lilos
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Post by lilos on Sept 29, 2018 14:47:30 GMT
I don’t know, if anyone here has found themselves on a spiritual path when examing themselves while in this struggle.
I have never been a religious person but have found myself relating to a lot of Buddhist teachings in my search for self compassion and acceptance. One of the ideas I struggle to wrap my brain around is the Buddhist stance on attachment. Here is one interpretation that speaks to me and I wondered what kind of thoughts people on here might have on it. When I read it I can really feel it’s validity. But sometimes I just can’t seem to keep these concepts in my head when fear starts to creep in.
“The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, “I will love this person because I need them.” Or, “I’ll love you if you’ll love me back. I’ll love you, but only if you will be the way I want.” This isn’t love at all – it is attachment – and unhealthy attachment is rigid; it is very different from love. When there is attachment, there is clinging and fear. Love allows, honors, and appreciates; attachment grasps, demands, needs, and aims to possess. If we examine our attachment with compassion, we can see how it is constricted and conditional; it offers love only to certain people in certain ways—it is exclusive. Love, in the sense of metta, used by the Buddha, is a universal, non-discriminating feeling of caring and connectedness.”
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2018 15:04:01 GMT
lilos, this is very interesting. I'll have to think about this some more. I guess if you look at attachment as a way to possess or control, it's the enemy of love. I don't think all attachment though has to do with possession. Attachment can merely be an extended connection, but there are ways that attachment can be a prison too if it's unhealthy. Thank you for posting this.
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Post by ocarina on Sept 29, 2018 16:19:12 GMT
I don’t know, if anyone here has found themselves on a spiritual path when examing themselves while in this struggle. I have never been a religious person but have found myself relating to a lot of Buddhist teachings in my search for self compassion and acceptance. One of the ideas I struggle to wrap my brain around is the Buddhist stance on attachment. Here is one interpretation that speaks to me and I wondered what kind of thoughts people on here might have on it. When I read it I can really feel it’s validity. But sometimes I just can’t seem to keep these concepts in my head when fear starts to creep in. “The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, “I will love this person because I need them.” Or, “I’ll love you if you’ll love me back. I’ll love you, but only if you will be the way I want.” This isn’t love at all – it is attachment – and unhealthy attachment is rigid; it is very different from love. When there is attachment, there is clinging and fear. Love allows, honors, and appreciates; attachment grasps, demands, needs, and aims to possess. If we examine our attachment with compassion, we can see how it is constricted and conditional; it offers love only to certain people in certain ways—it is exclusive. Love, in the sense of metta, used by the Buddha, is a universal, non-discriminating feeling of caring and connectedness.” As a Buddhist I would suggest that what we commonly describe as "love" and what we are fed in endless films, romantic novels and are often encouraged to aspire to, is indeed very far from what being truly loving is all about. The fireworks and hormonal rush that bond us and the possessiveness that often follows when we allow fear to get in the way, are indeed signs of attachment - and are all conditional upon the world being there for us in a certain way. Once the object of this kind of love behaves in a way that triggers us, we throw toys out of the pram in a tantrum and the love evaporates or becomes an obsessional desire to manipulate the person into being what we need to make us feel whole. A Buddhist monk once told me that love is actually a way of being, it's a choice that needs to be made again and again and that love can only form and be formed once the firework phase that so many of us mistake for love, has passed. Sadly in our cu lture at that point many couples separate and go hunting for more fireworks. Staying in conscious and loving presence when the initial fire has faded is where true love gets a chance to grow. Interestingly it is absolutely possible to love someone and wish the very best for them but also to recognise with detachment, that they are not a healthy presence in your life - or you in theirs. Buddhists practice loving kindness being sent to all beings - those close to you and strangers, together with those who you find challenging. In this our interconnections are recognised and our common humanity celebrated. We will all experience relationships differently - the key is, as someone who tends to be anxious and fearful in a relationship, to realise that this anxiety isn't you, it's just a style of reaction and thought that has become a conditioned response as a result of genetics, past experiences and cultural factors. At this point noticing the feelings and labelling them "Ahh that's my old friend anxiety" and then embracing them compassionately rather than following and anxious trail of thoughts or trying to dismiss the feelings, might help to allow them to pass and give space for the non conditioned mind to sit peacefully. |
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Post by ocarina on Sept 29, 2018 16:21:38 GMT
And to add - I am not anxious in relationships generally and tend to have a more detached style of relating - as such it's easy for me to advise sitting with the tension - in reality I am absolutely aware that it's not that easy! Go gently on yourself and don't be afraid to be with the fear - it gets easier.
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lilos
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Post by lilos on Sept 29, 2018 17:10:28 GMT
And to add - I am not anxious in relationships generally and tend to have a more detached style of relating - as such it's easy for me to advise sitting with the tension - in reality I am absolutely aware that it's not that easy! Go gently on yourself and don't be afraid to be with the fear - it gets easier. This is just where I am at. It’s very new to me and I have been reading so many books and meditating and practicing every day In seeing people’s core goodness not just the surface behaviors that protect them from suffering. And to see my own and how I use them to protect myself. I find it all pretty fascinating and I can see so much of that in how my attachment style works- how I used a lot of behaviors to get back to a thing I wanted, that brought me comfort and to avoid pain. I am working to sit with all my feelings now- to find a way to tolerate the discomfort a little more each time without running for the exit strategies. While it’s uncomfortable and really hard in an emotional way I actually kind of love it. It’s like desensitization- not that the love and fear and sadness will go away- I just can be with them in a way that doesn’t over take me a little more each time. |
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andy
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Post by andy on Sept 30, 2018 0:25:22 GMT
I don’t know, if anyone here has found themselves on a spiritual path when examing themselves while in this struggle. I have never been a religious person but have found myself relating to a lot of Buddhist teachings in my search for self compassion and acceptance. One of the ideas I struggle to wrap my brain around is the Buddhist stance on attachment. Here is one interpretation that speaks to me and I wondered what kind of thoughts people on here might have on it. When I read it I can really feel it’s validity. But sometimes I just can’t seem to keep these concepts in my head when fear starts to creep in. “The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, “I will love this person because I need them.” Or, “I’ll love you if you’ll love me back. I’ll love you, but only if you will be the way I want.” This isn’t love at all – it is attachment – and unhealthy attachment is rigid; it is very different from love. When there is attachment, there is clinging and fear. Love allows, honors, and appreciates; attachment grasps, demands, needs, and aims to possess. If we examine our attachment with compassion, we can see how it is constricted and conditional; it offers love only to certain people in certain ways—it is exclusive. Love, in the sense of metta, used by the Buddha, is a universal, non-discriminating feeling of caring and connectedness.” .... We will all experience relationships differently - the key is, as someone who tends to be anxious and fearful in a relationship, to realise that this anxiety isn't you, it's just a style of reaction and thought that has become a conditioned response as a result of genetics, past experiences and cultural factors. At this point noticing the feelings and labelling them "Ahh that's my old friend anxiety" and then embracing them compassionately rather than following and anxious trail of thoughts or trying to dismiss the feelings, might help to allow them to pass and give space for the non conditioned mind to sit peacefully. Great thread, and ocarina's suggestion above is my favourite part. I think there's a lot to be said for moving away from a model of love that revolves around desiring the other and expecting them to be something and do something for us. But the way to do that is not by disallowing and judging our fear and need. At first I struggled with "attachment grasps, demands, needs, and aims to possess" because I think that needs in relationships are healthy and human. Demanding is very different from asking, of course, but as a person who has sometimes regarded my feelings and wishes as illegitimate and unspeakable, it's important for me to be cautious about how I interpret the above... that it doesn't mean that a healthy loving person has no needs and doesn't require the other's participation. I finally arrived at an interpretation that worked for me by considering that although I need love, I need connection, I need stable relationships, I need to be valued, I don't need that from any one person. If my preferred person can't offer those things, I'm free to go off in search of someone who can. So I have some control over getting my needs met, but it doesn't mean I can avoid needing others or that needing them makes my love for them not real. There's something about this in Marshall Rosenberg's Non-Violent Communication, the difference between needs and preferred strategies for meeting them. It's why it's not fair to say "I need you to love me": because while love is a need, the choice of who will meet that need is actually only a strategy. The need can be met in other ways. As for "with each other" versus "for each other," I don't think that quote resonates for me. "With" sounds to me like being in someone's presence, maybe just existing in parallel. It doesn't capture the mutual care and support that "there for each other" does to me. Of course I don't mean that we should use others to advance our own aims and insist on trying to change them and their choices and call THAT love. But to me, love is far more involved than "with." Thank you for sharing this, lilos! |
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Post by leavethelighton on Sept 30, 2018 3:49:55 GMT
I think the Buddhist bit in the first post of the thread sounds great, but how on earth does one get to actually feeling that in a romantic relationship? I wish I knew how to get past the binary of my relationships with people feeling defined by desire and/or absence of desire.
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Post by ocarina on Sept 30, 2018 12:24:29 GMT
I think that love and relationship are two very different things - in a committed relationship both partners need to agree to act through love for the good of the whole entity. It's not realistic to commit to someone who is not able to make that choice or follow it through - but not committing doesn't mean not loving - it just means letting go of the clinging to an unreal expectation.
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