Marie Buda

Discovering the River Towards Inner Freedom

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“I Do Not Need You To Protect Me” – A Sequel to the Love Letter

May 20, 2017 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

To my dearest beloved

I wanted you to know

That I do not need you

To protect me

/

I do not need you

To protect me from your sadness

Because your grief lets me know

 You’re a beautiful human too

/

I do not need you

To protect me from your turmoil

As a woman, turmoil is something that I AM

So let me embrace it all

/

I do not need you

To protect me from your anger

It’s only a burst of energy

I’ll help you scream it out

/

I do not need you

To protect me from your fear

Because seeing you be present with it

Actually gives me strength

/

I do not need you

To protect me from your vulnerability

You are never weak in my eyes

You are the strongest man to me

/

I do not need you

To protect me from your mortality

Because our love surpasses time and space

Our connection lasts eternity

/

So let me not need your protection

As it will set you free

You may be surprised at the results

If you just let emotions be

 

Afterword

This is a sequel to a poem I wrote on Valentine’s Day called “I Don’t Need You”.

Men have so much pressure to be “strong”.  When boys are taught to “man-up”, “not be a sissy” or “not be a girl”, this can have seriously damaging effects on their emotional well-being. The biggest shame is that vulnerability is man’s greatest strength.

A lot of men feel emotions just as strongly as women do. Yet they feel like they shouldn’t have them, let alone express them. There are also men who pressure themselves to be the “tough” one in the relationship, to be the protector of the two. This may lead them to hide their emotions from their partners because they feel they must shield them from pain. This can make them hold in much anguish. The emotions are there, and they need to be let out. I tried to convey in my letter that my loved ones’ vulnerability only serves to make us both become stronger, deepening our love.

Filed Under: Acceptance, Emotion, Fear, Love, Relationships

“I Do Not Need You” — A Love Letter

February 13, 2017 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

 

 

My dearest beloved

I wanted to tell you

On this day of love

That I do not need you

 

I do not need you

To make me happy

So you will never have the pressure

Of my contentment on your shoulders

 

I do not need you

To provide for my financial needs

So pursue any dream you want

Without worrying about supporting me

 

I do not need you

To boost my self-esteem

So if my butt really does look big in these jeans

You can say and we can laugh

 

I do not need you

To always act cheerful

So if you feel like being grouchy

Express it in all its glory

 

I do not need you

To always be a ‘man’

So when you need to be vulnerable

Do so without feeling ashamed

 

I do not need you

To always keep me company

So when you need time by yourself

Go without feeling guilty

 

I do not need you

To always wipe away my tears

So if you too are finding the world too much

You can relax, knowing I am still supported by friends

 

I do not need you

To always be by my side

So if you want to hang out with the lads

Go and have that beer

 

I do not need you

To be someone who you are not

Be whoever you want to be

And I will support you all the way

 

I do not need you

To make me feel complete

Because we are not two who have become one

But two who have become three

 

I do not need you

So I can set you free

Because I love you

And you are always dear to me

 

Happy Valentine’s Day

Filed Under: Love, Peace, Relationships, Surrender Tagged With: Letter, Letting go, Love, Popular Posts, Valentine's

Disliking People Who Are Like Us: On a Japanese Four-Character Idiom That Teaches You A Lot About People

February 9, 2017 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

In Japan we have a great thing called yo-ji-jyuku-go (四字熟語). These are idiomatic phrases made out of four kanji characters. For those who aren’t familiar with the Japanese language, kanji characters are logographic characters. Instead of each character having just a sound, it also has a specific meaning. Throughout the ages Japanese scholars have put together four different kanji characters to express profound life truths. A great one I came across recently was dou-zoku-ken-o(同族嫌悪). Literally translated this idiom consists of the characters, “same”, “family”, “hate”, and “bad”. It means that we dislike people who are like us.

This may sound strange, because your first instinct may be to think that conversely we are drawn to people who are like us. This is still true. When we encounter people who are like us we feel strong love and affection. On the other hand, if these people do not resemble us at all, we feel indifference. But what if these people are just like us, but resemble aspects of ourselves that we don’t like? That’s when hate rumbles from within. We really don’t like it when other people mirror aspects of ourselves that we don’t want to accept.

A frequently portrayed example of this is the school bully who beats up homosexuals, only to discover later that he is gay himself. Him beating up other poor boys is an outer manifestation of what he does internally to himself daily. We resent people for bringing up feelings that we try so hard to suppress and push down. We hate them because we are just like them. This is what this idiom succinctly teaches.

We only accept in others what we accept within ourselves. The school bully who finally embraces his sexuality will stop hurting his colleagues. This is why people who piss us off are actually our greatest teachers. The anger that wells us from inside tells us that there are parts of ourselves we haven’t accepted and integrated into our being.

Now, you may be thinking that perhaps we suppress things for good reasons. You don’t like Trump for example, because you don’t like how misogynistic he is. And sure, according to what I’ve been saying this would mean that you don’t accept misogynistic thoughts within yourself, but isn’t this a good thing? If you accepted misogyny you would think it’s ok to be horrible to women.

Well no. If you thought this then you have fallen into one of the big misunderstandings about acceptance. Acceptance of thoughts does not equate directly to any form of action (or non-action for that matter). Put it this way, if everyone who accepted their misogynistic thoughts were a misogynist, by the same logic all crime writers would be serial killers. They spend their days unapologetically exploring some of the darkest of ideas, but they are very much normal citizens of society.

To accept is to simply confront and observe various thoughts and emotions as they arise, without judgment. If a misogynistic thought arises, for example, you can simply look at it. You don’t have to act on it. All you have to do is let it bubble up inside yourself and let it go. In fact, the only way such thoughts are released is through acceptance. However, most of us are afraid to peek at the darker ideas that come out of ourselves. We push the thoughts down, build strong walls around them hoping they will never crop up again. That is, until we bump into someone who embodies the very thoughts and emotions we’ve been suppressing. Then suddenly the barriers we tried so hard to build come crashing down, and we hate it. The irony is, you never would have had your walls fall down if you hadn’t built them in the first place.

When you don’t like someone, it’s an invitation to look within to see what exactly it is that you don’t like about them, and then in turn understand what it is you don’t like about yourself. It’s a golden opportunity to shine the light of acceptance on this trait that exists within you. You hate it when people are childish? That’s because you don’t accept the child within you. But ask yourself — what is really “wrong” with being childish?

This even applies to so-called negative traits. If you don’t like someone because they are rude, that’s because you don’t accept the rude person within you. But if you can learn to accept this aspect of yourself, you can then approach this person with calm and love, rather than hate. This isn’t to say you let them get away with their rudeness. You can still say softly to this person that being rude does not help solve the situation. If anything, your calm and composed energy is likely to deflate any tension there was in the first place.

Hate yourself, hate others. Love yourself, love others.

Filed Under: Acceptance, Emotion, Fear, Hate, Japan, Love, Self Discovery Tagged With: Acceptance, dislike, hate, Japan, Japanese, Love

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

/

So is the solution to train yourself to love others?

Not necessarily

/

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

/

So is the solution to train yourself to love yourself?

Not necessarily

/

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

/

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

/

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

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.

plants2

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.

plants10

screen-shot-2016-12-30-at-09-15-52

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.

plants6

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.

plants9

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.

plants8

 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.

plants11

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.

plants12

And your plant can bask in its warmth.

plants13

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.

plants15

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.

plants16

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.

plants14

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…

plants18

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

plants17

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

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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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