[Stranglehold875]

Nothing's ever "happened" to me but you could say I've witnessed awful things. Every day whether it's something on the news or even a television episode that mentions certain things or similar I can't function. I feel anxiety and rage because I want to eliminate those responsible for causing so much suffering to others. My past has put me through many feelings of guilt, so I can't say it's just out of the kindness of my heart.

For the past 5 years I've been socially withdrawn, with times when I pushed myself to talk to others, but nonetheless today I spend days without talking to a single soul. I tried to kill myself 2 years ago, and it was a horrifyingly painful experience which pushed me to change.. I started exercising, eating healthy, studying, and all sorts of things. I've read into Zen which I really like, but in the end I'm still haunted by this..

I can't stop feeling so much pain and anxiety when I see things like that. I don't know what to do because I want to help, but this is more to me than wanting to be altruistic. This is my obsession.

I think that my entire life has pushed me to develop an uncommon (at least in my experience) perspective in life. So much so that I don't find anyone I can see eye-to-eye with. It's not just my sensitivity to violent crime, but most of my thoughts. I feel very lonely.

[Perna]

Hi, Stranglehold, welcome to PsychCentral (PC).

I would add to your change, not watching TV news or other shows about the sorts of things you end up feeling badly about or reading about them on the computer, etc. Reduce the amount of "watching" you do and try to get out more and talk to actual people. It sounds like you have been interacting with the news rather than with people! So, of course you cannot find others to see eye-to-eye with, your self-imposed perspective has been limited mostly to grim topics.

It is not that other people are more shallow than we are or not as smart, etc. it is that we are not engaged in actual life but only with ourselves so we are the ones who have no experience with life. Go to the grocery store and chat with the grocery clerk on your way out and take a cooking class and learn to cook well for yourself (you are worth it!) and join a reading or study group where you can discuss things with others rather than just ruminating on your own with no fresh thoughts and ideas not your own coming in to refresh your outlook.

[RonPSH]

Originally Posted by Stranglehold875

I can't stop feeling so much pain and anxiety when I see things like that. I don't know what to do because I want to help, but this is more to me than wanting to be altruistic. This is my obsession.

I think that my entire life has pushed me to develop an uncommon (at least in my experience) perspective in life. So much so that I don't find anyone I can see eye-to-eye with. It's not just my sensitivity to violent crime, but most of my thoughts. I feel very lonely.

Welcome Stranglehold!

I agree with Perna. If you are a news junkie, let's turn it off. I see in you a deeply sensitive (which is great) compassionate human being and the news puts so much suffering in front of you artificially. The real world is the one that you personally come in contact with. With 7 billion suffering people on the planet, knowing the suffering beyond your locality and never hearing the success stories is going to be an impossible burden to carry.

In your last comment, I really resonate with this. In my life, my parents were each married three times when I was a kid, my mom was an alcoholic then on the wagon, then she killed herself. I rarely saw my dad since I was five and so on. That's a lot for a kid to take. Oh, and to start my life, I was a breech with the cord around my neck expected to die during delivery so I'm guessing I suffered a major trauma just being born.

And like you, I rarely in everyday life find someone that I can see eye-to-eye with, but online, it's easy to find these people.

It's obvious to see the physical characteristics of each other, but there are certainly different levels of consciousness that are hard to detect until you get a handle on who you are.

For example, it's obvious that adults can see deeper into life than a two year old and we help the toddler see what he can't see in order to help him learn and grow and be safe.

But adult to adult, it's not so obvious. You've got people that are logical to know end that sound really smart, but are they? My neighbor is a really smart chiropracter who is also a licensed nutritionist just he's 80 pounds overweight. That's a contradiction that reveals something missing. Intellect isn't intelligence. Intelligence manifests itself where intellect is simply ideas we memorized. If a nutritionist is overweight, then it probably means he doesn't know what he's talking about.

If you're interested check out these youtube videos by Sean Blackwell. They are the result of his bipolar psychosis spiritual awakening and 90% of the info is excellent for all of us and the rest fits with those living with bipolar. Videos #1, 13, 14, and either 21 or 22 tell about these levels of consciousness. http://www.youtube.com/user/bipolaro.../1/BnsTNEXMRL8

Also, this is my waking up story that includes your sentiments as well and allowed me to finally totally accept myself as I am... http://www.profound-self-help.com/adhd-self-help.html

You are alone because of what you said. That you are lonely alone is really the issue.

Should one first come to terms with one’s own loneliness before entering into relationship?

Yes, you have to come to terms with your loneliness, so much so that the loneliness is transformed into aloneness. Only then will you be capable of moving into a deep enriching relationship. Only then will you be able to move into love. What do I mean when I say that one has to come to terms with one’s loneliness, so much so that it becomes aloneness?

Loneliness is a negative state of mind. Aloneness is positive, notwithstanding what the dictionaries say. In dictionaries, loneliness and aloneness are synonymous – they are synonyms; in life they are not. Loneliness is a state of mind when you are constantly missing the other, aloneness is the state of mind when you are constantly delighted in yourself. Loneliness is miserable, aloneness is blissful. Loneliness is always worried, missing something, hankering for something, desiring for something; aloneness is a deep fulfillment, not going out, tremendously content, happy, celebrating. In loneliness you are off center, in aloneness you are centered and rooted. Aloneness is beautiful. It has an elegance around it, a grace, a climate of tremendous satisfaction. Loneliness is; beggarly; all around it there is begging and nothing else. It has no grace around it. In fact it is ugly. Loneliness is a dependence, aloneness is sheer independence. One feels as if one is one’s whole world, one’s whole existence.

Now, if you move into a relationship when you are feeling lonely, then you will exploit the other. The other will become a means to satisfy you. You will use the other, and everybody resents being used because no man is here to become a means for anybody else. Every man is an end unto himself. Nobody is here to be used like a thing, everybody is here to be worshipped like a king. Nobody is here to fulfill anybody else’s expectations, everybody is here just to be himself. So whenever you move in any relationship out of loneliness, the relationship is already on the rocks. Even before it has started, it is already on the rocks. Even before the birth, the child is dead. It is going to create more misery for you. And remember, when you move from your loneliness you will fall in relationship with somebody who is in the same plight, because no man who is really living his aloneness will be attracted towards you. You will be too below him. He can, at the most, sympathize, but cannot love you. One who is on his peak of aloneness can only be attracted towards somebody who is also alone. So whenever you move out of loneliness, you will find a man of the same type; you will find your own reflection somewhere. Two beggars will meet, two miserable people will meet. And remember, when two miserable people meet, it is not an ordinary addition, it is a multiplication. They create much more misery for each other than they could have created in their loneliness.

First become alone. First start enjoying yourself. First love yourself. First become so authentically happy that if nobody comes it doesn’t matter; you are full, overflowing. If nobody knocks at your door it is perfectly okay – you are not missing. You are not waiting for somebody to come and knock at the door. You are at home. If somebody comes, good, beautiful. If nobody comes, that too is beautiful and good.
Then move into relationship. Now you move like a master, not like a beggar. Now you move like an emperor, not like a beggar. And the person who has lived in his aloneness will always be attracted to another person who is also living his aloneness beautifully, because the same attracts the same. When two masters meet – masters of their being, of their aloneness – happiness is not just added, it is multiplied. It becomes a tremendous phenomenon of celebration. And they don’t exploit, they share. They don’t use each other. Rather, on the contrary, they both become one and enjoy the existence that surrounds them.

Two lonely people are always facing each other, confronting. Two people who have known aloneness are together, facing something higher than both. I always give this example: two ordinary lovers who are both lonely always face each other; two real lovers, on a full moon night, will not be facing each other. They may be holding hands, but they will be facing the full moon high in the sky. They will not be facing each other, they will be together facing something else. Sometimes they will be listening to a symphony of Mozart or Beethoven or Wagner together. Sometimes they will be sitting by the side of a tree and enjoying the tremendous being of the tree enveloping them. Sometimes they may be sitting by a waterfall and listening to the wild music that is continuously being created there. Sometimes, by the ocean, they will both be looking to the farthest possibility that the eyes can see. Whenever two lonely persons meet, they look at each other, because they are constantly in search of ways and means to exploit the other: how to use the other, how to be happy through the other. But two persons who are deeply contented within themselves are not trying to use each other. Rather, they become fellow travelers; they move on a pilgrimage. The goal is high, the goal is far away. Their common interest joins them together.

Ordinarily the common interest is sex. Sex can join two persons momentarily and casually, and very superficially. Real lovers have a greater common interest. It is not that sex will not be there; it may be there, but as part of a higher harmony. Listening to Mozart’s or Beethoven’s symphony, they may come so close, so close, so close, that there may be love. They may make love to each other, but it is in the greater harmony of a Beethoven symphony. The symphony was the real thing; the love happens as part of it. And when love happens of its own accord, unsought, unthought, simply happens as part of a higher harmony, it has a totally different quality to it. It is divine, it is no longer human.

The word happiness comes from a Scandanavian word ‘hap’. The word ‘happening’ also comes from the same Scandanavian root. Happiness is that which happens. You cannot produce it, you cannot command it, you cannot force it. At the most, you can be available to it. Whenever it happens, it happens.
Two real lovers are always available, but never thinking, never trying to find happiness. Then they are never frustrated, because whenever it happens it happens. They create the situation. In fact, if you are happy with yourself, you are already the situation, and if the other is also happy with himself or herself, she is also the situation. When these two situations come close, a greater situation is created. In that greater situation much happens – nothing is produced.

Man has not to do anything to be happy. Man has just to flow and let go.

So, the question is: should one first come to terms with his own loneliness before entering into relationship? Yes; yes, absolutely. It has to be so, otherwise you will be frustrated, and in the name of love you will be doing something else which is not love at all. Osho....