BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Self Development Going away from pain or pleasure?

I keep thinking of sharing bed with somebody great. Sometimes the visuals become so strong!

I hope you all get me.

Same with money.
My thoughts are becoming stronger now.

chuckle. Nice thoughts.

That would help me too... it sounds so simple, but i had missed the obvious and was visualizing in a much more complicated way.

I am glad you are feeling stronger. You are strong... always were. You just had not always known you possess strength.

Motivation for what things, AF? What would you like to be doing?

"Motivation for what things, AF? What would you like to be doing?"

Well Holly, I'd like to get a job with children. I've taught painting privately, but would like to do it on a professional level. But I guess I'd have to do a course in teaching to do that in a school. Perhaps I should go back to college and get some more qualifications. Being a receptionist/secretary for a doctor is good, but it would be nice to have a change.

On a personal level, I'd like to improve my self esteem and self confidence. I think getting more qualifications might help me to attain that.

AF.

I've recently experienced something of a bomb blast in my life.
(Some would call it a 'rude awakening'!)

I have had to face up to, and accept a few home truths about myself and it hasn't been easy. It's rather sad when you get to 68 before you attain real insight into your problems.

The consolation is in knowing I couldn't have changed the situation because I was possibly born with this impediment, or it may have been the result of physical abuse. (It was possibly caused by some problem in my brain, which showed irregularities in one area in a recent scan) but it has wrought havoc in my inter-personal relationships.

This is certainly an example of how we can grow through pain and misfortune. Now I have to start!!!

It means looking at my life, past, present and future, in a different light, and from a different angle. I also have to learn not to be resentful of what this condition has caused in my life.

So I am concentrating on what pleasures I knew, and can create for myself now. I also have to be careful not to make the same mistakes and avoid the situations which will surely bring more pain.

I have always tried to live within my limitations, - I just didn't know about this recently diagnosed one.

It is rather embarrassing and humiliating, and I've yet to find a way of coping with that.

Soldiering on!

Kerryanne.

Pratibha is enjoying all visualization!

Are you thinking of change for the sake of change?

"Buddhism proposes a non-dual ethic capable of understanding the good as bad and the bad as good. Psychoanalitically speaking, desire can be good for mental health and morality bad as well as viceversa. In addition, according to Zen, the equally necessary capacity to discern (not judge) and choose between good and bad arises from, and is a product of, not of modern reason or traditional morality but of an intuitive understanding of the Real of non-duality. Such intuition of non-duality is also distinguished from the imaginary intuition associated with the superstitious mentality opposed by modern science. For Mahayana Buddhism, Samsara (pleasure/suffering or jouissance) is Nirvana (serene illumination regarding the being/non-being of things and phenomena) and Nirvana is Samsara. Nirvana is right there within the world of pleasure and pain (Samsara); and Nirvana, as a first principle and the non-dual source of dual pleasure and pain, manifests not as a search or avoidance of pleasure/pain but as an equanimous love within pleasure and pain and as an intuitive knowing regarding the causes and conditions of Samsara. Meditation or zazen is the natural trance which is not an altered state of consciousness (as in the drug experience), but the simple, beautiful and aweful way that things work or go, suchness, the way life is, just like that or just as it is."

Just keeping to topic.
This is not from me, but is a quotation from a Buddhist website. Just to clarify.

more can be found here:

If you find out what all goes in my mind, you will go crazy. Oh, how I am looking for someone!

I think that is a great plan: to teach art professionally! And now would be a good time to make the switch. Because of teacher shortages, there are better scholarships and excellerated programs to help people get into the field of teaching more easily. They've even offered better scheduling, to suit those who are working. I had a neighbor who is an artist, and when she got divorced, she when back to college to qualify (and she's in her mid 50's at least). Grants and loans covered all her expenses, and even though she was in a three year program, they have changed the laws in this state and she could begin teaching after one year of school, so long as she remains enrolled to finish her degree. She is now teaching art in public schools.

I've decided to go back to college, and to get used to it (so it isn't so scary)... i thought i'd start with just one course this fall. How about you? Could you sign up for one class this fall? Community Colleges are pretty cheap to get started, and you could begin with one class before applying to a college formally.

I think more qualifications will help you feel more self esteem, but i remember how some women, even though too thin, think themselves fat. Our view of ourselves can be distorted, so i think we also have to work on how we view ourselves. I'm using the visualization to help me with confidence. If i have something i need to do and i feel nervous about it, i will visualize myself doing it confidently and not feeling self-conscious.

I also thought of something to do with self-esteem, but i've been forgetting to do it, and you just reminded me. The "thinking of three things to look forward to" each day worked so well for me to improve my happiness, that i thought i could use something like that for self esteem. The plan was to at the end of the day, think of 3 ways i am a valuable person, or 3 things about myself to feel good about. Should i start another thread and we can give it a try? I think if you and others would do it with me, i'd be more likely to do it. I will do that. Look for "The Swelled Head" thread. Or should we call it something else? ...i think i'll wait until i hear suggestions from people for the name of the thread.