Forgive me...

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by bretonbanquet

Certainly music and books, they play a big part in my life. Also I'm a big nature lover, I like to go out into the middle of nowhere and think, and watch whatever animals and birds are out there. I find I have to reserve time to do that because I can get stressed and a bit irritable otherwise - some people drink or smoke, but I just go for a walk! Much cheaper too

It is interesting that you like to connect with nature because that is part of Dr. Weil's section on "making connections" which help us become happier. If you are happy now, I would imagine that if you found a fulfilling relationship (friendship or otherwise) you would simply soar.

http://www.drweil.com/u/Article/M125/

Making Connections: Eight Ways to Connect

Feeling whole and connected to the Earth and others takes work, but it is rewarding work. By bringing your focus outside of yourself, you will learn to reach out to people and to nature in positive ways. Giving of yourself, from spending time with friends and those in need to taking care of the environment or an animal friend, also promotes positive interaction. Here are eight steps to help you get connected:

1) Nature and Earth
If you think of nature as a hostile force that is separate from yourself, you will go through life unnecessarily afraid and cut off from one of the great sources of spiritual nourishment. Whether you connect with nature on wilderness trips or lunch breaks in a city park, you can always slow down and observe the infinite variety of her ways. One way to connect with nature is through plants: gardening, collecting plants from the wild, growing cactuses and flowering bulbs, and having unusual and useful plants in and around the home can all help promote connectedness with nature. Plants can enrich your daily life, bring comfort and joy, and remind you that however you think of yourself, you are also part of the natural world.

2) Animals
Research shows that people who have pets have less illness than people who do not. Pet owners also recover faster from serious illness and tend to be happier. Ex-prisoners who form relationships with pets have lower recidivism rates than those who do not. While pets can and inevitably will bring owners great joy, they are a responsibility: they demand a certain level of attention and care. However, the rewards that pets give in return are often too great to be measured. Loving and caring for a pet is a great way to learn how to love and care for other humans and nature.

3) Family
We are not meant to be all alone - we are meant to be parts of bigger families, bands, tribes. Human beings want and need the intimate support of a real family. Unfortunately, the nuclear family of our modern society is contracted. It is hard not to look at the “extended families” of some cultures with wistful longing, if not outright envy. Where I live, in southern Arizona, the Hispanic population seems way ahead of the rest of us in providing for the needs of family. In many Hispanic families the old people, even when infirm, continue to be valued members and live at home. Don’t settle for nuclear family contraction. Extend!

4) Community
Community is the sense of living and working together for common goals. We are naturally communal beings and derive great satisfaction from the experience of belonging to a group with a common purpose. The strength and comfort of community come from the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Our society often fails to provide for this need, and unless we work to create community, it does not happen.

You can define community any way you want. It may be your neighborhood, your sports team, your environmental action group, your church, your social club. What makes it work is what you bring to it and the role you let it play in your life. This kind of connectedness gives us the power to improve our lives and make the world a better place.

5) Serving
Selfless service means giving of yourself to help others with no thought of return. Many religious traditions extol the ideal of selfless service as one of the great aids to dismantling the ego cage and restructuring personality. Each day provides countless opportunities to practice putting others’ interests ahead of your own, such as giving of your time, energy and presence to reduce the suffering or increase the happiness of others. The goal is not to acquire spiritual merit, increase your chances of going to heaven, or earn the admiration of the community. Instead, service is a way of acknowledging that we are all one and that the happiness of each is connected to the happiness of all. The more you can experience the interconnectedness of all beings, the healthier you will be.

6) Loving
To love is to experience connection in its highest, purest form. Humans tend to confuse loving with other feelings that take us back into the world of separateness and fragmentation. Popular songs today seem to be mostly about the joys and pains of romantic love, not about loving as connection, which is something altogether different. Learning to love takes practice and time, especially in a culture that is focused so intensely on romantic love.

In intimate relationships that work, the in-love state is replaced by mutual loving. That can happen only if both partners are mature and committed to a life together. Many people today have no idea what to do when they fall out of love with their partners; they think it means there is no possibility of continuing the relationship, which is why divorce rates are now so high.

Realizing that you have within you a limitless source of love that can benefit everyone and everything will help you form the best and strongest connections of your life.

7) Touching
Human beings need to touch and be touched. A great deal of animal and human research shows that individuals deprived of physical contact are insecure, poorly adjusted, and more prone to illness. Some cross-cultural research suggests that sexually repressed and touch-deprived societies are much more given to violence. Our own society, unfortunately, is in that category. Touching is an easy connection to make because it feels so good. Please do more of it.

8) Higher powers
One reason the 12-step programs work as treatments for addiction is that they encourage connection to a power greater than yourself. It does not matter much how you conceive of that higher power; what matters is the sense of connection to it. It can be the father-god of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ, the Compassionate Buddha, the Great Spirit, the Goddess, pure, undifferentiated Consciousness, or simply the Mystery. You are free to choose the way you conceive of the universe and your place in it. People who experience themselves as part of and supported by something larger than themselves are less fearful and more healthy than people who view the world through the bars of an ego cage, seeing the world as separate from them, disconnected.

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Copyright © 2005 Weil Lifestyle, LLC

[GypsySorcerer]

My maternal grandfather was like your friend. He wanted nothing to do with my mother and wasn't involved in any romantic relationships after he and my grandmother divorced. He only kept in contact with my great aunt, and basically lived alone the rest of his life. A kindly neighbor looked after him after his stroke and before he passed away.

Apparently, though, my great-grandfather was this outgoing, gregarious man who couldn't relate his withdrawn son. I guess that affected my grandfather.

[GateandGarden]

Originally Posted by The Tower

My dad's father committed suicide when my dad was 18. He never, ever got over it and still has not come to terms with it to this day at the age of 72. My mom's dad withheld demonstrative, physical affection from my mom and it ruined her ability to readily dole out affection. Are they happy? Eh, probably not "HAPPY!!!", but they're as good as they're gonna get.

When you say "they're as good as they're gonna get," that certainly implies that they are not completely happy, but, obviously, they are not to blame. I guess the damage has already been done by others and no one else can do anything to fix that. This is a thought about people that tears me apart often, because I'm such an idealist that when I get to the point at which I love someone devotedly and unconditionally, I want to take away that kind of pain. I feel like that's what I'm there for, but it's really impossible. Love does not always conquer all.

[GateandGarden]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

7) Touching
Human beings need to touch and be touched. A great deal of animal and human research shows that individuals deprived of physical contact are insecure, poorly adjusted, and more prone to illness. Some cross-cultural research suggests that sexually repressed and touch-deprived societies are much more given to violence. Our own society, unfortunately, is in that category. Touching is an easy connection to make because it feels so good. Please do more of it.

I certainly feel that way, but many would disagree.

[amber]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

It is interesting that you like to connect with nature because that is part of Dr. Weil's section on "making connections" which help us become happier. If you are happy now, I would imagine that if you found a fulfilling relationship (friendship or otherwise) you would simply soar.

http://www.drweil.com/u/Article/M125/

Making Connections: Eight Ways to Connect

Feeling whole and connected to the Earth and others takes work, but it is rewarding work. By bringing your focus outside of yourself, you will learn to reach out to people and to nature in positive ways. Giving of yourself, from spending time with friends and those in need to taking care of the environment or an animal friend, also promotes positive interaction. Here are eight steps to help you get connected:

1) Nature and Earth
If you think of nature as a hostile force that is separate from yourself, you will go through life unnecessarily afraid and cut off from one of the great sources of spiritual nourishment. Whether you connect with nature on wilderness trips or lunch breaks in a city park, you can always slow down and observe the infinite variety of her ways. One way to connect with nature is through plants: gardening, collecting plants from the wild, growing cactuses and flowering bulbs, and having unusual and useful plants in and around the home can all help promote connectedness with nature. Plants can enrich your daily life, bring comfort and joy, and remind you that however you think of yourself, you are also part of the natural world.

2) Animals
Research shows that people who have pets have less illness than people who do not. Pet owners also recover faster from serious illness and tend to be happier. Ex-prisoners who form relationships with pets have lower recidivism rates than those who do not. While pets can and inevitably will bring owners great joy, they are a responsibility: they demand a certain level of attention and care. However, the rewards that pets give in return are often too great to be measured. Loving and caring for a pet is a great way to learn how to love and care for other humans and nature.

3) Family
We are not meant to be all alone - we are meant to be parts of bigger families, bands, tribes. Human beings want and need the intimate support of a real family. Unfortunately, the nuclear family of our modern society is contracted. It is hard not to look at the “extended families” of some cultures with wistful longing, if not outright envy. Where I live, in southern Arizona, the Hispanic population seems way ahead of the rest of us in providing for the needs of family. In many Hispanic families the old people, even when infirm, continue to be valued members and live at home. Don’t settle for nuclear family contraction. Extend!

4) Community
Community is the sense of living and working together for common goals. We are naturally communal beings and derive great satisfaction from the experience of belonging to a group with a common purpose. The strength and comfort of community come from the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Our society often fails to provide for this need, and unless we work to create community, it does not happen.

You can define community any way you want. It may be your neighborhood, your sports team, your environmental action group, your church, your social club. What makes it work is what you bring to it and the role you let it play in your life. This kind of connectedness gives us the power to improve our lives and make the world a better place.

5) Serving
Selfless service means giving of yourself to help others with no thought of return. Many religious traditions extol the ideal of selfless service as one of the great aids to dismantling the ego cage and restructuring personality. Each day provides countless opportunities to practice putting others’ interests ahead of your own, such as giving of your time, energy and presence to reduce the suffering or increase the happiness of others. The goal is not to acquire spiritual merit, increase your chances of going to heaven, or earn the admiration of the community. Instead, service is a way of acknowledging that we are all one and that the happiness of each is connected to the happiness of all. The more you can experience the interconnectedness of all beings, the healthier you will be.

6) Loving
To love is to experience connection in its highest, purest form. Humans tend to confuse loving with other feelings that take us back into the world of separateness and fragmentation. Popular songs today seem to be mostly about the joys and pains of romantic love, not about loving as connection, which is something altogether different. Learning to love takes practice and time, especially in a culture that is focused so intensely on romantic love.

In intimate relationships that work, the in-love state is replaced by mutual loving. That can happen only if both partners are mature and committed to a life together. Many people today have no idea what to do when they fall out of love with their partners; they think it means there is no possibility of continuing the relationship, which is why divorce rates are now so high.

Realizing that you have within you a limitless source of love that can benefit everyone and everything will help you form the best and strongest connections of your life.

7) Touching
Human beings need to touch and be touched. A great deal of animal and human research shows that individuals deprived of physical contact are insecure, poorly adjusted, and more prone to illness. Some cross-cultural research suggests that sexually repressed and touch-deprived societies are much more given to violence. Our own society, unfortunately, is in that category. Touching is an easy connection to make because it feels so good. Please do more of it.

8) Higher powers
One reason the 12-step programs work as treatments for addiction is that they encourage connection to a power greater than yourself. It does not matter much how you conceive of that higher power; what matters is the sense of connection to it. It can be the father-god of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ, the Compassionate Buddha, the Great Spirit, the Goddess, pure, undifferentiated Consciousness, or simply the Mystery. You are free to choose the way you conceive of the universe and your place in it. People who experience themselves as part of and supported by something larger than themselves are less fearful and more healthy than people who view the world through the bars of an ego cage, seeing the world as separate from them, disconnected.

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Copyright © 2005 Weil Lifestyle, LLC

Very interesting Suze. Thanks for posting. Hmmm, I think I need more "touching"....

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by GateandGarden

I certainly feel that way, but many would disagree.

They're wrong.

[Serrart]

Originally Posted by GateandGarden

...'cause I'm about to wax philosophical and then expect the rest of you to do the same but much better.

Do you think it's possible that some people are happier if they go through life without being close to any other human being? If a friend told you that he or she felt that way, would you have a hard time believing it? Basically, I have an ex-friend who thinks that love, particularly the unconditional kind (must resist urge to allow Stevie's "Unconditional Love" to go through my head) is a joke. This person prefers to be alone, and I don't mean just without a romantic partner but a very close friend as well. This person doesn't really want to share anything significant with anyone else. She doesn't want to talk about much more than work and such with other human beings. I've always found these declarations hard to take. Am I the only one who feels that we all need someone to confide in? How do y'all feel about this? Do you suppose that to assume that this person (or anyone else) does need more human contact is an example of me pushing my beliefs about what a person needs onto someone else? Do I only feel the way I do because I know I need more than that?

I agree with all the others, probably your friend has been deeply hurt and now feels that way mostly for that reason. Even if the concept of getting close to the others, IMO, is much more complex than we can imagine. Some people are apparently part of a community but intimately feel themselves very far from the others. Some others have the courage or the urge to bring out their different way of living. I think passions (for work, art, a political or religious belief, etc) can absorb energy and sublimate for a part the need of a standard human contact. But even in that cases, for me, there's a part that goes in search of the others, is only more difficult to see it.

Romy

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by amber

Very interesting Suze. Thanks for posting. Hmmm, I think I need more "touching"....

Woman, don't we all?

Dr Weil is awesome and whenever I have a question about health or wellness I look at his site. I've read most of his books too. 8 Weeks to Optimum Health is a really good one and it's the reason why I eat so much organic/whole stuff now and love it!

[amber]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

Woman, don't we all?

Dr Weil is awesome and whenever I have a question about health or wellness I look at his site. I've read most of his books too. 8 Weeks to Optimum Health is a really good one and it's the reason why I eat so much organic/whole stuff now and love it!

Excellent! I'm happy that you are having a nice little "lifestyle overhall" with your food habits.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by amber

Excellent! I'm happy that you are having a nice little "lifestyle overhall" with your food habits.

The focus is on what is "good" that is why. That worked a lot better for me then this is "bad" and you "shouldn't" eat this.

I want to mention that I am not that great at relationships myself! These are ideals we are talking about, that we strive for. I do have a few close friends that I trust. I am certainly not suggesting that anyone open themselves up to dangerous people! Quite the contrary. I also enjoy my own company often, I'm one who needs my alone time or I will go batty! I didn't intend to offend anyone I just believe this to be a fundamental truth about human beings, that we need and do better with human contact.

[bretonbanquet]

Originally Posted by GateandGarden

I have an ongoing nature walk fantasy that involves me enjoying natural scenery, especially various bodies of water, with the woman of my dreams holding my hand. So, I'm sure I was with ya until I mentioned the woman of my dreams part. I'm a hopeless romantic, though. It sets me up for disappointment.

That sounds like a decent enough fantasy to me and although being a hopeless romantic might set you up for disappointment sometimes, it also means you're open to lots of people and lots of things, which could set you up for nice surprises! As for me, although I am reserved, my mind is always open

[GateandGarden]

Originally Posted by bretonbanquet

That sounds like a decent enough fantasy to me and although being a hopeless romantic might set you up for disappointment sometimes, it also means you're open to lots of people and lots of things, which could set you up for nice surprises! As for me, although I am reserved, my mind is always open

[bretonbanquet]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

It is interesting that you like to connect with nature because that is part of Dr. Weil's section on "making connections" which help us become happier. If you are happy now, I would imagine that if you found a fulfilling relationship (friendship or otherwise) you would simply soar.

Thanks for posting all that - very interesting, and there's a helluva lot of sense there Although I am not looking for any kind of relationship, I'm not closed to the possibility if it came at me out of nowhere I just can't imagine it happening in a way that would make me really stop and think.

[DrummerDeanna]

Wow - interesting topic

I had a friend who told me the same thing your friend did, Hillary

She was mucho F***ed up though - I'm not sure exactly what went down in her past, I know a dead girlfriend was involved...and she was WAY guarded with everyone - for a while I was her only "good friend" but I was expendable apparently as she refused to be close to anyone - including people in her own family...

She was NOT happy though she sometimes claimed to be...sigh - I don't know what's become of her but I certainly hope she got the help she needed and has let people into her life..somehow I doubt that's happened though...

----

Anyway - I, personally, think that as humans we are social animals..and need to interact with others...but that's just my opinion and I don't like to say that what's good for me is good for others you know?

If someone wants to make that life decision to never be close to others - well that's their bed - they're going to have to sleep in it ya know?

I know that moving to ROchester and not knowing anyone was SO hard - I miss the hugs of friends and family, I miss sitting around and doing nothing with close friends, I just miss the daily contact of the people I was close with back home. Slowly I'm making new friends here...and it's not so bad

[GateandGarden]

Originally Posted by DrummerDeanna

I had a friend who told me the same thing your friend did, Hillary

She was mucho F***ed up though - I'm not sure exactly what went down in her past, I know a dead girlfriend was involved...and she was WAY guarded with everyone - for a while I was her only "good friend" but I was expendable apparently as she refused to be close to anyone - including people in her own family...

She was NOT happy though she sometimes claimed to be...sigh - I don't know what's become of her but I certainly hope she got the help she needed and has let people into her life..somehow I doubt that's happened though...

You had that kind of friend, too? Bless you! Mine has put me through mucho misery! I know a lot of what went down in this person's past, and suffice it to say that I would not be okay if it had been me going through it and not her. I would need lots of psychological help, though sometimes lots of it can have a negative affect...but that's another thread! Anyway, I know how you feel to a degree...hoping that this person found happiness and the help she needed and all. Lately, I've been wondering if my (ex) friend is happy now or will ever be happy, and I also wonder if maybe she has been happy all this time and I just never understood her because I couldn't relate.

And this thread is helping me to sort it out in my head as much as possible. Thanks to all of y'all for responding honestly and thinking about it and not letting the thread just disappear without any responses.