I'm not going to edit this!: relationships, friendship, unconditional love, balance, understanding
I wrote this in an email, and I'm not gonna edit it!
Tags: relationships, understanding, balance, homeostasis, friendship, unconditional love
Re: emotions, I think they are important to pay attention to, as they compose one-half of what it is to be human. Addiction to emotions is one thing, being a slave to them is another, but it is a completely different thing to be in touch with them and to ask others to work with them. They are good to pay attention to, because they mean something---however unprofound that sounds, it's the wording I've got at the moment, and it's true. To ignore them in the name of functionality, just because you're friends with someone, and to not act on them, just because you're friends with someone, is to imply that the said friend has no obligation to take responsibility for the emotions s/he causes in you. We can't always blame other people for their reactions, because at some fundamental level these reactions are sometimes purely human rather than "character flaws" or "the inability to control one's emotions." It's always a two-way street, and friendship is about give and take, which means *giving* (restraining one's emotions so as not to hurt the other person) but also *taking* responsibility for one's own actions and how they affect the other person involved, and trying to work with the other person rather than against him/her. To not do both, or at least to not make an effort to do both, is to not be a good friend. Unconditional love does not equate to "I'll let you treat me however you want, just because I love you." That's called "abuse"---not "unconditional love." Unconditional love means tapping all your resources, trying everything to make it work, but then after that point extracting yourself from a situation if it becomes painful/dysfunctional enough beyond your ability to function in a given situation. If you don't break the cycle, then you *both* are abusing *each other*, even if it seems one-sided. If you don't somehow extract yourself, then you end up hurting the other person because *you* get hurt beyond repair, beyond functionality, and therefore your own hurt gets passed onto the other person. If you take in a sufficient quantity of pain, your pain starts creeping out of your interactions and onto the other person(s) you are interacting with.
It's all about balance, about homeostasis, and *both* parties are always inextricably involved in the process.
Again, often it's not a matter of either person being "wrong" or "right", it's simply the inability of both people to find balance with each other's emotions. I hope you can find balance with your friends, and that they can find balance with each other, but sometimes you just have to accept that you (or your friend) needs a breather from whoever they are interacting with---however severe it might seem at the moment it's usually a bad idea to throw people away forever---and as long as you/they pick back up again (life is really quite long, you know) you/they haven't lost a thing.
Tags: relationships, understanding, balance, homeostasis, friendship, unconditional love
Re: emotions, I think they are important to pay attention to, as they compose one-half of what it is to be human. Addiction to emotions is one thing, being a slave to them is another, but it is a completely different thing to be in touch with them and to ask others to work with them. They are good to pay attention to, because they mean something---however unprofound that sounds, it's the wording I've got at the moment, and it's true. To ignore them in the name of functionality, just because you're friends with someone, and to not act on them, just because you're friends with someone, is to imply that the said friend has no obligation to take responsibility for the emotions s/he causes in you. We can't always blame other people for their reactions, because at some fundamental level these reactions are sometimes purely human rather than "character flaws" or "the inability to control one's emotions." It's always a two-way street, and friendship is about give and take, which means *giving* (restraining one's emotions so as not to hurt the other person) but also *taking* responsibility for one's own actions and how they affect the other person involved, and trying to work with the other person rather than against him/her. To not do both, or at least to not make an effort to do both, is to not be a good friend. Unconditional love does not equate to "I'll let you treat me however you want, just because I love you." That's called "abuse"---not "unconditional love." Unconditional love means tapping all your resources, trying everything to make it work, but then after that point extracting yourself from a situation if it becomes painful/dysfunctional enough beyond your ability to function in a given situation. If you don't break the cycle, then you *both* are abusing *each other*, even if it seems one-sided. If you don't somehow extract yourself, then you end up hurting the other person because *you* get hurt beyond repair, beyond functionality, and therefore your own hurt gets passed onto the other person. If you take in a sufficient quantity of pain, your pain starts creeping out of your interactions and onto the other person(s) you are interacting with.
It's all about balance, about homeostasis, and *both* parties are always inextricably involved in the process.
Again, often it's not a matter of either person being "wrong" or "right", it's simply the inability of both people to find balance with each other's emotions. I hope you can find balance with your friends, and that they can find balance with each other, but sometimes you just have to accept that you (or your friend) needs a breather from whoever they are interacting with---however severe it might seem at the moment it's usually a bad idea to throw people away forever---and as long as you/they pick back up again (life is really quite long, you know) you/they haven't lost a thing.