead of judge them.

I avoid putting people into neat groupings and I do not try to label everybody or guess there soul age but when someone is obviously acting in a way that tells me that they are a younger soul I have far more empathy and understanding for there actions. I am more likely to talk to them and try and understand them, or help them learn a different way than I am to sit and judge pretending I am above them.

Brief run down of souls and soul age
There are 5 stages,

Infant soul age – not unlike infants or children, they do not no much about life because they are in the first stages of spiritual development. There needs and drives tend to be primitive and elementary and they are in desperate need of guidance. It is likely that they only make up about 1 percent of the population and often there is a certain innocence about them that lasts a lifetime. They are rarely interested in the meaning of life or they will simply adopt the views of those around them without giving much thought. They are gullible and do not have enough depth of personality to recognize a silly idea or suggestion, this can leave them susceptible to outlandish absurd beliefs or ideas. This does not mean they are intellectually defiant. They may be university graduates. It is there perceptions and awareness that defines them as infant. An appropriate motto for the Infant soul is, "Let's not do it". They do not know how to confront the world effectively. They view sexuality and sex in an animalistic way, not really getting any deeper as an older soul may do.

Baby soul – Baby souls are more advanced than infant souls. In my opinion this would be better named child/teenage soul age. They are no longer like children but there is still a lacking of understanding of the world around them and can often develop a teenage no it all attitude. They borrow simple concepts of right and wrong from the rules of society, or better yet, what they perceive to be the laws of God, and then stick doggedly to them all their lives. Baby souls tend to avoid eye contact with others — or any other kind of contact. They do not feel comfortable with physical closeness, affection, and honest sexuality. Baby souls cannot easily deal with conduct outside their own narrow channel. Baby souls tend to follow the “moral majority” and do not feel comfortable confronting social norms or being different. If they could they would impose there strict narrow world view on others who do live in there limited comfort zone. Baby souls most likely comprise of around 22percent of the population. Baby souls expect others to be like them, and are surprised and bewildered when this proves to be incorrect. They do not know how to deal with the differences in other people.

Young soul - Young souls are at the height of vigor with respect to material pursuits. There are more Young souls in this nation and on this planet than any other soul Age. Between 40 and 45 percent of the population are Young souls. Young souls have somewhat of a hang-up about normalcy. They want very much to be considered normal themselves, and they want everybody else to be what they consider normal. They tend to adhere to all social institutions and cultural norms, such as marriage, religion, law, politics, education, and family. Young souls find it distressing when Child souls or Old souls do not follow society's rules. Young souls still have fairly simple perceptions about life. They rarely get introspective enough about themselves to question their motivations. Since they value material success so much, they usually ignore emotional, psychological, and spiritual considerations within and without themselves. The great majority of television shows are produced by Young souls for Young soul consumption, paid for by Young soul advertisers. The "soap opera" is Young soul entertainment fare.

Mature Soul - Like people in the fifth and sixth decades of life, much of their experience is behind them. That is, they have subconscious access to depths of experience not present in younger souls. Consequently, their perceptions are fairly advanced. Rather than look forward and outward like younger souls, they look backward and inward. They constantly evaluate whether their life goals are being achieved, and what they would do differently if they could start again. They have a strong tendency to be introspective. This incessant self-evaluation can lead to psychological difficulties. Mature souls are in a searching mode all their lives. There is an itch to "find themselves" and "express themselves". Personal fulfillment is their constant quest. This they never quite achieve to their own satisfaction. The problem is that Mature souls are complex — the most complex of the entire cycle. There is so much going on in their psyches which other people cannot fathom, and they themselves do not understand. The Mature soul age is the most challenging of the Ages. Mature souls are agitated, sensitive, and touchy. They are working through emotional blocks. They are the most likely of the ages to need and seek psychological counseling for their emotional difficulties. The majority of people who go to psychologists for counseling are Mature souls, and the majority of psychologists are themselves Mature souls — and they probably have a lot of psychological churning that they themselves are working through. Mature souls are psychologically attuned to other people enough that they empathetically experience other people as they experience themselves. This is not true of people in the younger Ages. As a result of this intuitive perception, Mature souls are touchy about who they deal with. They are easily upset by the "vibrations" of people that they are not in harmony with. If there are uncomfortable feelings with another, they will likely leave if they do not feel some obligation to stay. It is unusual for a person younger than Mature to experience true love for the mate. Mature souls want someone to whom they can relate meaningfully, rather than just someone to fulfill the stereotypical role of a mate ordained by Young-soul society. Mature souls are the avant-garde of society. It is they who make the genuinely novel contributions to the advancement of culture. They are the inspired visionaries. Whatever field of endeavor you might name — whether scientific, religious, political, technological, artistic, philosophical, humanitarian, or economic — it is the mature souls who are in the forefront, at the leading edge, on the frontiers. Mature souls often campaign for reforms in society.

Old Souls - They have access through the subconscious to a great wealth of experience. Often they become teachers to pass this knowledge and wisdom on, but to a limited number of students — there is little desire or effort to release their understanding into the world in general. In fact, in the last Levels, some Old souls can be so world-weary that they are ready to just lay down and die. Like a person in the last decade of life, the Old soul is "winding down" so to speak, or "in retirement", preparing for death, settling the estate, and tying up loose ends. In terms of the theory of reincarnation, the Old soul is clearing the way for the final break with the physical plane. It is rare for an Old soul to make a great contribution to society or culture. The reason for this is that they have largely given up on the world. It just does not seem worth the trouble to spend a lot of energy for things that do not last. They are a rare breed, comprising about eleven percent of the population. They generally shun heavy entanglements with other people. When they do get involved, it is because there is a strong spiritual bond. By this is meant that either there is a karmic attachment (past-life association). It is difficult for Old souls to weld unions with people that they have not been together with in numerous past lifetimes. Old souls have very few psychological problems to deal with. Presumably, these have been worked through in previous lifetimes. Their subconscious access to depths of experience means that there is very little they do not understand about what is going on, both out in the world and within themselves. But Old souls do have one significant problem, and that is that they are subject to psychological depression. The reason for this is that, to them, life seems heavy and boring — "life is a drag". They perceive that it is all a game, a contrived situation, and they no longer want to play the game. They feel like they have seen it all, so what is there left to live for? But most Old souls do come around to the understanding of reincarnation at some time in their lives, even in countries where this is not taught as a dogma. It is possible for a person at any age and Level to have an appreciation of this metaphysical tenant. To most Old souls it seems intuitively obvious. This is one of the perceptions that are inherent by reason of the depth of contact with the subconscious present in the Old soul. Because of their advanced perceptions, Old souls are inherently ethical in behavior, feeling, and thought. They do not have to be taught right and wrong by parents or society. There is some socializing to be done when they are children of course, but the programming for decency, honesty, and integrity is inborn. It is as if they are grown-up even when they are children. They always feel like they are older than their chronological age. What the Old soul seeks in romantic relationships is a "soul mate" — someone to whom he relates on a soul level. This might be someone else with whom he has spent many lifetimes, or another soul in his own Entity. The drive for this is so strong that it could be described as a compulsion.

I do not believe in a God in the traditional sense. I do not claim to know what will happen to me when I finally reach enlightenment – or die. I just believe that this life is not the only life I have had or will have and that I am on a journey. I do not yet know where that journey is leading me but I am not meant to know these things, when I am ready to know then my path will lead me to that knowledge.
I believe strongly that we are linked to other people through lifetimes and this ties in with the idea of a soul mate, or soul mates. There are a few people in my life that I relate to on this level. It is possible that we make agreements with people before this lifetime begins to be a part of each others journeys and there are people that we will have relationships with on many different levels through many lifetimes. This ties in with my relationship model of polyamory because by opening myself up to be loved intimately by more than one partner at a time I am allowing myself the opportunity to experience more. Life is about experiences more than anything else. Many people assume it’s about finding happiness but happiness is just one state of mind. Currently I am happy on many levels and dissatisfied in others. If I was not aware of what goes on under my own subconscious then I may believe myself to be happy and neglect striving for more understanding. As it stands I can see clearly the things I do have in my life to be thankful for and I can see where I need to work to resolve my own issues. My goal is to grow and fully experience the good and the bad.

We must go through many different experiences through many different lifetimes and not all experiences are enjoyable. The difficult and times of utter despair are just as important as the times of contentment and happiness. I believe we have some choice in what will happen in each lifetime and this is a useful way to look at life because it means I am less likely to blame other people for my problems. The times that I have felt that what is happening is too me is unfair I remind myself that I chose this path for this lifetime and that my inner self knows that I have the strength to deal with these things. Some lifetimes are harder than others but in the end if I believe in Karma eventually it will balance out.

I read a book a few years ago that gave a list of basic guidelines to live by and I have written these guidelines in my diary every year since. They are not always easy to follow and I fall short a lot. I am still only 26 years old and I have not yet mastered my emotions but these are the things that I strive to do;

· Always look for the gift in adversity
· Never indulge in self pity
· Never blame anyone else for your problems
· Cultivate an attitude of gratitude
· Do not judge your condition or that of others
· Avoid sentimentality
· Recognize that disease is not a punishment
· Seek opportunities to serve
· Learn to regard death as healing

(I cannot remember what this book was called it was lent to be a few years ago and I really wish I had bought myself a copy so if anyone can tell me the author please do let me know)
I have a long way to go on my own spiritual path but I find the entire subject fascinating. I am sure of very little except that I do not wish to be part of any organized religion with rules that go against what feels right for me. More than anything I believe that people should listen more to there intuition. My life and views are not static I rarely stick to one thing because I am always challenging myself. The things I am exploring and passionate about now I may have moved past them by the time I am 30 but that does not mean that the experiences where any less valuable.

Do we live to please other people?

2010-04-23T18:09:00.000-07:00

“Before the discovery of Australia, people in the old world were convinced that all swans where white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence. The sighting of the first black swan might have been an interesting surprise for a few ornithologists (and others extremely concerned with the color of birds) but that is not where the significance of the story lies. It illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observation or experience and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans. All you need is one single (and I am told, quite ugly) black bird” Nassim Nicolas Taleb

Do we live to please other people?

It was a question posed to me during the week and it got me thinking.

I would like to think I don’t live to please other people. I pride myself on not being one of the sheep, following the crowd and doing what’s expected off me. To an extent I don’t. I’m righteous about doing my own thing no matter how controversial or peculiar. I do nonetheless have to concede that every now and then I do something that goes against my own gut intuition of what I want and what is right and wrong because of anxiety regarding other people’s reactions.

Why do people care so much about what other people think? Why do I care what other people think? It makes some sense when it’s someone close but it seems to be entrenched in our society to care what the majority think. It’s why we end up with social norms that make little or no sense. It’s why people do crazy things like smoke cigarettes even though anyone trying a cigarette for the very first time must be acutely aware of how disgusting the smell, taste and how insanely bad for our health they are. It’s why we push and persecute people who don’t go along with the majority. We all like to think we are individualistic but it’s never that effortless. Being individual isn’t something that is usually rewarded in western society. In my opinion people have to fight for the privilege to be unique often getting labeled as mentally ill in the process.

Most of my life I’ve been fighting with myself and everyone else to do what I really want. It means I get a lot of grief. I was bullied at school because I generally did not conform. I didn’t care about wearing the trendy clothes, I was willing to say no to trying a cigarette, I often spoke up about stuff that just wasn’t acceptable or “normal” and so I was and am “the black sheep” It meant at school getting taunted constantly. This was not just from other teenage kids who didn’t know any better. I remember after having the courage to speak up about the bullying standing in the deputy heads office (a woman of around age 60) and her looking me up and down and telling me I brought it all on myself because I was knowingly acting different. “If I just tried to fit in a little better the bullying would stop and I’d have some friends”. It made me feel like there was something wrong with me and I should accept whatever bullying came my way.

School was never a happy place for me to be. Apart from being isolated and often physically kicked and punched. I had near to no friends in high school and the friends I did have where often happy to go along with the taunting if it meant they didn’t have to be taunted themselves. Nowadays the crowds may have changed and people are a little more subtle but things still stand as they where back then. I am not naive enough to believe that I am liked and instead I have come to the understanding that amongst most social groups I am merely tolerated.

The question is does this bother me? I think it does. There is always a very human fundamental part of me that wishes to be liked and yet I am willing to pay the price of feeling isolated for that little bit individuality that I can grasp. I feel like to be liked I’d have to give up being me and I’m not prepared or able to do that.

I could take the high and mighty stand now and say that here I am an individual and above or better than the rest of you because I choose not to conform to your shallow social limitations but I can’t because it’s not true. When I take a closer look at my life I AM conforming. Perhaps not as frequently as some but there are times I disappoint myself.

One example is hiding the fact I have a mental illness from most of my family. They know I’ve had some problems in the past but it’s not something we talk about and this is mainly because I know they would rather I was just normal and don’t want the stigma of having someone who has such an illness. I therefore have gone out my way to avoid them when things have been bad so that I don’t have to deal with feeling ashamed. I know logically I shouldn’t have to feel ashamed anymore so than if I had something physically wrong with me and yet I do. With friends and family I am mortified if something happens to make it obvious that I am going through a bad phase. I am intelligent enough to work out that this is simply because of how the majority are viewing mental illness.

Another example is when we came out about being polyamorous in the media we where given the opportunity to appear on a TV show (This Morning). I would have loved to do this, in-fact all 3 or us really wanted too. It seemed like a fantastic opportunity to talk about polyamory in the main stream and I was fairly confident that the show would allow us to show a balanced view of this lifestyle. Regrettably I had demands from my family to not do anymore interviews in the media because apparently it put them all to shame and they would have to leave the country and maybe even someone might die of shock if we went ahead and done anymore publicity about our wacky lifestyle. I was accused of “whoring myself out” to make money and it was put to me “why do you have to be so public why not do this behind closed doors”

Do I agree with any of that? NO! I would LOVE to take any opportunity to talk about polyamory and inform people as much as possible. Getting the issue on primetime TV is my idea of a dream come true because lets face it I like to talk about it a lot. I didn’t because I couldn’t deal with the repercussions. I want my family to like me so too please those people who seemed to be having a mini-breakdown I turned down that opportunity. I have since turned down a few more.

I can’t blame those people for stopping me because at the end of the day I should be able to stand up and do my own thing in spite of what they think. It is nobody’s fault but my own that we missed out on that chance. They are entitled to believe and feel the way they do as much as I am entitled to my way of thinking. There hang-ups have affected me enough that I’ve put the media stuff on hold for now but I am glad that I still have the nerve to live my life openly and honestly regardless of what other people say. The trouble is people are not going to accept polyamory or any other alternative way of thinking/being until enough people are actually out there doing it openly.

When I made the choice to come out about this to everyone it was with that in mind. The more people living in the closet, hiding there lifestyle like its something to be ashamed off the longer it will take to stop polyamorous people being disrespected and misunderstood. I knew that I was going to have judgments made about me when we told people I just hoped that I was right to put faith in my friends and family to see our little family for what it truly is (supportive and loving). As it stands about the only person in my family who even try’s to understand this is my Mum and she does try very hard. I am still intensely aware that she wishes I was just “normal like everyone else”. The older generations such as my Gran have given up on me completely. My 26th birthday was the only birthday that I haven’t received a card or phone call. My father and step Mum openly call me a whore. I have some close friends who barley speak to me now and one who said I would be a terrible mother if I continued to live my life this way. All of this hurts but it does not make me regret any part of how I have lived my life.

I came to terms with the fact that in order to live my life this way and be myself I will have to continue to be stigmatized and judged. I could spend many sleepless nights fretting what people think about me but I sleep sound in the knowledge that the 2 people I love most in the world think this is all perfectly fine and that’s Rick and Chris. I am perhaps a bit of an oddball, but I can conform like everyone else when the pressure gets too much. Perhaps I am lucky that I lack the social skills that would allow me to fit in nicely with any particular group because it meant I stopped trying and rather than live a life attempting to fit into the social norms I have found myself instead. At age 26 I can look back on my life and say that I truly feel I am making the most of it. I am aware when I am conforming and going against my own nature and that means as I get older and braver I will be able to conform less and less. I look forward to the places that will take me.

Sharing some of my own art and poetry

2010-04-21T19:58:00.001-07:00

Sharing some poetry and art I have done over past few years.

"Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe." ~Neil Gaiman

Weight of the world

Photograph my Mood

I wish I could photograph my mood,

imprison it with oil paints, smeared down pretty paper…

I'd give you a copy of this ever changing art,

so you know always which fragments need you most.

You touch me like I'm glass,

reminding me I'm frail,

but I want to be grabbed,

held tight

It really is ok to crush me,

I'm already broken.

There are kaleidoscope curtains across my eyes,

reality was painted over years ago.

The bonfires of my formal self's are still burning,

the smoke sitting in my stomach,

a hazy ghost of past intentions

hunting me down like a pack of wild hounds.

While you dream I let them take me,

When morning comes,you pull me back with arms bound tight around my belly,

repairing my faith in the passage of time

reminding me that this is now.

You ask SO, many, questions,

these days I don't wear a gag,

my mouth is drooling out these mangled nightmares

LISTEN TO ME!

You don't want this in your head because it changes everything.

The case of Lisa Strange

The Pretend Romantic

You pretended to be a romantic.

Whilst insisting outwardly That

“really… you didn’t have a romantic bone in your body”

yet still

enticing me with mills and boon tension charged words and

bowling in the odd nonchalant comment about how pretty I was,

you couldn’t help but notice my plunging neckline,

I used to wait up for you,

late at night.

to soothe your mask off discomfort,

at this scandalous situation we found ourselves.

The first time we fucked,

you pretended to cry

and I pretended not to notice the lack of real tears.

I didn’t mind when only a few minutes later,

you forgot your imaginary remorse

and pinned me back against the wall.

I listened to your grievance about your lack of sex life

and domestic hell,

How you aren’t the only man

who’d had an affair and “almost” run off with a younger woman.

Implying,(that made it all ok).

At the time

I suppose it did.

I longed to rescue you,

telling myself, (and you) that I’d fuck you,

no matter how fat and wrinkled you became,

or how putrid the smell from your sweating torso,

I!...would be the one to love you unconditionally.

Because

you said you loved me back

I could picture us growing old,

or at least you’d grow old.

I’d be the contented young wife.

People would marvel at how I stood by devoted in the face of old age,

finally agreeing our love was true.

Of course my fantasy curdled,

you predictably traded me in.

I was never the dutiful mistress you’d sought.

With my fanatical nature and inability to keep a secret,

the fact I was determined

you come through with some of those empty promises.

In the end

I was far too high maintenance.

Algolagnia

Maggot Parade

It's not like she doesn't know you're too good for her,

she's known that all along,

The awareness wrenched at the corners of her mind for months

humiliating and unyielding.

The knowledge gushed over her a torrid paranoia.

Sense screaming;

"it's not safe to get comfortable"

Not with someone like you.

her…A ruined rag of a woman,

Sometimes child,

clinging to you like a leech drinking you up,

sinking in her teeth again and again

hoping that you won't succumb to the irritation

and instead parent her like a needy 3 year old.

You took the parts of her that where meant to be strong

and bound them.

The irony of being incarcerated by lover destined to leave;

has left my endless story telling the only part

with the power to go on.

I have planned scores of poetry

and untold metaphors to convey the heartache,

the words are eating into my throat,

consuming me like a parade of maggots.

When you are gone,

I will birth my creativity,

because only then will I have the power to rot,

nourish them enough

until they fly from my hands wringing out the last of my mourning,

leaving my narration finally silent

a lonely hollow carcass.

Julianne Rennie

Some thoughtful quotes.

2010-04-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

Love withers under constraint; its very essence is liberty. It is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy nor fear. It is there most pure, perfect, and unlimited when its votaries live in confidence, equality and unreserve.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley~

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy~

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.~Emily Bronte~

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter. ~ ML King, Jr.~

“People…go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realizing that they are probably thinking other people’s thoughts, living by other people’s standards, wearing practically what one may call other people’s second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment.

…Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation”
~Oscar Wilde

Openness

An important part of satsang,
when we gather together to explore Truth,
is being open-hearted.
Some human beings find it easier to be open-minded,
and some find it easier to be open-hearted,
but to really be here now
is to be both.
When you are open,
you do not filter your experience,
nor do you barricade yourself.
You do not try to defend yourself,
but you open to the mystery
by questioning what you believe.
When you give yourself this amazing gift
of not trying to find yourself within some particular concept or feeling,
then the openness expands
until your identity becomes more and more the openness itself,
rather than some point of reference in the mind called a belief
or a particular feeling in the body.
The point is not to get rid of thoughts or feelings,
but just not to feel located inside of them.
~ Adyashanti, “Emptiness Dancing”

Why I choose Polyamory and other common questions.

2010-04-11T18:35:00.000-07:00

It is a question I’ve been asked a number of times. I have much respect for the people who actually ask it out loud and to my face than those asking it in whispers behind my back. Why would anyone choose this lifestyle, what do I gain, don’t I know what I’m losing. Isn’t one enough, how can I, why do I, why…

I had my first significant relationship aged 17. I was in love, I felt it intensely. We were both young but what we felt for each other was genuine. I still have warm memories of my first love. It was wholesome, fresh and untainted. What disturbs me now looking back is realizing how many people were against us. Things where serious at a young age but I have no regrets about this relationship and I wouldn’t have traded it for any of the more traditional casual teen romances that where familiar in my high school. We broke up after 3 years but I learned a lot from him. It was a fluke that we found each other at a difficult time. What we both needed most was a friend and it was as friends that we confided in each other ironically making whatever teenage romance we were having much stronger. It was this rapport that would lay the groundwork for the rest of my adult relationships.

Even back then I remember being able to tell him when I found other people attractive, and likewise I was unperturbed with him commenting on other girls. It seemed instinctive and perfectly acceptable to be honest with each other and we delighted in the banter of talking about who we liked and why. We negotiated about one day having some kind of open arrangement but at the time we didn’t feel mature enough to deal with the consequences. It is very different talking about being attracted to other people and quite another doing something about it.

It was therefore instinctive for me to carry on with this in my next relationship (the man who is now my long term partner). From the very beginning I kept the momentum of honest self disclosure. The relationship with my partner now (Chris) was a more adult relationship and that made it more demanding but we were both committed to that and it was something we accepted we would be constantly working on. Chris knew from the start that I liked the idea of eventually opening thing up but it was 3 years into our relationship before we made any moves to make that happen. There was a huge sense of fear around what would happen once we introduced other romantic relationships,

* Fear of falling out of love with each other
* Fear of jealousy ripping us apart
* Fear of the other person’s influence
* Fear of what other people would think
* Fear that we would be judged and our relationship would not be respected
* Fear of not being in control

It was gut wrenching, sickening fear. We were almost too afraid to take the step into polyamory. It would have felt easier at the time to just carry on as a normal monogamous couple. Then events happened that led to a resolve being made that we would try (non-monogamy)

It was not easy. Back then we didn’t know what the word polyamory was all we knew was we where allowing the possibility of feelings to exist for other people. There was no handbook and nobody to tell us what to do and so we made lots of mistakes, got crazy jealous, and eventually had to put it on hold and sit down again to talk some more.

It was the second time around that we really talked, researched, and most importantly listened to each other. We spent a long time trying to figure out what it was we wanted. We stopped using words like primary and secondary and we started to let go of the idea of having total control over what happened in the future. We stopped trying to eradicate jealousy and seeing it as something only negative and instead explored the feeling and recognized it might never go away (this was NOT easy). The only way I can illustrate exploring jealousy is explaining it like someone picking at a scab over and over again, seeing all the gore underneath and trying to figure out how to heal the wounds. We slowly learned that like all emotions it was trying to tell us something and usually when we understood why we felt jealous we could do something to change it. It took another 6 months before we tried dating others again. It is testing I am aware some people claim that they don’t get jealous but I believe that puts people off polyamory because most people realise that they will get jealous.

What I give up by being polyamorous is the traditional, fairytale, norm of finding “the one” getting married and living happily ever after. I give up the option of cutting out the parts of life that make me feel nasty emotions such as jealousy and insecurity. What I gain in return is the understanding that there is more than one person out there who I am allowed to love and who will love me back and living this incredible life were I am constantly surrounded by people that love and care for each other.

So the questions people often ask,

Isn’t one man enough?

My answer

Its not about who is enough, I could say the same about friends or children. If you have more than one child should I presume that the first child wasn’t enough. Most parents would find this statement insulting. I view my romantic relationships on the same terms. I loved Chris with all my heart, when I fell in love with Rick it just felt like my heart got bigger. It was not a case of having to share it out between them and it was never a case of one not being enough for me they are both wonderful lovely men anyone would be happy to know just one of them the fact that I am in a relationship with them both makes me exceptionally lucky.

Don’t you all get Jealous?

My answer

Yes (which normally shocks people because they expect I will say no) but how can I say no of course I get jealous. That is like saying do I get angry, or sad, and yes I do I am human and I feel a huge range of emotions I am no more immune to jealousy because I am polyamorous than I would be immune to anger or hurt and both Chris and Rick feel jealous from time to time also they are like me only human.

The longer I do this the more I can be self aware when I feel jealous and deal with it quicker. It doesn’t go away it’s always something I have to work on just over time I have learned how to work on it more efficiently.

Recently I had a colossal, god awful bout of jealousy and this is after 3 years of polyamory! It was simply because of something new happening (the possibility of Rick dating). It hit me harder because it took me by surprise. I assumed that because I am mostly always ok (give or take a few minor hiccups) with Chris going on dates I would also be fine when it came to Rick. I was wrong. I can see now that it is the uncertainty of the future that brought up the feeling of jealousy in the first place and the fact that because things are not as established with Rick I don't feel as secure in this relationship as I am in my other. I was comparing a 6 year relationship with a 6 month relationship. I wasn’t planning to share this with anyone and felt considerably embarrassed by my reaction however after some consideration I realised that its moments like these that are so very important because this is what we learn from and this is the reality of polyamory. There is no point in gushing over all the good points if I am not prepared to talk about the more difficult aspects. So…for those of you who think I can’t possibly feel real jealousy, the horrible kind that normal people feel I’ll explain a little about what that moment was like for me,

It was like someone kicked me in the stomach, it was horror, and nausea and I cried my heart out. I cried so hard that I was leaning into a basin because I thought the tears would make me physically sick. I told him that I couldn’t deal with this and I was almost tempted to ask him not too. This was all over one date. I knew I was being hypocritical and unfair and I hated myself for it but for those moments I could not get past that feeling.

I am lucky, in moments like this we have learned to be patient and understanding. Rick is a remarkably accepting partner. After lots of hugs and reassurance the feeling started to ease. It always does even if at first only temporarily. Once I wasn’t so caught up in the emotion itself we had the chance to analyze it a little. I feel much better now but I know there is still a part of me that’s afraid because I’m insecure about Rick leaving me. Some people might advice me that this is a sign I should put a stop to all this, focus on one man and then everything will be ok. I disagree because underneath even if I was monogamous that insecurity would still be present. I just might not have been made so acutely aware of it. Yes Rick dating scares me but just because something scares me doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t do it. I am certain I will feel jealous again over this, I might even be somewhat irrational but at no point have I taken up Ricks offer to have him not date because I know that would only be a temporary solution to my insecurity.

I’m not saying this to put people off, but I’m being realistic because sometimes it really isn’t easy.

Next question…

Why do you do this if you feel jealous?
Doesn’t that mean that it’s not right?
Isn’t it cruel to the men that they have to share you?
Isn’t this torture?
(I could go on and on but you get the idea)

My answer

I accept that I will feel jealous from time to time in the same way that I accept that I will feel sad from time to time. When I feel sad I talk to one of my partners and they give me a hug and comfort me and we talk about what is making me feel sad and come up with a solution to how to make me feel happier. I do the same thing with jealousy. So Chris went to see his other girlfriend 3 times this week and I’ve been working lots so haven’t had a lot of time to spend with him myself. The next time he tells me he is going to see her I feel a pang of jealousy. Instead of letting that fester I talk to Chris when he gets home tell him that I feel a bit jealous and we try and figure out why. When we realise that I haven’t seen him in a few nights we make plans together for next time we are both free and make a point of letting each other know we still care for each other. (I think one of the positive things about polyamory is that often we are more sensitive to do those little things to make each other feel cherished).

It can go deeper, I might feel that she is prettier, more intelligent, more worthy of his love, there could be a whole list of serious reasons why I feel jealous but there is always a reason and there is always a solution. I am not the most secure, confident person on the planet so I accept that this will happen but I also see how much I grow every time jealousy does come up. The same goes for both my partners. If it truly was relentless torture and they where being torn apart by jealousy that was taking over there life’s and preventing them from being happy then I am sure that they would opt out of this type of relationship. The truth is when we started out with polyamory or when one of us meets someone new we deal with jealousy issues lots, these days its occasional the more we work at it the less it happens.

Why can’t you commit to just one man are you afraid of commitment?

My answer

Am I afraid of commitment (are you kidding) not only do I have mortgage, 2 dogs, and a cat with one man but I am also including a 2nd. I may not be married but we might as well be. I have made a commitment to both of them to share my home, my finance, my pets and in the future our children. Yes I can commit but why should it be just to one man? I am by no means a commitment phobic.

Don’t you want to get married?

My answer

Yes, I would love to get married. But I would love to marry them both and that is bigamy I could go to jail for a very long time. I am not a fan of marriage in the legal sense because I believe that marriage is between the people who want to make a declaration of love and NOT the state. I do not need a piece of paper from the government that tells me I am in a committed relationship. I do not follow any particular religion and so doing it in “the eyes of god” means very little.

However, that being said I do have some faith even if it’s not conventional and I am a very girly girl I’ve been planning my wedding since I was about 3! I have even been dress shopping a couple of times (ask my Mum). I am technically engaged to Chris, alas with a broken ring that will const me 250 pounds to fix but still I am engaged. I want to walk down the isle, I want the dress, the cake the first dance and the honeymoon, I want to stand up in front of all the people I care about and show them that I have found someone special. Chris proposing was one of the happiest days of my life and just because we haven’t officially got married does not mean that I took the promise to spend our life’s together any less seriously but I would not, could not marry just one man because I love 2 and if it ever did happen it would not be legal I would hand-fast, or have a commitment ceremony to them both. I’d have my wedding day but hopefully there would be 2 grooms not one J (yes I’m greedy) and the state, government or the city of Edinburgh Council would have nothing to do with it!!! Since I’m currently only engaged too Chris that not going to happen in near future.

You’ll give all this wacky stuff up once you have kids right…?

My answer

Why? I could spend hours debating whether polyamory is a healthy enough environment for children but that is a whole other issue. Links to useful resources on this
http://www.lovemore.com/articles/thinkkids.php

http://polyinthemedia.blogspot.com/2010/02/poly-as-child-friendly-way-of-life.html

I believe 100 percent that children can have a happy loving family even if that family is not traditional. I try not to get drawn into this particular debate because most people who feel the need to slap this one in my face have done little or no research on the matter and often have no experience at all in childcare. I may not have any living children but I spent 5 years in childcare and education and countless hours researching the impact on polyamory on children. Yes I am certain that my children will be loved, healthy and happy otherwise I am mature enough to opt out of having any.

And what with the kids if you split up?

My answer

The same thing that happens with any other couple with kids split up, I would like to believe that since we are already able to be self aware of our feelings and recognize when they are making us act in an irrational way that we would be mature when it came to children if the worse ever happened and our relationship broke down. The children I have will have the advantage of 2 fathers, but they will know who there biological Dad is. We have decided to be upfront and not make a big deal about that. It’s important they know but they will also know that they have the love and attention of us all. Chris kids and Ricks kids would be related (brothers or sisters) so should we break up it would be paramount that everyone was able to stay reasonable. If the romantic aspect of our relationship ended I would like to see us go on to being friends.

Do you have rules?

My answer

Yes we do, but not many and they are flexible. Mainly the rule is to (try) and be honest about everything possible/to keep talking and communicating. That is not always so easy especially if you think being honest about a particular thing might provoke a jealous or angry reaction in the person you are being honest with. It can sometimes seem easier to tell a white lie. The reaction however is important, we need to get past the reaction and see what’s really going on before it can be confronted and that is part of the reason why it is better to be honest.

We also accept that none of us are perfect and we are not telepathic we are committed to telling each other what we need, want, desire from the relationships and rather than expect each other to guess there is an issue we are (usually) able to verbally express things.

There are basic rules about protecting against unwanted pregnancy and STDs those are a given but for everything else we are very flexible because after sometime trying to control everything Chris and myself realised that its just not possible and stressing about the lack of control seems such a waste of time. We deal with things on a case by case basis. As long as we are respectful this situation works.

Do you have a third, are you looking for a third, where does this end?

My answer

I have the option of falling in love again and I have a very close male friend who I would say that I love but in a very different way than the others. I wish there was a word for a friend like that but there isn’t. We are not in a committed relationship and we are not aiming to be in one we enjoy the friendship that we have and are allowed to express that affection physically if we want too. Will we ever get serious or would I ever get serious with anyone else? The answer is that it’s unlikely not because I am not capable of loving a 3rd but because experience has taught me that even if my love is limitless my time is not and I cannot give a fair amount of my energy to 3 people. I think I might die of exhaustion if I tried but I would never rule it out completly :)

The possibilities for Chris and Rick are also open. Rick isn’t currently dating seriously because of lack of time and Chris has a on off girlfriend who I know he cares a great deal about but again there relationship is unique and different to any of my experiences and they are not currently planning on getting serious. If they did, or he did with someone else then we would evaluate that at the time. Before Rick moved in and became a part of our family it was not a decision we took lightly and for anyone else they would have to fit with everyone else already in our family. Sometimes I think another girl would be nice though I miss female company. There is no limit and no end to where this could go we are open to any possibility it’s sometimes hard to resist the urge to plan everything down to the last detail what nobody really knows what will happen in the future even those with a 5 year plan can’t be sure if something big or life changing is coming along to throw everything out of place.

What’s wrong with monogamy?

My answer

Nothing, if that is what you are happy with then there isn't anything wrong with it at all. It’s just not what I am happy with and since I can accept and respect your lifestyle I would like to hope you can accept and respect mine. A lot of people don’t feel there is any alternative to monogamy and me talking about our life is just my way of spreading the word that there IS an alternative.

Why don’t you do this behind closed doors?
Why be so open?

We want to live our life as open and comfortable as anyone else. We don’t feel we have done anything to be ashamed about so why should we hide it. I like the freedom of showing affection to them in public no matter who I am with without fear of people thinking I’m having an affair. Polyamory is just a different way of having a relationship it’s not something that needs to be hidden because really there is nothing wrong with it. Like anyone else I enjoy talking and debating about my choices and life. I want to be able to gush to my friends about the lovely romantic meal I had with Rick or the flowers Chris brought home. I want to be able to tell people why I’m so happy these days and I want to educate people who have misconceptions about polyamory. I have no regrets about telling the world and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

I knew someone who was polyamorous and it didn’t work, so polyamory doesn’t work?

My answer

I knew someone in a monogamous relationship and it didn’t work so monogamy doesn’t work. Think about what you are saying it’s not the relationship structure that didn’t’ work it is the relationship that didn’t work. Enough said.

There are perhaps a fair few more questions that I have been asked that I don’t remember or that I will be asked in the future but this is the just of it and these are the mains questions I get asked by people who are not already living this lifestyle. Other people who are already in situation like me usually have totally different questions because they have a much deeper understanding. I often get the same questions repeated by the same people over and over again (this is always a fun dinnertime conversation) and I get the same statements made over and over,

Yes I already know that you could never do this but why on earth did you had to tell me this 20 times in the last ten minutes?

Usually these types of debates in real life are interesting and almost fun; sometimes they are frustrating, and occasionally its just plain nasty. I can only hope that whoever actually read to the end of this entry learned something small about my life.

Jools

The ideal of absolute trust

2010-03-30T06:40:00.000-07:00

The ideal of absolute trust

I hear it all over the place, my friends, my family, in the media, online and in various communities I’m involved with “if you don’t have trust then your relationship will fail!” Trust is the holy grail of all relationships.

However, what is trust? It seems to be this untouchable ideal that everyone not only aspires too but takes as necessity when conducting any close relationship. We want to be trusted, and we want to be around people who are trustworthy. It made me think, what it means to me. What am I really asking for and expecting in return? In fact is anyone really trustworthy?

I don’t believe in trust. That is not a popular outlook especially in the poly/non monogamous world. I hear from my peers that polyamory only works when you have trust and once trust is broken so is the relationship(s). I would like very much to be able to trust other people to live up to my expectations and do what I demand or wish but isn’t that opinion slightly narcissistic. It feels to me that giving out my expectations and then expecting people not to break them is like saying the world revolves around me and what I believe is more valuable. If everyone is doing this then it’s inevitable that somewhere down the line trust will be broken. Yet in the face of this ever longing for unadulterated integrity logic and experience dictate that in any long term relationship trust will be broken. It may be in a small insignificant way, or perhaps in a huge, heartbreaking, life altering way but trust at some point or other will be broken and the relationship tested.

I don’t trust anyone. No matter how much someone says the like, respect, even love me I do not take for granted that they will never hurt me. I know that I could never make the promise myself. No matter how much I love or care about them the chances are I will do something at some point that is hurtful to them. I might respect them as a person and I might even wish there happiness above my own but I am aware of my limits and I make oversights. In the past I have made choices that I later find out may not have been the best choice for myself or for my partners. I sometimes make decision on the spur of the moment and sometimes those decisions are based on my own wants and needs without enough consideration for others. It can be accidental, sometimes there isn’t enough time for me to consider every possibility, other times I may give in to jelousy, lust or any number of overwhelming emotions that can cloud my judgement. I want to be a good person I strive to do my best but I learn as I go the same as anybody else. The blunders I do make I try not to think about as mistakes because those are the things I learn the most from. It’s those “mistakes” that usually lead to a growth in my own personal development and the growth of my relationship(s).

Obviously everyone has deal breakers (things that they will not accept as part of any relationship). Violence and abuse for me would be a deal breaker. Finding out one of my partners likes to hurt animals or small children would be a deal breaker. There is also a line between understanding someone will make mistakes and letting someone be completely disrespectful. There are times when relationships come to a natural end but there are also times when this ideal of trust impedes people from learning and growing. Adultery is a good example of this. Many people have affairs its far more common than most people give credit and usually after the person is caught the generic advice is to end the relationship because “the trust has been broken” It is of course personal choice if one can forgive but I think people are far too quick to end relationships because a partner has strayed. An additional not so accepted attitude is that relationships can recover from infidelity and can even become stronger. Even when the party’s in that relationship decide they want to stay monogamous it is possible that once they learn what caused the breakdown of communication that led to the infidelity they can become a far stronger couple when things finally get resolved. It’s just not popular to admit you took a cheating spouse back and so those people who do forgive and forget do not often speak openly about the experience. It is understandable to have limits on what you will accept from a partner be that friend or lover but it is also constructive to ask ourselves if those margins are fair.

I let go of the idea of trust a long time ago. In my close relationships now I do not take anything for granted. I am very clear about what my limits are and try to make no promises in the heat of the moment that I know I will not be able to keep long term. I think often the idea of trust is used in a restrictive manner. It sets limits on what a person can and cannot do and it is often hard to change those limits without feeling guilty about breaking trust. So, even before an action is taken the word trust is pulled out the bag before any real communication can take place. Once the ideal of absolute trust is put to one-side and people start to concede that nobody is going to live up to there personal expectations it gives far more room for growth and understanding.

Trust is not one dimensional; it’s knotted with human emotion making it a very powerful concept. Letting go of this principle of unconditional trust has allowed me to go back over my long term relationship(s) with fresh eyes. It’s given me the fortune to let go of the guilt for hurting others and let go of the anger when I’ve been the one hurting. It has also reminded me why we stuck together in the first place. So often all the good times are overlooked because of one or two mistakes that have “broken trust”. Suddenly the relationship is about to fail because everyone believes that something significant has been lost. However because people aren’t perfect and will make mistakes anyway nothing really has been lost the broken trust is just a reminder that the relationship is something that needs nurture. It’s like a kick in the backside to remind us that we need to keep talking. In theory I agree trust is a lovely ideal in reality there is so much more to it and it’s worth letting go of that belief and striving for acceptance and understanding instead.

I may have decided to stop viewing trust as something everyone should take for granted and may have decided that I don’t feel the need to trust at all but what I gain in return is faith. Faith that my partners will try and do the best for me and faith that they will forgive me when I mess up in the same way that I strive to forgive them. It’s liberating to stop trying to make them into perfect people or lovers and instead love them for there flaws as well as there merits.