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vajra
Ex Member
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Hi Nick. I think the key is to keep on putting out - as Bets says its the only answer.
Even when this is our intention we often through our own misreading of situations, the prejudices of others, the ups and down of life or unconscious behaviour patterns catch it in the ear hole.
We can react to this in different ways.
Some close in, harden and adopt protective behaviours like the macho/bullying thing, returning the compliment and so on.
Others in an attempt to make themselves 'lovable' start not being true to themselves, chasing money, success, big cars and so on.
But this sort of stuff can only deliver at best a short term illusion of happiness.
Others become professional victims. Still others slide in to self hate or despair.
The issue is usually that we've gotten suckered into seeing only a tiny fraction of ourselves and our situation, and this negatively. Upon which we then obsessively (but unconsciously) focus and build into a problem that dominates our whole awareness. We can get a little hung up on being 'unlovable' as a result of seeing only what we perceive as negative responses to ourselves. Because we're not necessarily seeing clearly or responding to reality and hold a distorted view it's easy to act in ways that worsen the problem.
The trouble is that since mind creates that's potentially what we bring into our lives.
You're at a tough time of life where for example we haven't necessarily dropped teenage ideas about popularity and the like, have not yet discovered (some never do) that deeper realities and a bigger picture are in play. Parental pressures and demands that we be what they want can still play a big part too.
As well as a change in scene that will provide some space, it might be worth thinking about trying some meditation, or working (lightly) with something the like the Monroe Institute's Compassion CD. Eckhardt Tolle's 'The Power of Now' is a good read too (book or CD audio book) on the ways we make ourselves unhappy, and how to break out of this.
The space meditation and a better understanding of the way things are provides enables us to see the picture in a more total way, to back out of this tunnel vision. To rediscover self love - we eventually realise that actually there's lots that's lovable, and more to the point that we're entitled to the freedom to find our way and to be ourselves.
Putting out loving behaviours regardless of what we get back is the key - put out love you get it back, put out the opposite and while you may be able to force an ersatz version of love for a while that's ultimately what you'll get back too.
Don't mind all the conventional wisdom that talks of having to be the man and so on - we need courage in spades all right, but only so that we can keep on putting out. Being honest enough with ourselves to keep on seeing and dealing with reality and not some mind made overlay.
Don't turn any spiritual path into another something to be achieved. 'Caring but not caring' is the key as is said in the old Zen saying.
It eventually comes right for almost all of us that make a real effort to make some space in our awareness (so that other perspectives may be considered), and drop unhelpful beliefs. We quietly come to realise that we've not been seeing reality at all, and with new sight comes the happy glow of being.
Life stays raw in places, but we somehow grow to become able to cope with this. There's actually a feeling of 'rawness' (perhaps emotion that's just let be without the thinking mind rushing in to label it as anything in particular - and thus closing it down) that's often a characteristic sign that's there's opening going down.
Perhaps a consequence of some sort of quavery primordial fear that arises when the mental chatter that normally dominates is let die down, and we for once stand exposed to unvarnished reality - without the blather blinding our senses.
The prize of this 'seeing', of this dropping of our defences is of course the truer view of ourselves that results in the above glow...
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