Obstacle/Path Enigma

I think a lot of religion/spirituality/motivational writings include a version of the belief that everything that you experience is for a reason.  Since all things are learning experiences, I suppose this is true.  Within this vein of thought, I am currently swimming, or maybe splashing about in a seizure-like dog paddle.  My challenge is, and may be for a long time, trust.  I know that I write about this fairly frequently as of late and that is because it is almost number one on the list of things that keeps me awake at night or that draws my focus during the day.

These trust issues come from a past place, both distant and recent.  I have a hard time trusting my girlfriend because of things she did and things that happened way before she came in to my life.  I wonder if these things will carry on in to every relationship I am in.  This thought has kept me from running.  If the issues are inside me, independent of the person I am with, then the problem is in me and I can't escape it.  I can only deal with it.
But how?

I have been trying meditation.  I work daily to be in the moment and to live with a clear head that is present.  When I find myself meditation regularly, much of the noise of daily thoughts clears up and leaves behind the deep level of noise.  This is where my anxiety and paranoia live.  They are much harder to quiet down.  This is when I begin to question everything in my relationship.  This is when my heart goes into the grip of depression.  This is when said relationship suffers, at least on my end, because I begin to wonder if it is worth it.  Part of me recognizes that, because this seems to be a constant issue, I should just move on.  But I believe that this woman holds something great for me.  I feel it in my gut.  I don't want to toss it away until I am feel differently.  Writing that makes me question it, but that is not the point here.

Once upon a time, I was a guy who trusted first and questioned later.  I am now the opposite, so when I give my trust but find it challenged, I don't know how to deal with that.  How do I build that trust up again?
It is within this question that my learning experience, that my "thing that happens for a reason" lies.  If I can get over this, I have learned something valuable and have strengthened a relationship.  If I can't, well, I don't know what.

I suppose it is all about communication.  Talking it out would be best.  It is in that that I find fear.  Fear that bringing it up will break us up.  Once again, fear rears its ugly head.  I wonder if that is the reason to do it, because if nothing else, I will have faced something I am afraid of.

I have no answer right now.  Maybe I just needed to write this out to see it from another angle.

"The obstacle is the path"
       - Zen proverb

This was posted on http://lazyyogi.org today.  Kind of fitting.
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

—	Ernest Hemingway

(edited 11/01/12)

My Friend Paranoia

I have said before that I spend quite a bit of time expecting that my relationships will go sour.  It is based on experiences that I struggle to let go of and on my subconscious desire to be dramatic and cynical, two qualities with which I also struggle to let go of.   There is also a part of me, I think, that kind of wants there to be something wrong.  It's kind of sick.  I have begun to wonder if my difficulty in letting this stuff go lies in the comfort of the familiar.  I don't know what to do with a relationship that is good and might not actually go bad.  Paranoia is often the result.  

Paranoia is defined as intense and irrational mistrust or suspicion, which can bring on sense of rage, hatred, and betrayal.  The feelings can stem from any number of causes and people suffering from paranoid disorders are often mistrustful, defensive and have a preoccupation with hidden motives.  Boy, does this define my feelings sometimes.  I am not trying to say that I have a disorder on any clinical level, but I can relate. 

Because I hold on to the things that have happened to past relationship, both of my doing and the stuff that was out of my control, I have a deeply rooted belief that any relationship will go bad.  I look for it.  I wait for it.  I expect it.  

This is probably pretty normal behavior.  People get hurt all the time and some just move on and keep going and others dwell and hold on.  When a relationship meant something, that is when we hold on the tightest.  Those are the ones that are the hardest to let go of.  We remember talking for hours with conversations that take no effort; lying in bed for a day with no desire to be anywhere else; the feelings of acceptance and happiness and contentment from that one person.  We also remember the hurt, the rejection, the guilt, the betrayal, and all the bad stuff that comes when the whole thing falls apart.  

The pain and the hurt comes from the attachment to that person.  We lose them and feel as if we have lost everything.  We attach our happiness to them.  This leads to those days or weeks or months when we don't want to get out of bed, or we are hit with a wave of nostalgia that nearly knocks us off our feet, or when wine becomes a best friend while watching movies on the couch with a cat in the dark.  Holding on to that stuff is what brings the suffering into every other relationship we get into, and I hold on with white knuckles, man.

I carry that stuff around like a shield that weighs me down.  Instead of helping me, it is like a magnet that attracts and holds on to all the negative shit until I can barely hold it.  It shields me from the good stuff so that things won't hurt as badly.  What things?  Depends on what things my mind is making up at the time.  These are the things that keeps me up at night at tightening their grip around my chest.  They are the things I need to drop to lighten my load on this journey I am on.  They are the things I am familiar with, the things I wear like a sodden blanket that I pretend keeps me warm.  I wear them because I am scared and uncertain and lack control over what I do not know.  I know how to handle the pain and the rejection and the guilt.  I have been shouldering them for a long time.  I usually put them on by choice.  

I don't want to make that choice anymore.  I don't want to feel that way or deal with those things, yet I fight myself when I get comfortable.  It is in those moments that I feel the most comfort with someone that I begin to fight them in my head.  My imagination takes off and my paranoia and anxiety grab the reigns.  

There is comfort in my current relationship.  Maybe that is why those fuckers are trying to take hold and drag me down into the shit again.  They don't want us to be happy.  They fight us all the way.  They are like the friends you have had for a long time that you have grown out of, but can't leave because you know them so well.  

But I am getting bored of them.  

I need some new friends.  

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar."

Thich Nhat Hanh

Watching the Avalanche

In an attempt to beat my mind to the punch, I am going to try and lay out my process before it takes over.  I hope that by seeing how my mind fosters anxiety and paranoia, I can stop it before it is too late and I am dragged down into the dark hole of my stupid depression.

Talking to a friend today, I learned that iPhones hold all messages from people unless you delete them.  This ties in to my paranoia about my girlfriend and her iPhone and her ex boyfriends that she talks to and I begin to wonder about what she says to them.
I then begin to think about looking at her messages to find out.
After attempts to shove this ridiculous thought aside, it becomes apparent that paranoia has begun to creep in. 
I then think about the last person I was with who had an iPhone and the messages she used to receive while we were together.
I then remind myself that my girlfriend is not like that, but the seed has been planted.
I try to avoid watching the budding of this new thought.  That avoidance sparks the thought that I should not avoid these thoughts.  I should look at them and recognize them and then let them go.  So, I try that.  It doesn't work as I think it should.  This leads to the suffering often accompanying the resistance to 'how things are' when you want them to be a different way.
I then worry that I am just pushing it all down and am not growing at all.  I think about all of the times that I shoved thoughts down when I should have dealt with them.
I am now thinking about my ex-wife.
I now have the paranoia/anxiety, negative memories of a past love, guilt for wanting to read my girlfriend's texts, worry that I am not getting better, and thoughts of my ex-wife piling in on top of me.
But it is not over.
I begin to think about my trust issues.  Those issues are projected onto my current relationship.  Thoughts of breaking up with my girlfriend loom because how can I date someone I can't trust.  The trust issues are mine, however, not hers.  She has done what she can to alleviate them.
Now, thoughts of defeat set in.
I have been doing so well for the past week.  I have talked about things that have bothered me.  I have meditated.  I have read and sought enlightenment.  Now it is falling back again.  For every two steps forward, there is a step back.  It is like slogging through mud that was drowning me and ever time I get my nose out to breathe, my head is pulled back in.

I feel buried and overwhelmed.  I feel the constricting on my heart.  My thoughts are racing.  The bull is loose and I can't catch the reigns. 
I get so tired and frustrated with myself and this only adds to it.  I am not sure how to stop and it is so tiring sometimes.  Part of me wants to just let go and just let my head go under.  I get tired of swimming.

Part of my struggle, I believe, is that I want myself to be a certain way.  I want to be better and to be strong.  I want to be able to see these things and not have them bother me.  I want, I want, I want.  Perhaps it would be better if I just acknowledged that this stuff bothers me and see it as part of who I am now.  I get tired because I am fighting like a lightweight against a heavyweight.  I am trying to be a boxer when I have never been in a fight.  Maybe the Tai Chi method would be better.  Flow with the fight.  Use the other person's momentum as defense.
In other words, don't try to hold off the avalanche with my bare hands.  I can see it coming.  I can often see the tree that I can climb to safety and watch the mud and dirt and rocks crash down around me while not being crushed beneath them.

But how do I get up in the tree instead of just looking at it?

Emesis of Words

My thoughts are scattered tonight.  I feel the need to get it out of my head.  Excuse my word emesis.

Sometimes, I get tired.  The anxiety, the depression can all get too overwhelming.  Then I get even more depressed. 
I have a good life.  I have a house and family and friends and people who love me.  What right do I have to be upset?

I drink wine at night to take the edge off of the shit that rolls through my head.  I have tried deep breathing and meditation and they are helpful in the long run, I hope, but sometimes I can't wait.  Sometimes I struggle dealing with the shit that fills my head.

I am getting better.  Things don't hurt as deeply or for as long. 

I have anxiety about my girlfriend.  The Buddha says that we often struggle because we are fighting "what is" in hopes that we can make it what we want.  I do this.  I fight what is, or at least what may be.  I do this with my feelings and with relationships.  I am the king of denial.  My girlfriend anxiety comes from this.  The problem is facing what is, or figuring out what it is so as to know what I want it to be.  Then I fall into the trap of desire, or more accurately I am already in it.  The downward spiral of desire.

I don't know if I can truly trust a woman anymore.  I used to be able to.  This is a struggle because I love to love.  I love to give my love to a woman.  To take care of her.  To give to her.  To accept and be with her.  That is tainted.  I don't know how to get past that.

I keep saying to myself I need to let stuff go.  I don't know how to do that.

I over think.  This makes me miserable.  It also makes me perceptive when it is controlled.

Sometimes I think that being married and having kids is what I am meant to be.  Then I think that I really enjoy what I have now. 

Tonight I am awake at 3:33 am because I was scared to go to bed because I am scared of my brain.

I need a change.....I just don't know what.

Strength to Swim

It's here again.
The soft whisper that tells me things are bad, that something is wrong.  It's touch is weak, but it is there and for some reason I want it to be there.  It is like I miss it.  I need it.  I want it.  But why do I want it? 

What is the point? 
I suppose that in writing it, I am trying to make it silent.  That is a step.
But it is there. 

I think I get tired of holding it off.  I am worn out and my strength is weak.  That is when he comes back.  That is when my boogie man comes out.  He waits till it is starting to get dark and finds the shadows.  I am stressed upon stressed.  He steps in when I am like this.  He steps in and makes it worse.
I know this is passing.  I know that it is only temporary.  Like a storm.  But it is during the storm when it seems like it will never end.  I hope that this one is skirting by.  I don't feel it like I usually do, so that is all the more possible. It is also possible that I am stronger.  That my attempts at finding clarity and peace are making headway.  I may actually be alright.

I may actually be alright.

You see, my mind is like a river and when I let go and stop swimming, when I get tired and can't paddle as hard, I get swept away.  I lose mindfulness and I lose myself.  It's hard.  It is a struggle, but that is what makes us stronger.  Just as we gain muscle when our body is pushed beyond it's normal limits, we become stronger when we are pushed.   I feel like I cold be a fucking Mr. Universe at this point. 
Sometimes it seems like things are put in front of us when we need them.  I feel like the quote at the end of this was put to me for some reason.  As I was writing this, it popped up on my Tumblr. 
Crazy.

Now to work on being rooted in myself.

“To stay present in everyday life, it helps to be deeply rooted within yourself; otherwise, the mind, which has incredible momentum, will drag you along like a wild river.”

—	Eckhart Tolle