I need some companionship. I'm feeling lonely, mainly because I want someone close, to whom I can express what really concerns, interests and inspires me. With most people I know I'm cautious, because I don't want to scare them away. Some topics I'm interested in might reinforce judgements people have about themselves... and then I only notice that by having them not calling me again or not asking any questions, wanting to know what goes on for me. I'm truly sad about this. I so wish there was someone, with whom I wouldn't have to worry about that, where I could speak freely and know that the relationship will be taken care of... and I really notice that I can't relax around anyone if that worry is still there...

I love the world, I love myself, I love people. And I understand that this love is due to the openness in my heart. The more open I am, the more love is there. The more cautious and anxious I am, the less love is there.

I've been doing experiments with that in relation to women that aren't my type. And I've found that they "became" my type, when I opened up to them. I got to know them, got close, and now I notice more women on the street who look like them. Really funny.
Therefore I believe that rather than being attracted or not attracted to people, it is more accurate to say that I have a readiness to open up to someone or I'm cautious and have an impulse to protect myself. And I believe the latter is always due to prior experiences which have not yet been worked through and throuroughly understood. Protection comes from connection, not from disconnection. And connection is only possible with understanding.

So whenever I love someone, it won't be understood by anybody who can't imagine opening his heart to the person as much as I do

And so with everything else.

I found that letting go of something is nothing I can do. It happens by itself when I understand, what I'm letting go of. It took me about two years to understand what specifically my ex-girlfriend represented for me. I only knew, there was a wonderful feeling attached to her. And I didn't call it love, it was different than that. Then, one day last month, during a conversation with a friend, I understood it was the hope, warmth, openness and vulnerability in me that I thought I could share with her. My hope that she would be someone who'd support me, when I really needed it. And that she would therefore be someone I could share myself with. From that point on I could let go. I saw that it was a connection to myself and an allowing of myself, that created these feelings. And she was a person I wanted to share it with, without me knowing that it was that.
So I saw, that I could still have that quality of experience, even when she isn't around.

And I let go.

I'm enjoying so much that I just had a dream of my ex-girlfriend in which I just loved her unconditionally, i.e. she didn't have to do anything, I wasn't anxious about getting her attention, I just saw her and enjoyed the beauty of her being, physical and human. Having a long history of wanting her attention and being very depressed when I wouldn't get it, this is so nice and such a relief. And it is thanks to the fact that I found out how to give that validating attention to myself, after having noticed that it was me who set up the precondition that I needed her for that. I was my validation, appreciation and love all long... I just was confused about the source.

Ah... Liberation!

The fear that my unconscious beliefs about me, other people and the world might appear to come true. That is the only separation that's possible. It's even more problematic when I identify with these beliefs and take them as being me. But honestly, I always feel like a hypocrite, when I say or write this. Because, if I'm so clear about that, why am I still afraid?
Well, anything I would write as answer would be a justification or excuse. There is no reason other than a longing for trust and the fervent hope that it's true what my mind tells me as an answer to that question. I KNOW it, but I don't trust it, as my behavior shows more often than not. My mind can't find any objection to it, but there seem to be enough fears that keep me from risking to disprove them all at once. So, I go step by step, jumping again and again to discover that only the experience of actually opening up and revealing myself overcomes the fears and creates the connection and intimacy I'm longing for.

Yesterday I sent a very open and honest email to my ex-girlfriend. I told her that I feel overwhelmed by the love I still feel for her, but that I don't want anything to be happening between us that wouldn't really express how we understand each other.
I made myself quite vulnerable by that. I would feel an enormous relief if she'd write something back that would express that she understands and that my message made it easier for her to connect to me. If the opposite is the case that would not make it easier for me to be honest about what I feel, if I want contact to her. And I'm a bit afraid of that.
Then again, I would want her to be honest. I just hope, that she can receive the love herself and see the beauty in it.

I'd put it this way: whenever somebody is not acting with integrity, it's an ecological crisis. That means, the person is out of balance. Some needs get met by what the person does, others don't. So integrity means for me to take care of ALL the needs that are alive in the person in this moment. To be able to do that, awareness of needs is necessary.
Needs are goals, vaguely defined. They contain no reference to a strategy that is used to attain the goal. Whenever needs and strategies get mixed up, we create an artificial scarcety. And out of this consciousness of scarcety, it's very difficult to act with integrity, because it seems as if needs could be in conflict with each other. They can't. Strategies get in conflict with each other, needs never do.
Since I see connection and honesty as human needs that we all have, someone who doesn't include these values in his action is never acting with integrity. It has to be included in order to have a satisfying relationship. And in the same way taking care of one's own needs, speaking up for them is necessary for integrity as well.

The short answer is no. I try to have no habits. By that I mean routines which I just do, because I always do them. I want to be aware of the good reasons why I CHOOSE to do what I do right NOW.

There are of course things I do, where I'm not aware of the reasons yet. One thing that would come very close to a habit is the time of day when I wake up. I like to stay up long in the night and get out of bed not until 12pm. I really do wonder about this. Some things I discovered already. I noticed that in times where I'm generally in doubt about whether I spend my time wisely, whether I grow and act in a meaningful way without knowing an answer, the habit becomes stronger. I stay up until 4am. And I think that this is so because in the night I don't bother so much about my inner critic's standards of meaning. My critic leaves me alone in the night. So it's a way to alivate stress.
One other thing is that I'm a bit afraid to get out of bed early without having class or some other fixed thing to do, because I don't want to fall a sleep at noon again. So I rather stay in bed longer and be really ready to get out of it.

I hope this gives an idea about what I mean by "discovering the good reasons in what I do".

That's something I try to figure out myself right now, so let's see what my answer is.

Actually I see two different kinds of trust. There is the trust that somebody respects my needs. Usually I have that very fast, because it's an assumption I have about people from the beginning: they want to respect my needs. It means connection and a place in which you don't have to be afraid of other people. In a way one could say that this depends on the trust I have in this assumption.
The more difficult thing is awareness: are people aware of what my needs might be? And it takes a lot more time for me to trust on that one.

The moment when I'm most vulnerable is the one, in which I'm confused about what I want, what would fulfill me, give me confidence, energy, courage and inspiration. I'm so vulnerable then, because in my confusion the one thing I'm looking for is clarity. And when I talk about my confusion, the person I'm talking to will probably give me interpretations of what he/she thinks it is that I'm talking about. And I'll take what comes next, I'm ready to believe it, due to the lack of any alternative that's more plausible.

So to earn my trust, the other person would have to be able to give me interpretations of my own confusion, which only point to the intention to enrich life. I can't think of any more beautiful gift than that: I'm sad, angry, confused, hopeless, frustrated, depressed, anxious, lonely. And the other person only hears me saying and reflects this back: please see my intention to make life more wonderful, please see how I reach out to life, please see me beautiful.
To see and reflect this is love in action to me. And if somebody wants to earn my trust, this is how he or she could do it.

When asking myself this question a lot of things come up. Mostly phrases I've heard before which are very vague in their meaning. I would like to answer the question about love in a way that adds to the consciousness of how it manifests itself in this world and how it can be expressed and received practically.

Love is in my view the consciousness of all the beauty in the world. Love means conscious access to this beauty, which is already there. The feeling we have, which goes with it, is our way of noticing that we have the access.

As beautiful I view everything that follows a pattern. A pattern is a dance, is music. When I recognize the pattern, I can perceive the flow of life that is aroung and within me. That, to me, is beauty. Since practically everything in the world follows a pattern, everything is beautiful. But my conscious attention, which is limited like a spot-light, can only perceive one thing at a time and excludes everything else at this moment. Over time the parts of a pattern are gathered in memory and the connections in the brain form a pattern themselves, representing the pattern in the world. That's when I "get" it. This takes time and consciousness, so it's an artform to follow and recognize the patterns.

One kind of pattern that we recognize effortlessly is faces and bodies. And they are certainly one particular piece of beauty that we feel attracted to. But this is just one example.

Love defined as a feeling would be the simple byproduct of this consciousness. It can't be attained by trying to get the feeling. Only through the consciousness it happens. It's a communicator between heart (soul) and mind (reason) and its message can't be manipulated by the mind. Usually it's when the mind lets go of control, that the consciousness and with it the feeling comes by itself.

Love defined as an action would be in my view everything that tunes in with the pattern that is already there. So if I see that you have a need for food and I provide you with some bread this perfectly tunes in with the pattern of life that's going on in you (even if you don't like bread it's an expression of love - and you will receive it that way when you know that). If you have a need for empathy and connection and I come by, hold you and listen while being absolutely present to what you're feeling and needing this also tunes in to what's alive in you. If I express my need for fun and recreation and propose something to meet it (like going to the cinema), I offer you an opportunity to tune in with me. This also is love to me.

So that would mean that love is an honest expression of what's alive in me and empathic reception of what's alive in you. Everything that is done in this spirit is an action of love.

One last question could be how to direct the conscious attention in a way that it helps to see this? Since the ultimate pattern of meaning in humans is that of feelings and needs, it helps tremendously to have a vocabulary in feelings and needs and to be aware of some key differentiations like observation vs. evaluation, feeling vs. thought, need vs. strategy and request vs. demand. Making these differentiations contributes to a clarity in mind so that it won't interfere with your intution and feeling-resonance anymore. Slowing down and just seeing what happens makes tuning in to what's alive natural.

By that I'm referring to the teachings of Marshall Rosenberg (creator of Nonviolent Communication), who inspired a lot of what I've written here. If what I write makes sense to you, this would be where you'd want to look further.