Vineeto said; “That is great – and that is also one aspect of what you later mentioned as “cut to the chase” . Now you know how to share without having to ‘cringe’ afterwards. Find out what happens when you acknowledge, that loneliness is merely a feeling and there is no obligation to fulfill this feeling’s demands.”
This last sentence of yours has been a theme for me for a while “no obligation to fulfill this feeling’s demands”.
I am seeing now that because I have ignored many subtle feelings, and generally been focused on the demands of the “big ones” (fear, sadness, anger), the details of the genuine feeling happening, which can make a difference, have been glossed over.
For example, I saw today in addition to loneliness, I was blocking out any desire for physical touch. It’s now over two years of celibacy, and I had thought that with the reduction of libido, and whatever other factors, desire and affection were not going to feature much more.
But! I was ignoring all the dreams of women I have when asleep. Or not so much ignoring them, but not considering their importance. I have had plenty of girlfriends in my sleep! Haha
This also had a parallel today when walking. I should be enjoying myself based on the circumstances. There were moments, and there was a moment or two of naïveté, well, the curiosity that is a childhood “friend” to naïveté.
The should was obvious. I was trying to force myself to “enjoy “. I started to notice that I “lump” emotional “feeling good” in with conditional enjoyment. As in, a nice soft lounge is preferred to a grass lawn, and a grass lawn preferred to a patch of dirt. As I looked around, I wanted a soft couch!
I started to see that separating out my preferences from my emotions is an aspect of what ‘feeling good’ is all about. The “come what may”.
It’s not that the river isn’t pleasant, but I emotionally tire of it as I prefer to be at home in my comfy chair! Noticing when a preference is being ignored, or otherwise the feeling being ignored one two things for me to work on; one being as sincere as possible about my feelings in as much subtle detail as I can, and two letting preferences be seperate to the goal of feeling good.
However, I lost the theme I was wanting to talk about concerning “…merely a feeling and there is no obligation to fulfill this feelings demands “.
I think it’s worth posting rather than not posting. Even though there is , and will be, feelings and demands, I can see that having sincerity can bring everything back on track, even if the initial inspiration was misguided but well intended. (Empowering myself to post, even though I already post a lot. Haha)
Cheers
Andrew
Edit; I am going to get a laptop. Re-reading my post was confusing! I am typing on an iPad, but I find it’s far more awkward than when I type at work.