Nurture and sorrow

Actualism
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So I have had a big shift in seeing today which I am super happy about. The last few weeks have been pretty intense in that I seemed to be bouncing back between experiences of perfection and depths of sorrow every day.

I did my best to investigate all there is to this sorrow but still it ‘stuck’, I seemed stuck, going round in circles. It was a bit weird because I thought I had got rid of sorrow to a large extent and yet here it was. That feeling of sorrow is so sticky because it does not seem to have an easily determinable cause, it seems to be almost always there in the background, that faint feeling that life is somehow a tragedy.

Well I was super determined to put an and to it and finally today something big shifted, it came about from reading Vineeto’s selected correspondence on sorrow so thank you Vineeto for being a prioneer :smiley:

Vineeto – SC Sorrow this is the link and the relevant part is -
"The first layer of sorrow was closely linked to my social identity, to being a social being. I found that questioning common beliefs, i.e. how I should be and how things should be, and particularly questioning my spiritual beliefs, i.e. we are all here to suffer because it is God’s will, were essential to leaving the sticky sorrow-soup that is the glue holding humanity together.

Later I discovered the second layer of sorrow – compassion. Once my personal sorrow had disappeared out of my life and everything was running smoothly due to my rapidly diminishing social identity, I became more and more sensitive to, and aware of, the immensity of human suffering and sorrow. Compassion, the bittersweet feeling arising out of the nurture instinct, is very seductive in that is fulfils the need to belong without the tedious self-centred struggles of day-to-day sorrowful relationships."

This suddenly dawned on me in a way that really made the clouds part and felt like finally a breath of fresh air, I had the clarity that I was looking for.
I have largely eliminated my personal investment in sorrow however I was ignorant to the role that the instinct of nurture plays in perpetuating sorrow.

This is because in order to nurture others I have to be able to feel them out, this expresses itself as empathy, compassion and a general sense that I am connected to ‘them’. This connection is a connection to a suffering humanity and what is worse is that it keeps ‘me’ in that place that is forever separated from the actual. It is why I am bouncing back and forth between these amazing experiences of perfection and ‘that place’ somewhere in the psyche, forever separated.

This is really interesting because I always thought that nurture did not play a big part in my life and yet it is nurture which stops me from being happy and harmless, it keeps me chained to humanity and ensures that I never leave ‘them’, this is the genesis of the sorrow I am experiencing!

So there is lots more to find here it seems, but it is great to ‘be moving’ again :smiley:

Also as another point I am really amazed at Vineeto and Peter and just how much material they investigated and made sense of, it is really incredible what they did and how it pays dividends for people like me down the line, another reminder for why we are all on here sharing these discoveries and proving that it is possible to finally do something about the human condition!

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The other great example of this nurture in action in my life is in my relationship with Sonya and I am seeing this clearer today than ever before.

There is a certain sense in which at times I pull back in enjoying and appreciating because I cannot leave ‘her’ behind. This whole thing is of course a big furphy because it is when I am enjoying and appreciating the most that I am equally being the most caring and considerate and also the most fun. I am benefitting absolutely no-one by being being sorrowful and I cannot be free of sorrow if I am being driven by nurture.

This is what is exciting about finally seeing this, seeing the damaging effects of nurture, to see that it is obsolete. It is really refreshing to see that this sticky mess that arises out of nurture is unnecessary.

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Well written. Lmk what u find. These last 48 hours I’ve been relating to r saying how sorrow is the result of being locked out of paradise. And v saying how it’s a bittersweet feeling. I had to ramp up my obsession with haietmoba since it’s been waning since Tuesday and sorrow is something I’ve noticed. Though I want to focus on asking myself when is it and reflecting on that, changing the question to haitmoba, for better or worse, has changed my focus. As a result, the obsession is producing less fascination with a fact and more investigation. And sorrow, particularly Richard’s take, is on my mind.

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So this seeing has been clarifying itself since yesterday and I am absolutely astounded at the extent to which nurture is responsible for sorrow. It is crazy that I have somehow never questioned it, it is like I have been chipping away all around this one and never thought to look at it specifically, yet it was responsible for so much mess.

The way I picture the situation is that of a mother wanting to protect her child from the cold harsh world, to coddle and protect it from the dangers ‘out there’, to connect to and to feel their emotions, their being. This connection is what underpins compassion and love and oh my its a lot more rotten than I ever gave it credit for! The very feeling of nurture reinforces the belief/deep feeling that life is a tragedy, that bittersweet flavour to existence that humanity swims around in.

This metaphorical mother knows that this precious connection can be ripped away at any moment, this is another reason why it is always bittersweet, because she knows it will end. What she holds most dear will one day be ripped away from her. In this way life is truly a tragedy. The depths of this sorrow are like Peter says, a seemingly bottomless pit.

I am not a mother with a child but the mechanism of nurture and my connection to others is the same in me as it is above.

Ever since looking at this yesterday I have been experiencing so much freedom, to even begin to step out of this so incredibly freeing. I was thinking this morning about the next step, about what is still responsible for maintaining this connection and I saw that compassion and empathy, the ability to feel others out will eventually have to disappear.

It is interesting because in the past I saw that as a potentially dangerous step, I still understand that without a firm connection to Pure intent this could lead to disastrous consequences. But at the same time from where I am now it appears to be a safe step, I know myself enough to know that it is a safe step. I also know from PCEs that when sorrow and malice quit the scene I am effortlessly benign.

I can see that compassion and empathy are needed in order to stop ‘my’ otherwise fierce and selfish nature, it is the ‘good’ side to humanity. Yet when happy and harmless they become unnecessary, outdated. there is something so much better available, time to live that something better :smiley:

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Interesting. I can see that. I’m gonna have to try this

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From a personal point of view, nurture is more instinctive; from an evolutionary point of view, it’s more primitive. Compassion and empathy seem less instinctive (more social) and more recent.

But very often I find that when I feel compassion or empathy I am imagining myself (maybe for a fraction of a second) in the other person’s shoes, fearing to be (I or someone I love) in the same situation .

Maybe this observation will help you

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Yes the way I see it is that compassion and empathy are indeed more ‘sophisticated’ but they originate out of the instinct of nurture which is a blind instinctual drive. The energy of nurture is what largely fuels the emotions of compassion and empathy and eventually sorrow. Is this what you are referring to @Miguel ?

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The other way I am interpreting what you wrote is that compassion and empathy have more of a self interest at core, as in I connect via compassion or empathy because I am afraid that this same thing will happen to me or my loved ones or in general out of self interest? This does not seem correct though, I think compassion and empathy seem to be the very instinct of nurture but just more sophisticated and blown up into something bigger and more complex. Actually this is super interesting, just what is the line or the connection between nurture and compassion/empathy. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this @Miguel as it seems somewhat relevant to what you wrote in your first Journal entry.

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Yes, so I don’t see compassion and empathy fuelled by nurture alone. In my view, their complexity include nurture AND fear (i.e., at the same time, an instinctive interest in the other along with an interest in oneself).

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OK yes definitely agreed, I guess it does not have to be one or the other. I can see how I would want to maintain an affective connection to others for other reasons than just nurture. For example to protect myself (fear) or to have power over others (charisma etc)

Perhaps because I have investigated a lot of those other reasons the nurturing side to it all stands out so heavily to me, because I have left that almost untouched.

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Although I think I am still somewhat confusing your point because I mention an affective connection in general which is more a connection to the psychic web, this consists of much more than just compassion and empathy.

Talking about compassion and empathy specifically is a little different, I think I need to dig around a little more before posting anything worthwhile :stuck_out_tongue:

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What I see here is a confusion of ‘inside-outside,’ as in, ‘is this emotion about me, or about them?’

The simple answer here is, it’s both: that’s what, ‘I am humanity and humanity is me’ is.

When we feel something for ourselves (sorrow) and we feel something for someone else (empathy-sympathy-compassion), it’s the same feeling in the body. Additionally, the typical speed-of transmission of a feeling from one to another can be near-instant, further increasing the sense of ‘connection’ between people.

To the point where people don’t recognize that they have the ability to control their own emotions: it seems causal, as in, ‘he/she made me feel this way.’ Additionally, there is always a reaction with humans, when someone has a feeling one way or another there’s a reactive feeling whether feeling the same (sorrow->sorrow) or contra (sorrow ->anger).

This is also the source of the spiritual, ‘I am you is he is she,’ ‘God is running all this,’ etc.

So in that moment of empathy, we’re equally wanting to protect the other just as we’re trying to protect our own feeler… that is what ‘creates’ nurture. “I must protect this person, because it is like I am in danger”

In our familial-tribal-primal history, this worked pretty well.

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Yes that is a very good point @henryyyyyyyyyy

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What’s really interesting to me @henryyyyyyyyyy is that using your point about it being about ‘me’ and ‘them’ at one at the same time (it being the same emotional energy). The same applies in reverse, as in without the connection to others ‘I’ cannot exist either, Because it is all one and the same thing, ‘me’ and the ‘connection’ are the same affective energy. Which is just another way of saying ‘I’ am ‘humanity’ and ‘humanity’ is ‘me’. I’m really enjoying this conversation so far!

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