Hi @Jesus.Carlos,
It is a pleasure to read your excellent progress report.
Jesus.Carlos: Although dismantling the political and activist identity is bringing enormous benefits, it has above all been the exploration of love that has brought the most. What I can say for now is that I have been replacing a way of relating to my partner based on compulsive attraction with a way based on sweetness and care (and this substitution has not been a forced decision, rather I would say that it has been the product of experience and sincere observation). I can recognize that this care has above all to do with not imposing my agenda on her and fully understanding that she is a human being with her own autonomy, desires and needs. It has helped me to remember Richard’s commitment to giving himself completely to someone else with the firm intention of managing to live in an absolutely peaceful, harmonious and beneficial way for both. I feel less and less compulsive, in fact there are already days or maybe weeks in which I do not experience again the level of anxiety that I felt before the PCE. From time to time it is reactivated for a short period, and by simply attending to it, observing it, without expressing it or repressing it, it allows its prompt disappearance.
Now that you recognize your partner as a fellow human being in her own right rather then as extension of your “compulsive attraction” which had automatically made you perceive her as your ‘possession’ being responsible, amongst other feelings, for all that anxiety you report. You are now able to experience more and more the delicious benefits of intimacy, which is vastly superior to the feelings of love it replaces. This intimacy can be deliberately increased with sincerity and naiveté and with sensuous attentiveness (see Grace’s scale of intimacy (link).
Jesus.Carlos: To remember all the suffering and pain that I have experienced, or in which I have been a participant, even the cause, and the sincerity with which today I can say that I do not want even one millimeter more of all of it. On the contrary.
That clarity that arises from that sincerity reestablishes the connection. And also naivety.
Feeling being ‘Vineeto’ had similar sympathy and compassion for the hardships and, sometimes overwhelming, suffering of human beings she observed in the news and could relate to from some of ‘her’ own emotional struggles. Towards the end this vital interest developed into “a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster” (nowadays paraphrased as ‘near-actual-caring’) which facilitated ‘her’ self-immolation. Here is part of Richard’s summary of it:
[Richard]: 4. This moment-to-moment experiencing of a caring which is not self-centred/ self-centric provided ‘her’ with the experiential convincement that actualising such caring, via ‘self’-immolation, was the only solution to the human condition; this ‘hands-on’ understanding as a dynamically present feeling-being – an impressively distinct contrast to having been abeyant during PCE’s – left ‘her’ with absolutely no choice (lest ‘she’ be forever “rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic”).
5. Since a near-actual caring is, of course, epitomised by a vital interest in the suffering of all human beings coming to an end, forever, as a number one priority, then ‘her’ single-minded focus was essentially centred upon the most immediate way of ensuring this long-awaited global event could begin to take effect the soonest … to wit: bringing ‘her’ own inevitable demise, at physical death, forward into a liminal imminence.
6. Because the means ‘she’ elected to utilise towards these ends was the near-actual intimacy which goes hand-in-hand with a near-actual caring (per favour that afore-mentioned absence of self-centredness/ self-centricity which typifies being out-from-control) it is apposite to defer to what Vineeto herself wrote on the 20th of January 2010, only fifteen days after her pivotal moment/ definitive event, as its refreshingly simple directness speaks for itself.Viz.: […]
[‘Vineeto’]:’ The final clue was again about caring, a caring as close to an actual caring as an identity can muster. Only when I cared enough to give all of ‘me’ to another person, to give them what they want most, was I then ready to give it to the one I cared for most, the one I was closest to, and then I was able to leave all remnant concerns and inhibitions of my identity behind.
And that’s what happened”. (link)
Jesus.Carlos: Finally: since this weekend I have begun to understand more clearly what it means to decide how to feel, moment by moment (or when it is necessary to make a decision, since the consistency of feeling good, or excellent, etc. has been broken). I confess with all sincerity that until recently it seemed very difficult for me to understand or even accept this possibility. My tendency was rather that of a victim of circumstances. Feeling without agency at certain moments and in a negative sense (“the beer” is, in a positive sense, the disappearance of the “dooer’s” agency). This has begun to change significantly. Now I see and recognize that I do have that power, that decision is in my hands. Why not always decide to feel good, and beyond? It seems more and more absurd to me. And wonderful.
This is really wonderful that you have recognized, and are actualizing, that how you feel is in your hands (and not due to some favourable or unfavourable event) and this enables you to feel good again each time after feeling/ good/feeling excellent slips below the line.
Such a delight to read, thank you.
Cheers Vineeto