lyra777

Is Dependency in Relationships That Bad?

July 25, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

I first want to say a whole-hearted thank you to the many people who have been writing to me regarding my blog posts. I have had the most interesting, enlightening discussions and can’t wait to have more. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me to talk about anything.

I wanted to write a post on a question I received from a few people after my last post.

Is dependency in relationships all that bad?

To begin, I personally do not think there are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ paths. This is entirely subjective and dependent on each person and their beliefs.

I do however, think that there are some paths that lead to more pain and suffering than others. So, when asked whether dependency in relationship ‘bad’, my answer would be that it’s neither ‘bad’ nor ‘good’. Instead, dependency is a path that can lead to more pain and suffering.

Again, pain and suffering aren’t necessarily ‘bad’. They are just what they are. Another human experience.

What you want to experience is entirely up to you.

Next, I want to clarify what I mean by ‘dependency’. Although I said in the last post that it is not great for your happiness if you depend on someone to satisfy your needs, I am not saying that you should not give and receive in a relationship.

On the contrary, I believe that unconditionally giving and graciously receiving in relationships is a beautiful, wonderful thing and can lead to great happiness.

Let me define these terms a bit better:

Unconditionally giving = to give without expecting anything in return.

Graciously receiving = to receive fully with gratitude, without feeling obliged to return anything.

So where does dependency come in? Pain and suffering come into the process when people become attached.

You are fine when your needs are met. But when they aren’t, you feel the ache of suffering. This is inevitable with attachment.

A further problem happens if you are not only attached, but then believe that it is the other person’s duty to ensure that you do not feel this pain.

Your partner has his/her own life. They are not you. They will not be able to meet all of your demands. So once again, be prepared to be disappointed if you choose to adopt this mindset.

The good news is — it doesn’t have to be this way.

It is challenging, but not impossible, to strive for a relationship where you are giving and receiving without attachment. You allow love to flow freely and unconditionally. You do not aggressively insist that it is the other person’s duty to fulfil your needs. Note that I feel like it is perfectly reasonable to communicate to your partner your needs, but problems arise when you start to say it is their job to satisfy them. Because you are in charge of your own wellbeing, and are not reliant on your partner to bring you joy, you are much more emotionally stable.

Remember, not needing your partner does not equate to not loving your partner. You can fully love someone without needing them. You may be surprised, in fact, by how much your love deepens once various attachment factors are removed.

So I once again suggest — be your colour!!

Be Your Colour — A Cartoon About Relationships

July 16, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

Once upon a time there was a world full of colours

Each of these dots shone their colours brightly and magnificently

They would spend their time playing, talking, working…doing what colours do

They were happy

Sometimes two colours would meet, and they would like each other’s colour

Sometimes they would fall in love.

When they did, they were happy…

…for awhile,

Because often, the colours would get confused

Very confused

After being together for so long, they would start to believe that they needed the other colour

If the other colour was missing, they would feel all sorts of emotions, like sadness and loneliness

They would also start to believe that because they needed the other colour, it was also the other colour’s responsibility to complete them

Or other times, one colour would ask the other dot to be a different colour all together

This illusion was so great, that sometimes the colours started to believe in it

They believed that they were incomplete

But all of this made no sense at all

No other colour could complete their colour, but themselves

And often they had forgotten the most important truth of them all…

They were complete in the first place.

When two dots fully embrace both their own and each other’s colour

When they both fully realise that they are already complete

Only then can they start to create a strong and unique colour when together

This is a beautiful thing

But remember

Even when alone

They are still shining brightly and magnificently in their own colour

Be your colour.

Afterword

It is so easy for us to fall into this relationship trap.

If your answer to why you are with your partner is: “because I’m not happy if I’m not with them”, you need to have a long, hard look at your relationship.

Conversely, if you are single and your answer to why you want a relationship is along the lines of “because I’m lonely/because I want to feel safe/because I want to feel [insert your need here]”, again, you need to have a rethink.

In Ram Dass‘ own words:

“…often, we come into a relationship very much identified with our needs at some level or other. “I need security, I need refuge, I need friendship.” We come together because we fulfill each other’s needs at some level and the problem is that when you identify with that, those needs, you always stay at the level where the other person is “her” or “him” that is satisfying that need….” (Original article here)

And the problem is, you never grow as a couple. You get stuck into a cycle of attachment and suffering because you believe your partner’s life duty is to forever satisfy your need.

Except it isn’t their duty to.

Remember it’s NOT your partner’s job to make you happy.

It’s your job to make yourself happy.

If you feel incomplete without your partner, remember that you are under a temporary spell.

You are actually complete just the way you are, on your own.

You just need to re-find the beauty that lies deep inside.

How I Conquered Procrastination

July 15, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

I know that I am not in the minority when I say I had a serious procrastination problem. For me, my wake up call was my PhD. You have three to four years to write a thesis. If you procrastinate, you’re royally screwed.

My procrastination habits were already pretty bad, and they were made even worse by my clinical depression. For months and months I was like an engine that couldn’t start up properly. My severe anxiety and stress would prevent me from even starting to read or write.

The good news is I eventually made a very significant breakthrough, and it didn’t involve any fancy techniques.

I simply used a pen and a notebook.

After months of self-scrutiny, I managed to pin down the reason for my procrastination onto one main thing: the avoidance of anxiety.

Let me illustrate. You have a big deadline coming up. You sit down to try to start. But because there is so much to do, you can’t quite figure out what the next step is. And oh my gosh think about all the work you need to do. Think about how this task is far too big to start, and even worse, you can’t think of the perfect way to do it. AAAAAH!

Before you know it you are clicking on Facebook and are looking at photographs of people you don’t care about. This all happens at lightning speed. Each time you open up Microsoft Word to start working again, that wall of anxiety hits you, and your default mode becomes avoidance.

In order to escape this never ending spiral, you first need to understand the following: anxiety is caused by not being in the present.

If you are asked whether there is anything you are unhappy about in general, I’m sure you could produce an endless list of things from not getting a pay-rise to your partner not giving you the attention you need. But if you ask yourself whether there is anything you are unhappy about in this very moment in time, it is highly likely that the answer is no (unless you are, at this moment, being tortured brutally by some terrorist group…in which case why are you reading this blog?).

Anxiety is caused by thinking about the past or the future, instead of embracing the present. Instead of focusing on the very next step that has to be done, you get swept away by all the things that you have to do in the future. You worry endlessly.

In step the pen and notebook.

Everyday I would sit down, open my notebook, and think only about what the very next step was. I really broke it down into the basics. Some days the first line was “Switch on the computer”, and once I’d done that, “Open Word document”. Once I got the ball rolling I could start making the next steps “Read first paragraph of journal paper” or “Type in first line of excel data”.

Essentially, it was a mindfulness technique that kept me focused on the present or the very, very near future at most. This prevented me from getting sucked into the tornado of anxiety. Because I was creating myself tiny baby steps that were guaranteed to be achievable, I wouldn’t panic. I could see how I was going to proceed. Plus I was constantly rewarding myself by ticking off all the things that I had finished. Tiny victories, but achieved nonetheless!

I also stopped worrying about whether I would finish in time, or whether the work was good enough (perfectionism is a common trait among those who procrastinate). I knew that using this notebook method I was working the best that I could at the fastest pace sensibly possible. So I just had to trust that so long as I kept this going, I was on the right track.

Thanks to this notebook technique for the rest of my PhD I managed to work consistently, in a focused manner. Procrastination is manageable. The key is to admit that you have a problem, and then to discover the truth behind why it’s occurring in the first place. The most important thing is to not beat yourself up about it. To get angry at yourself for procrastinating is to only make your anxiety worse. Remember that you are a human being, and that we are not perfect. Accept that you feel anxious, take a deep breath, and pick up your pen and notebook. It’s never too late to start.

Writing From a Place of Serenity

July 14, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

Now that I’ve vowed to myself that I will write about anything I want, suddenly I want to post about everything.

I do feel like this is not some random burst of excitement that might die down just as quickly. Even when I wasn’t blogging I was always thinking about things I wanted to write about. I would construct the blog in my mind and happily think about how I would convey my thoughts to the reader. But I never actually did it.

Now that I’m finally putting these daydreams into practice I can’t describe how much better I feel. I am bringing some much needed flow back into my life. I understand it’s going to be a wobbly start because I’m still trying to find my voice. When I read my own writing I can significantly feel which bits I wrote from the heart, and bits that I didn’t so much. The difficultly is that growing up we are taught by various people how to write. Our parents first teach us what is right or wrong, and then at school a certain style is demanded of us. We soon start to adapt our writing into something that we think will get that A grade or will be applauded by others. Often in the back of our minds the question isn’t “I am expressing in writing what I truly feel?” but “I am writing in a way that other people will approve of?”.

In other words, we write from a place of fear.

Fear that other people won’t accept what and how we communicate. We desperately try to avoid the sinking feeling of rejection and ridicule. When we do avoid it, and people give us a positive stamp of approval, we get a rush of excitement. Positive reinforcement. This can become almost addictive. The trouble with having this sort of relationship with writing is that while the highs can be ecstatic, the lows can really bum you out. Instead of being content with the beautiful act of creativity, your happiness is defined by the reactions of other people.

I want to get to a place where I’m consistently writing from a place of calm, loving presence, which in turn will cultivate creativity. A place where I am writing what I want, how I want to, without worrying what people think. A place where I am constantly enjoying the mere act of writing, regardless of the consequences it brings. A place of serenity.

Why I Quit Facebook

July 13, 2016 by lyra777 Leave a Comment

If I were to describe my relationship with Facebook using its own lingo I would say: ‘its complicated’.

In fact, it’s safe to stay I went through the “Four Stages of Relationships” with it.

Let me explain….

Stage 1: Infatuation

When I first started Facebook back in 2006, I was obsessed with it. For all my sins back then I a) loved attention and b) loved being nosy. “People are clicking ‘like’ on my posts! They must love me!”. I was very quickly drawn into Facebook’s sweet allure. It was infatuation from the beginning.

Stage 2: Love

Soon I couldn’t live without Facebook. I was in love, checking it almost every other minute when I was on the computer. If I were working I would have it open in another browser window as I did not want to miss a single notification. Facebook and I were inseparable. Till death do us part.

Stage 3: Reality-Check

After a few years on Facebook, slowly but surely the reality of the website as a social medium started to hit me.

First, I realised how it had become a shallow, addictive game of seeing how many friends I could acquire and how many likes I could get with my posts. How could I make it seem to all my friends like I was having tons of fun and having the best life in the world? This involved posting lots of photographs of drunk outings with vacuous, obnoxious statements such as, “Best night in the world!!”.

But it wasn’t just me who did this – it was a lot of other people too. Facebook was a place where people created and read about fake lives. You don’t know how many times I said to a friend after seeing countless lovey-dovey couple photos, “You and your partner seem so happy!”, to only then get the reply, “Actually, we’re pretty miserable”. In short, with Facebook you were swimming in a fantasy world.

Second, my view of Facebook started to significantly change when I started to think about what the real motivations were behind everyone’s posts, including mine. I may sound cynical here, but this is how I started to see things:

What they do: Post on someone’s public wall.

What they really mean: “I want the whole world to see our messaging, because it makes it seem like we have the best friendship/relationship!”

What they do: Post a selfie with a completely unrelated caption (E.g. “Can’t wait to go to fair!”)

What they really mean: “Please comment on how pretty I am!”

What they do: Post an album

What they really mean: “Look at the fabulous life I’m having!”

Don’t get me wrong, I always used to say I don’t mind publically posting things because I have nothing to hide. To a certain extent, I feel the same way (otherwise I wouldn’t blog!). However, whilst I’m absolutely behind sharing experiences, there was something disconcerting about feeling the need to shout things out to everyone.

If you experience something wonderful and want to share it, great! Why not just share it with the people who you think will truly appreciate your experience? If you wanted to share photos with friends, why not just send them privately? Why also share it with hundreds of people who don’t care? The only reason I could think of was to use it as a tool to construct one’s artificial life on Facebook. All I started to hear in the recesses of my mind as I opened Facebook every day were squeals of “Look at me! Look at me!”.

It all started to get very depressing.

Stage 4: Break-up

I soon stopped posting albums. In 2014 I posted 29 albums. This year I posted three. I decreased my status updates from several times a day to once every few weeks.

It still wasn’t enough. I hated the fact that I was constantly checking Facebook even though I saw it to be the empty medium that it was. It was the default website I would go to when I was bored. I would then waste significant amounts of time scrolling through the lives of people who, to put it brutally, I didn’t really care about.

I strongly felt I could be doing better things with my life. I wanted out.

Of course, there is always fear before a break-up. With Facebook, it was the fear of losing contact with a large proportion of the friends I had. What if I suddenly wanted to get back in touch with someone, or vice versa? My heart sunk at the thought of losing contact with some people forever.

I then realised that out of the 1800 “friends” that I had, I only had true, meaningful relationships with around 100 (Dunbar’s number?!). Those people already had my contact details anyways. Instead of spreading myself out thin focusing on the 1800 I didn’t really care much for, why not invest all that energy into further cultivating the 100 that I deeply cared about?

As one person mentioned on Facebook when I announced I was leaving, Facebook makes people lazy. It fools people into thinking that they have relationships with others through simply looking at their status updates and photos, when that is nowhere close to the quality of friendship that is created through face-to-face interaction.

I also strongly felt like I had to embrace the birth and death cycle of life. Why the need to desperately hold on to people that you met 10 years ago? Some relationships are meant to die. This is not necessarily a bad thing – to close one door is to open another one.

So it was time for me to close the door on Facebook. I’m excited to see what new avenue this opens. I’m already feeling the benefits. Since I’m not habitually checking Facebook anymore I have a lot more spare time. This time I can use for productive things like writing this blog. Also, in quitting Facebook I’ve suddenly managed to get in touch with old friends who I hadn’t talked to for awhile.

In sum, I feel like it’s one of best things I’ve done this year.

Just like any real relationship, even if it doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to, you learn a lot from it. Facebook revealed a lot of my insecurities – my need for attention, my need to portray myself in a way that didn’t truly reflect who I am and how lonely I was inside. It also exacerbated my terrible procrastination habits. But because it was a mirror reflecting what was already there, it allowed me to eventually stare at them in the face and do something about them. So for that, I’m very grateful.

Thank you Facebook, and goodbye 🙂