Afraid of being vulnerable?

I was walking around the park when I suddenly took a deep breath through my nose and remembered that the world is full of scents. I never smell anything - I expect that the stench will be awful, and so my world is almost without fragrance.

What this means is that the only smells I take in are the bad ones, which are unavoidable. Lovely scents are hard to find, and one must breathe deeply to appreciate them.

I don't think that I've ever come up with a better metaphor for my life. I shut myself off from people to cut out all the pain, and in doing so cut out all that is good as well. Like a bad stench, the side of human nature that impresses itself on me is an overwhelmingly rotten one: for good deeds are as subtle as fine fragrances.

Pride is the enemy of love. I am proud, and so I hurt myself to prove my strength. If I open myself up then I will also be hurt - yet it is worth fifty pains for that one elusive joy when two open souls meet each other's eyes.

I live in an farming area....Aaahh yes, on somedays I can smell the love...

Humilty is the reverse of pride.

Humility= accepting myself as human. My assets and my liabilities.
My strenghts and my weakness...limitations.
Yeap..I'm not fucken Snowwhite and my honeysuckle stinks..lol

When the ego gets rolling we get cut off from
our spirit...that zest for life and the beauty of it all.
Strange as it maybe...Fucken selfpity and living in fear gets us nowhere..the ego and pride at it's best turned inward.
It's a bottomless fucken pit....go as deep as you wanna go.
Self inflicted wounds...Like a dog chasing it's own tail.
The victim of a fucken crule crule fucken world yet
with fucken piosoness throns that'll cut anyone.

Flowers grow on bullshit in sunlight
Mushroom too grows on bullshit but in darkness.

Pain is a good thing...it tells us something is fucken wrong.
US...ourselves or perceptions and the ego going out of fucken controll

Opening up that ugly can of worms Eh ?
Worms dies in sunlight.

Compassion is the opposite of anger.
You have feelings...you know pains..You know what happens
when you're in pain and scared.
Sometimes others are in pain as will...cut them some slack.

Respect is the opposite of Lust. Accepting others as they are...
being humans with thier beauty and darkness.
In other words treat others like how you would want to be treated.

Move forward inspite of the pains. Joy might be around the
conner. She's hawt too
Sometimes we stay in that cycle of numbness and never get beyound the fear to feel the pain.

Darkwall,
You shut yourself away from people to avoid pain but it didn't work...You still experienced pain. It takes personal strength to walk through the fire, to face the pain. Once you do that, you can transcend the pain. The stuff that caused you pain before will cease to cause pain because you're beyond that threshold. The pain doesn't destroy you if you face up to it. If you RUN from it, it will threaten to destroy you.
Noticing things like pleasant smells is an invitation back into the real world. Keep going! Keep noticing the nice things, the positive side to life. Start to live in that place and it will expand for you. Be a warrior to the pain; acknowledge when you feel painful but stay there for a while instead of trying to escape it. Good luck.

I think that the problem is that what keeps me going is my self-image, or if you will, my arrogance. In trying to join in with other people, I'm subjecting my self-image to their rules, which is a process of humiliation for me. If I lose my self-image, I lose everything. I take pride in showing how strong I am by being on my own in lectures, something that a lot of people find difficult to do. I don't shut myself away so much as create a distance around myself for self-protection, and the problem is that if I let people cross the distance and know me as a person and THEN they reject me, it will be soul-crushing. This happened before, and was responsible in part for the layer. The problem isn't in terms of pain - I can "take" being alone - but in terms of finding love. I will never find love unless I can let someone in.

Well, you recognise the most important facet... and knowing where a problem lies is the key to finding a solution.

Lowering your barriers and allowing people closer to you will, as you have already stated, open you up to the potential of being hurt. But, I think its better to be free and run the risk of harm, than to live in a self created prison.

Take it slowly.. find people you can gradually lose the barriers with - if someone abuses the trust you have given them, then that speaks more about that individual than it does about you.

I think pride can go without arrogance. I'm proud of myself, my learnings and my abilities. We all should be. But that doesn't necessarily include holding yourself above others or excluding yourself from something. Pride or not, I've done fine in several organizations (encompassing work, volunteer groups, whatever). I can even relate to being 'on your own' in a class discussion...in my English class last semester, I frequently found myself alone on an issue or part of a minority opinion, but I still got along with the class. Setting opinions aside doesn't really mean setting yourself aside, I don't think.

To me that's demonstrative of a strong social bond. I disagree with a lot of what one of my coworkers believes. But we can accept that and still get along great for 48 hour shifts and work together in very tense situations. It's a very powerful trust in spite of differences.



Of course, it's also possible I've entirely missed what you're getting at.

darkwall said:

I think that the problem is that what keeps me going is my self-image, or if you will, my arrogance. In trying to join in with other people, I'm subjecting my self-image to their rules, which is a process of humiliation for me. If I lose my self-image, I lose everything. I take pride in showing how strong I am by being on my own in lectures, something that a lot of people find difficult to do. I don't shut myself away so much as create a distance around myself for self-protection, and the problem is that if I let people cross the distance and know me as a person and THEN they reject me, it will be soul-crushing. This happened before, and was responsible in part for the layer. The problem isn't in terms of pain - I can "take" being alone - but in terms of finding love. I will never find love unless I can let someone in.

Click to expand...

Maybe try the attraction rather than promotion methode.

There's nothing wrong with positive self image.
Good self esteem with a POSITIVE ATTITUDE..you'll need it.

There's gate keepers in your life...Poeple that will open
doors for you. Doors to new horizon.
Honey attracts Bees. You'll never going to know whom
the gate keepers are...maybe a relative, associate or a freinds of
people that you just pissed -off or try to make yourself superior
to.

This too also applies to your dream girl, woman or personal relationship.
She might be a friend to some of the people you make yourself superior upon.
Burning bridges before you even arrived.

will...you know how it feels like when some makes themselve
superior than you...it don't feel good dose it ?
How do you think others feel when you make yourself bigger
and better than them ? Generally most people would want
to knock someone off of the pedestol or pull the rug out from
under your feet so you'll land on your ass.

Maybe stop trying to set yourself up for a fall
or put yourself in the position to get hurt or humiliated.
Big..big differents between humility and humilations.

Get some incense.

Unacceptance said:

Get some incense.

Click to expand...

I was just thinking that!

Surround yourself with the things you like the 'smell' of.