Leo - breakups with a small social circle?

[Value]

Hey, a question to you @Leo Gura. How has breakups been for you throughout life, from the perspective that you (from what you have said/written) don't keep a social circle? How do you ventilate the emotions?

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Value said:

How do you ventilate the emotions?

Haha

I don't offload my problems onto other humans.

[Value]

@Leo Gura

20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Haha

I don't offload my problems onto other humans.

Ok but my main question really is how do you go about going through breakups?

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Value said:

@Leo Gura

Ok but my main question really is how do you go about going through breakups?

It stings like a bitch for a week. You feel it and go on with life. It helps a lot when you have built a good life for yourself centered around a life purpose and personal dev. Otherwise you will wallow in despair and depression because you got nothing else going for you.

When you are proactive about building a good life for yourself and doing spiritual work, you need other people less and less to complete you. To the extent that your life is not well put together, the loss of people in your life will lead to huge catastrophe and deep suffering -- because you use these people as emotional crutches to avoid doing serious work. If you take this work deep enough, you will not need anyone for your happiness.

[Preety_India]

20 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

. If you take this work deep enough, you will not need anyone for your happiness.

How will you give them happiness if you don't have any neediness for them? Isn't it like a give and take sort of a thing? If you don't need them, wouldn't you have the same attitude toward them? 

 

[Leo Gura]

16 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

How will you give them happiness if you don't have any neediness for them? Isn't it like a give and take sort of a thing? If you don't need them, wouldn't you have the same attitude toward them?

First of all, there is no obligation to give others happiness. You can't really make others happy anyway.

Secondly, God needs nothing at all. Yet God gives everyone everything. This is otherwise known as True Love. Follow God's example

[soos_mite_ah]

@Leo Gura I know that it's good to be independent and self sufficient when it comes to dealing with your own problems, but isn't it good and often more efficient when it comes to healing to lean on high quality people/ relationships for help when you need it? I'm not saying completely becoming dependent on them but I guess depending on the case, you could also swing too far in the other direction where you bottle everything up inside and don't let anyone help you which then hinders or slows down the growth process. 

[hyruga]

@soos_mite_ah It can be even more dangerous if you lean on high quality people and they leave you.

[Emerald]

54 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Secondly, God needs nothing at all. Yet God gives everyone everything. This is otherwise known as True Love. Follow God's example

It may be true that God needs nothing. (Yet again... in another facet of the infinite gem, it may also be true that God needs everything). 

But that doesn't mean we stop eating and drinking. We need that to survive... even if God doesn't need to eat, drink, or survive.

And it also doesn't mean that we isolate ourselves.

Social connection is a human psychological need in the same way that food and water is a human physical need. And when we deny those needs, we suffer the physical and psychological consequences. 

Maybe Ascetics give up all of that. But it's really not a good idea for the vast majority of people to spiritually bypass human emotional needs. 

It's wise to be mindful, before giving people advice that minces the absolute paradigm with the relative paradigm and diminishes the realities of the relative paradigm, that there are very real consequences for foregoing our human needs. 

[How to be wise]

5 minutes ago, Emerald said:

We need that to survive

Do you need to survive?

[Emerald]

15 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

Do you need to survive?

We don't need to survive. But if you want to survive, you need food and water to do so.

Edit: Likewise, we don't need to have our emotional and social needs met. But if you want to thrive, you need healthy and fulfilling social relationships.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Emerald

[How to be wise]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

But if you want to thrive, you need healthy and fulfilling social relationships.

As someone who hasn’t had any friends for many years, I can confirm that this is false. I’m happiest when I’m alone.

Although most people are probably not like me, so you are right in a sense.

[Emerald]

36 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

As someone who hasn’t had any friends for many years, I can confirm that this is false. I’m happiest when I’m alone.

Although most people are probably not like me, so you are right in a sense.

We can learn to adapt to situations where our needs aren't met if we can adopt a narrative that we don't need those things. 

But make no mistake, if you haven't had friends for many years, it's taking its toll. 

Needs are needs. If you don't meet them, there are consequences.

You've just adapted to them and learned to selectively focus towards the positive elements of solitude.

[soos_mite_ah]

1 hour ago, Moon said:

Yeah in many cases talking to a high quality person can be the stepping stones in the right direction to also come up with solutions for how they can help themselves on their own too. As bottling emotions from others isn't so much the issue, it's bottling them from yourself - releasing and facing your problems- whether that be in the form of a journal, self talk or talking/therapy with other people is the medium.

Bottling emotions from others becomes a big issue when a person is repressing the issue from themselves whilst thinking it's being solved (e.g. keeping busy instead of facing the problems). 

That makes sense. Bottling things up has more to do with avoidance than anything. But I guess my thing is that only relying on journaling and self talk as opposed to reaching out to other people in certain circumstances can sometimes cause people to be in the head too much causing them to ruminate and then consequently slowing down the rate of progress/ emotional healing. I think this is more of a case by case thing where it depends on the person, their needs, and the context of the situation.

As it was covered elsewhere on this thread, preaching this lone wolf mentality can be detrimental to a large portion of people who have a need to connect to others. It can be really beneficial for some people to be alone especially if you weren't surrounded by the healthiest people before, if you are a person who really thrives off of that, or you are aiming to have an ascetic sort of lifestyle.  

[How to be wise]

22 minutes ago, Emerald said:

But make no mistake, if you haven't had friends for many years, it's taking its toll. 

Needs are needs. If you don't meet them, there are consequences.

I can promise you that having friends was taking its toll on me. To this day, I have to work hard to avoid social people, and sometimes I even have to be harsh to push them away.

Don’t assume everyone is like you. I most certainly have no need for friends. To the contrary, I will go mad if I’m forced to be social.

[Preety_India]

3 hours ago, Moon said:

But ofc you can still want things without having a need for them. So you can still want a relationship, knowing that it's simply the icing on top of the (already delicious) cake. So you can still be a decent partner (arguably a better partner) when the neediness is gone. 

If I engage with my phone or video games, my need for socialization will subsequently decline. Because my mind is getting its supply from some other source. 

Similarly if I seek happiness inside and never have to rely on an external source then I will be less likely to want a relationship and maybe take the relationship for granted because my needs are already fulfilled. 

Neediness to the extreme is a problem because it may indicate signs of selfishness, creepy behavior, obsession, lack of respect etc. 

But a healthy dose of neediness is like a binding agent to keep two people together.. 

If I sit here and say I don't need friends, I will most likely end up not having any.. 

I don't buy into the whole "no need" theory. It looks isolating to me. 

Just like any other thing with humanity, I believe everything lies in the middle. In Balance. So just as I see extreme neediness as a huge problem, I also see zero neediness as the other extreme end and also a problem.. 

I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with a healthy minimum sustainable dose of neediness. 

 

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Emerald said:

But that doesn't mean we stop eating and drinking. We need that to survive... even if God doesn't need to eat, drink, or survive.

Of course

Quote

And it also doesn't mean that we isolate ourselves.

Of course. And I don't say you should isolate yourselves.

Quote

Social connection is a human psychological need in the same way that food and water is a human physical need. And when we deny those needs, we suffer the physical and psychological consequences.

I don't deny the social connection needs. I have them myself.

What I said was, I try not to burden others with my emotional problems. But, hey, I'm a crazy guy. I know how much you girls (and guys) love to offload your emotions onto others as a coping mechanism If that survival strategy works for you, have at it, but don't expect me to partake in such games. Believe it or not it is possible to socialize with others without using them as emotional tampons. But hey, that's just my masculine POV, I'm sure you feel differently about it. I was just throwing some crazy ideas around.

[mandyjw]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What I said was, I try not to burden others with my emotional problems. But, hey, I'm a crazy guy. I know how much you girls (and guys) love to offload your emotions onto others as a coping mechanism If that survival strategy works for you, have at it, but don't expect me to partake in such games. Believe it or not it is possible to socialize with others without using them as emotional tampons. But hey, that's just my masculine POV, I'm sure you feel differently about it. I was just throwing some crazy ideas around.

It's possible to unconsciously air our emotional problems, if you don't express them as they come up they can manifest in the strangest ways. There's a difference between complaining to someone who isn't in the right frame of mind to listen and finding the right person who can truly listen. There's no transfer of problems or burden to another when expression is done honestly with the right person. There's also journaling and art therapy types of expression which don't require other people directly and can actually transmute suffering into clarity or something beautiful. It's the essence of art itself. 

Avoiding emotional expression, crying and using people as "emotional tampons" as if that's something inherently feminine and shameful is a block to enlightenment, generally having an awesome life, and in our government it manifests as conflict and sometimes even war. 

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

There's no transfer of problems or burden to another when expression is done honestly with the right person.

Yeah, but who actually does that vs its opposite?

Of course I am not advocating for suppressing your emotions in some macho fashion. That will obviously backfire.

[mandyjw]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Yeah, but who actually does that vs its opposite?

Most of us learn the hard way by complaining and offloading problems on the wrong people. But avoiding expression is also learning the hard way. When you are honestly wanting someone to talk to the right person shows up. Life has a way of working out for us. I once ran into this sage like wise person in a random yahoo chat when I was a teenager. The same kind of thing keeps happening to me.