Marie Buda

Discovering the River Towards Inner Freedom

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Archives for January 2017

A Few Thoughts on Loneliness

January 13, 2017 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

Loneliness is not caused by the absence of people who love you

It is caused by you not being able to love the people around you

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So is the solution to train yourself to love others?

Not necessarily

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Remember that loving others is directly related

To the degree to which you love yourself

They are one and the same

Therefore an excellent place to start

Is within

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So is the solution to train yourself to love yourself?

Not necessarily

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Love is a state of being

And this state of being is your most natural, authentic self

If you peer deep inside

You will find that there actually is no ‘I’ that loves ‘yourself’

Instead, you are love

Therefore to love

Is simply to be

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That deep pang of loneliness you may feel

Is actually the tugging of your own heart begging you

To drop all pretences

To drop all self-loathing

To drop all self-criticism

And to accept yourself just as you are

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The more you accept yourself

The more you accept others

The more you love others

The less lonely you will feel

 

Afterword

I have been struggling with loneliness for a few years now. I have no doubts that it is strongly linked to my depression. I would tell people, “There is nobody that loves me here”. Despite strongly feeling this way, my rational brain would tell me that there were people around me that cared about me. So why did I feel this way anyways?

It very recently dawned on me — it wasn’t that the people around me did not care about me. Instead, I myself was in a state of indifference towards others. A friend of mine gave an excellent analogy – a garage door. The more you open it, the more love that can both come in and out. If we shut it, then we shut love out both from ourselves, and from others. When I’m depressed, my door is shut. So I find it hard to care in general. We only accept as much love as we think we deserve.

Perhaps it is this dark void of indifference that we call ‘loneliness’.

I still haven’t fully worked out what it is. I could go on about the illusion of separation and what not, but that’s for another entry. What I’ve written here is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding no doubt. But I’m sure each day and each moment that is spent being present, just being, is one step closer to embracing the light.

 

 

Filed Under: Acceptance, Depression, Love Tagged With: Acceptance, Depression, Loneliness, Love

Embracing The Seasons Within

January 6, 2017 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

Some of you, like me, may find these winter months emotionally challenging. Modern society currently calls it ‘seasonal affective disorder (SAD)’. But admiring the beautiful trees shedding their leaves during this period, I realised that a change of mood during these months doesn’t have to be seen as a “disorder”. It can instead be seen as just part of the natural flow of life.

As I am transitioning towards winter, I have been feeling the pang of deep darkness that I didn’t feel during the summer. I feel like I am shedding my leaves, shedding the pain and hurt that was stuck inside. I am seeing thoughts and emotions that I didn’t know existed within me. In embracing these emotions, I am feeling very raw.

In the summer we sprout our leaves. Our energy goes outwards. We are active, we are creative. We swing more towards the so-called ‘positive’ emotions of joy and pleasure. In the winter, just like the trees, we too shed our leaves. Some of us transition towards the so-called ‘negative’ emotions of sadness and pain.

However, most of us do not like this. This is because during the summer we come under a spell. We start to believe that we are the leaves of the tree, and forget that we have other sturdier, deeper parts of ourselves – like the bark or roots.

If you look at a tree in the winter, it stands there firmly in all of its bare glory. It is unapologetically naked. It reminds us that is ok to be vulnerable during this season. It gently waves its branches in the wind, like an arm summoning us to join it in embracing this period.

Remember that darkness can be seen as a gift. It is nature’s invitation to quietly delve deep within ourselves, to breakdown our existing paradigms and to start to feel who exactly we are. If you are doubtful of the gifts darkness can bring, let me ask you this – how many important life lessons have you learnt while happy? Chances are, any deep truths that you now know are things you learnt from the tough periods that you have been through.

Remember that winter has its gifts if we are willing to accept it for what it is.

Afterword

Even though I write about the positives of winter darkness, I’m not going to pretend that I deal with it well. I find it hard. Very hard. I also know that because I am very sensitive to the seasons, I would be much happier in a place with more warmth and sunlight (maybe because my inner “plants” are tropical?). One day, I hope to move to a country more towards the equator. Until then though, I am going to strive to embrace the gifts that these dark months give me. I definitely have learnt a hell of a lot and I am very grateful for this.

I also bought an SAD Lamp, and it’s made an enormous difference to both my mood and my energy levels. I recommend it strongly to anyone who is also struggling. At the same time though, my heightened energy levels, thanks to the lamp, feel a bit ‘unnatural’ to me. A bit like I’m forcing myself to work on caffeine. I only use it to keep up energy levels at work. I think in an ideal world I would listen to my heart and body and embrace the darkness a bit more.

One thing I’ve learnt this winter season is to accept the changes that naturally come with increased darkness. My flat becomes messier. I’m not motivated to cook exciting, healthy meals. I find it hard to keep up hobbies. I want to see people less. And this is all ok.

Spring will come eventually.

 

Filed Under: Acceptance, Depression Tagged With: Depression, seasonal affective disorder, Self-development, Winter

People are Like Plants

January 5, 2017 by lyra777 6 Comments

People are very much like plants.

Plants need four things to grow – soil, time, sunlight and water.

plants

We are in fact exactly the same.

All the time we are incubating seedlings of wisdom that are waiting to blossom. We are fertile ground.

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We tell people how they should be growing their little plants, which is madness really. Your plant maybe a rose, and mine may be a cactus. If I applied the same requirements as you — lots of water in a temperate climate — my cactus will end up all shrivelled up.

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Yet, we say to others, you should grow like this, and you should grow like that, thinking that is best for them. This is only because it worked for our plant, but it may not work at all for theirs. We could be twisting their little plant to grow in a way it doesn’t want to.

We may also become impatient with other people’s growth process, demanding that they grow faster, that they act now. But no matter how much you yell at a plant, it will still grow at its own pace, because plants need time and patience to grow.

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Plants also need sunlight and water. This also will come naturally. As time passes, there will be inner weather changes. Sometimes we have days of bright, warm sunlight within, making us feel bursting with happiness and hope.

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But other days we are surrounded by dense clouds of sadness. They can become heavier and heavier, eventually enveloping us into darkness.

Fear not, because these very clouds will provide you with the second key ingredient to grow your seedling: water. Your very tears will be welcome nourishment for your little plant  of wisdom inching towards the sky.

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 As with all things in life we need a optimal balance of sunlight and water for our plants. Individual balances may vary — some plants may need more sunlight, others may need more rain.

However, sometimes we may find ourselves being enveloped in thick, dark clouds for long periods of time.  They can become so dense that we cannot pierce through them with our own little sunlight. Being in darkness for so long is unlikely to help our plant to grow.

Luckily no man is an island, and we have other people around us who can lend a helping hand. They can share their light when we can’t shine it on ourselves. There is another word for this — love.

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Often when other people consciously share their sunlight with us, our clouds will naturally start to rain. They can, in fact, pour. Floods of tears will come flowing down, and the rain will pitter and patter until your clouds will start to disappear. Eventually you will start to see the shimmering of your own sunlight again.

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And your plant can bask in its warmth.

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Now remember, sharing sunlight doesn’t mean trying to forcibly blast someone’s clouds away through pushing happiness on them. This can be very counterproductive. Yet, people using this method often can get frustrated as to why the other person is not responding to their happy bomb.

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The reason is simple. If you are throwing a happy bomb at someone, often (but not always) you are indirectly saying, “you shouldn’t be sad”. In other words, “I don’t want to accept you as you are”. This tends to be because people do not like to accept the clouds of sadness within themselves, so they do not want to be reminded of them through other people.

This is where remembering that people are like plants is so important. People’s little plants benefit from the sadness. They are nourished by tears. As such, accepting people as they are, in that moment in time, is crucial. Also, remember that plants need time to grow, so no amount of blasting with happy bombs will speed up the process.

Sunlight is love, and love is unconditional acceptance. It is a state of being. It is to warmly radiate your own sunlight on someone, gently telling them “you can be exactly who you are“.

Another mistake people make is to go in the polar opposite direction when trying to help people with clouds. Thinking that it’s inappropriate to be happy around them, they instead draw out their own clouds of gloom. Although on the surface this may seem like a form of empathy, in the long run this equally doesn’t help, because instead you are just darkening each other’s clouds together.

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Note that you will find that some people actually want to stay with their clouds of gloom. These people will prefer to be with people who darken their clouds further. This is fine if that is what people want. However, whilst this may give these people a temporary feeling of satisfaction, ultimately the little plant of wisdom will not grow by staying continuously in darkness.

Ultimately, our plants need their own unique mixture of of soil, time, rain and sunlight.

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As we go through cycles of rain and sunlight through the passing of time, sometimes aided by the sunlight of others, you will find that what was initially a little seedling inside…

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…will eventually sprout a stunning flower that radiates both deep insight and beauty.

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What kind of a plant do you have? 🙂

Afterword

The idea that people are like plants was one I had during my winter months of darkness.

I have learnt the importance of patience when it comes to self-development. Often I beat myself up for not feeling better quickly. But now I know that my plant will grow at its own pace. The best thing I can do for it is to lovingly accept it as it is.

I have also learnt the importance of accepting your sadness. We live in a hyper-positive world where the social expectation is that we need to be super duper happy all of the time. I’m sure I’m part of a large majority of people who see crying as a ‘weakness’ – even if it’s on a subconscious level. Although we may say to others that crying is ok, we still don’t want others to see us cry, and we feel uncomfortable when others do.  I picked up the idea that “crying = bad” at a very young age and I remember holding in a lot of tears as a young girl. This is maybe why I cry so much now.  I think I’m crying for the young girl inside that didn’t think she was allowed to cry.

Our plants need both sunlight and water. Our tears are crucial for our own emotional development. I once heard a beautiful quote – “Two things bring us closer to God, prayer and tears”. Crying can be the exact catharsis that we need. The only reason why I have some of the deep insights on life that I have today is because a few of my little plants have sprouted after years of going through both sunlight and rain. My “rainy seasons” (i.e. periods of depression) I know so far have been crucial for my own development.

Maybe I have tropical plants 😉

I also wrote this blog because I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help people who find themselves in thick clouds of darkness. Seeing what helps me has taught me a lot. I talk in this entry about the things that don’t help people with dark clouds, and that’s because I have made all of the mistakes I mention here. I have thrown happy bombs and I have further darkened others people’s clouds. I know I still make these mistakes, but then I’m only reminded about how they don’t work. Conversely I have been on the receiving end of both types of approaches, and I know that they have not helped me.

I have learnt that if someone can’t pierce through their dark clouds, just be with them and shine your sunlight of acceptance. This sometimes may mean just sitting with someone in silence. Then let the magic of time take over. Finally I want to extend my special thanks to JW and CH who have shared their wonderful sunlight with me during these recent cloudy times.

 

 

Filed Under: Depression, Love, Relationships, Self Discovery Tagged With: Depression, Friendships, Love, Relationships, Support

About Me

Hi there! I'm Marie. I'm a behavioural science consultant with a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. I explore what sets us free and brings us peace. A millennial-in-awakening. Read More…

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