Here’s an email I received recently. I’m going to share my view on the Reader’s situation and then open it up for you to share your wisdom.
How Can I Be Happy Without Him?
Hello Rob,
I am always interested in what you have to say and always take it at front value.
In the case of depression, I feel very close to it since I have been diagnosed with it and am taking medication for it. This does not mean that I can’t change it, since I have done it in the past. The particular situation that has thrown me into depression this time is someone else. My partner (or ex-partner, should I say).
I’ll explain my situation. When I met him, we were very happy and had a lot of fun together. We have a lot in common and that made our relationship special. I can honestly say that we were happy back then.
But when things progressed, and we moved in together, he had a guilt that did not let him be “himself”, since he felt responsible for walking out of his family home. Although we love each other deeply, that guilt came between us and has destroyed our relationship little by little. I could not cope with the fact that I was losing him, and he could not see how his guilt was destroying us, so he turned to alcohol. That is when I could not find happiness in myself, since to certain point I felt responsible for his guilt.I know there are facts like “it was his choice”, “it is not your fault” and things like that apply, but because of one’s culture/education/bringing up, or whatever you want to call it, I can’t help to feel that way.
How do I then try and turn things around for the best, when my heart is broken without him, but I know things won’t work if we are together?
I know I need to be happy with myself first, but it is very difficult, specially when you are going through a loving break-up (if there is such a thing).
It’s Not About What To Do, But How You Look At The Situation
This situation gives a prime example of what causes us to become unhappy. There are many ways of looking at this situation and answering it, but I want to take what I believe is the single most important lesson from it. This dynamic constantly challenges situations across all of our lives.
But first of all I want to explain something. Lot’s of people in this situation or reading about it, will want and expect a reply of simple steps. Go do this, do that and so on. A recipe or roadmap, if you will.
The assumption underlying this is that the situation is what is important and if only we could get rid of these pesky situations, life would be great.
The truth is, your life is and always will be riddled with such problems. It is the nature of life. It is the way that life course corrects us. Problems are like the barriers on roads that shepherd us back onto our path.
Once we understand that Life operates on many levels, then we can understand what Einstein meant when he said that the true solution to any problem is never at the level it occurred at. Therefore my response is not going to be to give specific advice, but to try to provide a framework that helps you to find your own solution. So I want to put this situation in a deeper context.
Why We Get Lost In Life
Life starts out being very, very simple. I’m here right now and I would like to be here. This could be with regard to wanting an intimate relationship. It could be wanting a better quality relationship. It could be wanting more money. Or it could be wanting some deeper meaning in your life. Regardless of the content of your situation, the structure is the same.
Life is a journey from where we are now, to where our thoughts, actions and behaviour takes us. And like any journey, when we are clear on where we are going and on the route to get there, it is straight forward. But when we are muddled on where exactly we are going or how we get there it becomes harder and more stressful.
So when we first start out towards a goal, whether that goal is wanting to spend time with someone we find attractive or create something, we are clear and can see the road ahead. So it is exciting.
As we travel along this path though, we come under many conflicting forces that seek to influence or sway us from our path. Sometimes it’s other people telling us we should do x or we should want Y. Or maybe they want us not to be selfish and try to use guilt or pressure to push us in a new direction. Or perhaps as a relationship or job settles it becomes mundane and so we can be seduced into setting new goals or chasing new opportunities. Sometimes it’s the conditioning of our culture or beliefs that we subscribe to that make us believe our aim is unattainable or that we should be aiming for something else.
Regardless of the form they appear in, the dynamic is always the same. It is always an attempt to shift our end destination. As we meet more and more of these obstacles, temptations and forces, like a plane pushed by strong winds, we sway off course. The problem is, that unless we are very strong and determined in our quest, we now no longer have one destination we are aiming for. We have several.
And as Confucius pointed out;
“The Man Who Chases Two Rabbits, Catches Neither”.
This is why attaining any goal requires dedication, determination and persistence. Because life will test you with challenge after challenge. It will try to seduce you from your path. And the strongest held emotion will dominate. If that’s not yours, you’ll crumble in doubt and settle in desperation and your end destination will not be the one you originally set off to reach.
You see, that’s why the Law of Attraction boils down to keeping hold of your vision and staying positive. Not for some magic reason that many people think it’s about, simply because that means you stay away from getting muddled and dragged away from your goal through fear or despair.
The problem with this, that makes it more tricky, is that we don’t live in a vacuum. Almost everything we do involves other people. And when we live with other people and become a social unit, then it seems that every goal we have needs to be agreed and unified. And in trying to match our goals with those of others they get swayed off course. And so, as in my pitifully poor diagram, you now have several goals that you are trying to reach simultaneously.
Relationships are very difficult. If you imagine that you are filled with happiness, energy and potential. It is in the area of relationships that most of your leaks take place. Life would be so easy, if you never cared about anyone else.
However, we have been conditioned from birth that we must not be selfish. We must be concerned for the wellbeing of others over ourselves. And there’s something innate, a deeper instinct that makes us worry what others think of us. As a result, it is in trying to balance your needs and wants with those of others that we get lost.
So generally we compromise.
Which means no-one really gets what they want. And so we become embittered at the other that we see as stopping us from getting what we want. And then the relationship can become a downhill slide into destructiveness.
So what do we do?
The Key Is Awareness And Clarity
The solution always begins with awareness and clarity. When we know where we are going, what we are doing, what context we are doing it in and the challenges and temptations we face in the route there, we can make clear choices about our priorities. However in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, this clarity gets blurred and distorted.
That is why, it is vital for your sanity that each day you take time to leave the everyday world behind and refresh your vision of who you are and what you are about. It can be through meditation. It can be through a creative medium. Whatever works for you. But you have to get away from the daily hustle and bustle of pressures.
You Have To Be Together From Choice And Not Need
The next step is that psychologically you have to cut your bonds to everyone.
You see, people often get into relationships and become like limpets. Stuck to the other regardless of where it takes them.
Just as you cannot truly live, until you are willing to die. You cannot truly love, until you are willing to end a relationship.
When you feel so tied to a person that you cannot leave, then you are no longer free. You are in bondage to that relationship. Being willing to walk away doesn’t mean you have to or will. It just means that you have a full range of possible options. Or in other words freedom of choice.
Then if you choose to stay in the relationship, you do so from choice and not from need.
This is a critical distinction. A relationship based on need or obligation, will sooner or later feel as if it is trapping you or that you are being held back. It feels, to some extent, as if you are powerless. A relationship based on choice, places your power and responsibility with you. So a solid basis has to mean you operating within it from a basis of free will.
The next step is to understand the nature of goals and desires.
We live here in clothed in a physical body. Walking about in a physical world. The truth is that we are actually exploring our consciousness, but doing it by walking around in a symbolic world. So nothing is exactly as it seems.
The adventure of life is that we are seeemingly lost, cut off and isolated from our source. The mission and journey of our life is to find our way back. Every culture throughout time has had a religious basis. And at the source of all religion is the attempt to find meaning of our existence and a path back.
The Problem With Religion…
Unfortunately, every religion is limited to our conscious understanding of life because it is based on thought. If you look at every great religious or spiritual figure they have transcended the existing limitations of the religions of their day. They did this because they weren’t bound by doctrine or dogma. They tapped into a source of wisdom inside themselves that transcended conscious or logical thought. They harmonised with the wisdom of the universe.
The sad irony, is that their followers misunderstood this and then using the framework of the old religion, they just created a new spiritual prison. So now rather than great inspirational Individuals we have;
- Judaism
- Christianity
- Islam
- Hinduism
- Buddhism
And all the other religions.
Here’s The Only Difference Between Enlightened Individuals And Everyone Else
We are attracted to things that we believe will bring us pleasure and repelled by that which we believe will bring us pain. At the deepest core, we are attracted to Life, to God, to our source or whatever you want to call it. We are repelled from that which disconnects and separates us.
Deep down inside us, at our very core, we know what we want. We know what to do. We know how to do it. What gets us off course is the fact that all the people around us, our cultural rules and regulations instill into us that we have to learn their system and study everyone else’s rules before we really know.
But what really happens from anyone excellent in a field?
They learn all the rules. But then they break them all. Part of their excellence is about years of tuning into their craft. But a large part of it, is just the confidence to trust themselves. If we can learn to do this also, we can shortcut much of the process. We just have to learn to fail fast and test gently as we go.
You see this is what all the great Saints and Prophets did. They tested, trusted and found their path. None of them reached their understanding from Scripture, although they did use it as a tool af far as it would take them. They all went beyond what had come before. If you only follow what others teach and what others write, you will always be limited by their understanding. You must tap into your own well of wisdom.
And that’s the problem with religion. It is Man’s attempt to paint a still picture of something that is still in motion, still developing and evolving. Therefore it is inherently flawed.
In the words of Jesus;
The law is not set in stone, it is alive in a Man’s heart.
In other words we must find our path not from consulting rules and regulations and precedents based on the past that has gone. We must connect to the source of life and interact with the unique situations we meet whilst maintaining that connection.
There are two problems with this though.
First, that every religion wants to assume it understands all the rules of life. And because every aspect of our culture has sprouted from that core perspective, our society is based on an idea that we need to be trained into fitting into the rules it has artificially imposed on life.
Secondly, just as our brain seems to have evolved from it’s reptilian like stem into more complex layers, so too have layers of thought overlaid our basic intuition. So it takes awareness and gentle testing to find what is truly truth and what is a trick of the mind.
So finally we get back to the original question, hopefully able to look at it in a slightly new light.
The Real Issue
You wanted to be happy. You met someone who helped you along that road. But as you both travelled along this path, through social pressures, beliefs and conditioning, he lost sight of what his main goal was. His being swayed off course, influenced you to lose sight of your goal. And so now neither you, your Ex or I suspect his family, are happy.
What can you do?
You have to draw a line under the past. You see, what most people in your situation would do, is to try to go back, literally, or psychologically, and try to fix the situation. But life only moves forward. You have to reconnect with what you really wanted. Then you have to chase the goal you really wanted all along – happiness. Then let the world take shape around that foundation. Maybe it will restart this relationship. Maybe it will be a new relationship. Maybe it won’t be any relationship.
The details are secondary. You didn’t really ever want the relationship. That’s just a mind trick that keeps you attached to the past. You wanted a deeper connection and exploration of life that would come about through the intimacy and sharing of experiences with this other person.
Why the break up is so painful, is because in the upper layers of thought, your core goal appeared to be the relationship. And so now as you see that goal shatter, your core desire seems to be lost. But there are many avenues that your core desire can be met. To do that though, you have to separate your core desires from the physical reality they seem to take.
That takes an awareness of what your true goal is. And then a commitment to it’s pursuit and attainment over all temptation. What religion does give us are stories that can teach us this, as long as we don’t take them literally. There are two very vivid ones that come to mind in relation to this issue.
For example, during Jesus’s 40 days and nights where he was tempted again and again is an analogy to all the pressures and forces that cause us to lose sight of our true goal.
Likewise, the legend of ‘The Great Struggle of the Buddha’ illustrates how despite the attempts of Kama-Mara and his army, the Buddha would not lose his focus.
photo credit: h.koppdelaney
And really at the deepest level, that is all this world is. A series of illusions dressed up to seduce and deceive us in every possible way from our main goal.
To be happy is to focus on our main goal, reconnection with our source.
To be right is to fall for the illusions of the world.
In every situation, the choice is the same. It is just dressed up to press every emotional hot button you have.
You have to stay true to your core goal and be willing for the world to reshape around that in any way it wants. What holds us back is wanting to shape the world to be the way we think we need it to look.
So now I’ve had my say, what do you think? What tips, advice or experience can you share to answer this question?
