Only real relationship is between me and God. Me and my consciences. The rest comes and goes. Only your higher beliefs stay. I do love my children though. A lot.

the most important relationship is the one with ourselves, yes. and until we fully love ourselves its hard to be loved by others.
then goes the relationship with your children, unconditional love.
the others come and go....

So move...quit living in a war zone. Trust yourself a bit more.

I bet if you give in, that you're not nearly as bad as you think you are. And you could end up being the nicest person that you know.

By war zone I assume you mean the endless thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc... that arise within awareness. If we don't join them in battle there is no war.

The war zone ( in my opinion) is when we BELIEVE the inner dialogue in our own heads. We have come to believe that things SHOULD be a certain way and that there is no way of being happy unless our ideas of what " should be" are met.

If we can let go of our expectations and the rules we made for ourselves and replace those self limiting ideas with new ideas that tell us " I am ok" We can start to enjoy our lives.

'BELIEVE the inner dialogue in our own heads' - The Story of Me! :-)

I'm familiar with Miguel Riuz through the work of one of his students (Gary van Warmerdam). Eckhart Tolle is cut from the same cloth.

In my opinion their teachings won't produce anything worthwhile without having developed some degree of mindfulness. I know Gary has many techniques to develop mindfulness. Another way is meditation. The one requirement for any of them to produce results is practice. The mind is no different than a muscle. Greater strength or endurance requires regular training. Increasing mindfulness requires mental exercise. It is a skill that can be trained.

Here's a practical explanation of mindfulness. It's a long video but the pertinent part is from 24:00 for about 25 minutes or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uqoxo_jPXQ

This is not meant to minimize any feelings of despair, but when I start wallowing in my issues I try to think of how many people died prematurely so I can have this life. Millions of people gave up their lives in WWll so I can sit here and complain. I am certain that many of them would trade with me Ina heart beat, to have another chance to enjoy this world, the life that I am whining about to myself in my own head.
When I think of that, my complaints almost seem rude... A blasphemy of sort. It is like giving someone a costly, huge present only
For the receiving party to have a look of disappointment.
For the most part , our problems are so insignificant in comparison to what other people have to deal with..
I try to keep this in mind and focus on how lucky I am have peace, to enjoy my kids, to feel safe.

Aronia, could not agree more. I have real problems, real concerns, about my family, my health, my work. So does pretty much everybody. But I know for me, when I stay in that space where I'm sort of wallowing, it does almost feel to me like an insult to others. I think, sheesh, this is so insignificant compared to what so many people in this world deal with.

I think there is a balance between staying within yourself and stepping outside your self. Mindfulness, self awareness, etc are important but to me, they can also be self indulgent. There is no one relationship. Our relationship is with ourself, but also with everyone and everything.

Outside of unhappiness due to mental illness and clinical depression, I suppose, I think sometimes happiness. There's the inner dialogue and the overthinking that probably most everyone gets caught up in, but we're not required to stay there.

And hey koolman,

Be gentle on yourself. Isn't the anniversary of your brother's death coming up?

I don't talk about it much, but my dad died when I was 22. I purposefully didn't remember the day he died because I didn't want to attach sadness to it. To this day, I don't remember the date...I just know that it was in September and that much of that following year was gone to me.

Aronia, Do you think it would be correct to label what you are describing as "gratitude" ?

That is what it sounds like to me. In my opinion that is a really winning attitude.


I don't agree with the concept of mindfulness and awareness being self indulgent though. Because they are required in order to FEEL gratitude during situations that would send others into self pity.

If some of us are "mindful" enough to know we should look at it from the perspective.. "be grateful for what you have, others have it worse". We need to be compassionate and know that not everyone is fortunate enough to be mindful and aware enough to realize that.
Telling a person who is suffering in their own mind.. " Just get over it and think of all the people who have it worse" will never work, that would be unsupportive and rude. They need to be coaxed to "realize"( to become aware) that there are other perceptions to have...

perhaps we are having a situation like in the movie the Princess Bride.... " I don't think that word means what you think it means" lol

If examined closely, mindfulness is the exact opposite of being self-indulgent. That is, we don't indulge the worsts aspects of our thought process, and that is reflected in not only how we relate to ourselves, but to everyone and everything.

The practices to cultivate mindfulness are indulgent in the sense one dedicates a certain amount of time and effort to become more familiar with the faculty of awareness, but the end-result - increased mindfulness - allows one to be less self-centered, more discerning and less reactive.

Back to the OPs premise...

Everything happens between our ears. Perception is reality. The brain is the organ of experience, and its functioning dictates how we treat ourselves and everything not ourselves. Improve its psychological and emotional functioning and that not only improves how we experience everything, but also how others experience us.

Shasta, you are right - telling another person to get over it, IS also rude, so I try not to project my view on things onto others and allow people grieve the way they want to or feel whatever...
I only can be honest with people who are close to me. I don't want my children to be stuck in " poor me" stage forever. I expect them to feel what they feel but eventually set a goal of getting past that stage.
This dissatisfaction and sadness should be a limited event as means of experiencing and getting thigh an unpleasant event, not a lifestyle..

I hope that if anyone is suffering from the illness of depression they will seek professional help... It's a devastating and very real illness however it is also treatable and controllable ... Other tools can most definitely help as others have shared here

I think it's important to recognize that illness is just that .. and people can't just 'snap out of it' but need to seek medical treatment.... Along with that other tools can go a long way to help as others have shared here....x

I agree. studying and trying to "learn" to be mindful and/or aware might seem like a lot of self indulgent mumbo jumbo.... but if a person can teach themselves to PERCEIVE things in a different way, a way that leads them out of suffering, it can be a positive life change.

In my opinion Every person has certain areas in their life that they might be handling well, in those areas they might be very mindful and/or acting in positive ways. Then.... in another area they are approaching things from a very self defeating, possibly engaging in invalidating behavior towards others, way.

I was typing on my phone and a sentence got deleted in my post. I was trying to say I think unless there is depression or mental illness involved, I think happiness is a choice we make, despite what may come in and out of our lives. And it's not an easy thing to choose when grief, loss, pain, fear, doubt, enter the equation. I don't think it's about telling someone to just get over it because yeah, that's an awful thing to say to someone, and because I think if people could just get over it, whatever it is, they would. I just think the battle doesn't have to take up permanent residence in us, that peace of mind isn't illusive.

And Koolman, I'm sorry about your brother.