THE EPIDEMIC OF LONELINESS, EMOTIONAL BARTERING, AND THE REMEDY - Part 2

LIFE AND LOVE IS JUST A STORY WE TELL OURSELVES

Surviving childhood and adolescence and coming out on the other side with a self-image that’s intact, and the ability to truly love and honor ourselves is a daunting endeavor to say the least and one of life’s greatest challenges. Unfortunately, most of us don’t fair too well. This is why we develop the mask of our ego to conceal our pain, fear, and insecurity from others.

As our ego begins to emerge in our teen-age years our self-image begins to erode further because of constantly comparing ourselves to others. This societal neurosis and pathological thinking is largely bolstered by marketing, which is designed to do one thing – sell products.

Living in a society driven by consumerism and endless consumption, the marketplace has but one goal . . . to make us want things.  “Wanting” is always based in comparison, by comparing what we have with what we want and could have. It’s predicated on the idea that we lack something, therefore happiness is always going to be connected to something external.

The very nature of wanting is to externalize our happiness, joy, well-being, and sense of self, as defined by social media, magazine covers, and Hollywood celebrities. We compulsively shop to define our self-worth through the acquisition of material possessions.  But wanting always creates suffering, and there is nothing we want more than to feel loved and accepted by others.

Being accepted by others means we feel adequate. But where this becomes detrimental to our well-being is when we tether ourselves to and develop a dependency on things external to us – like people and products – to bolster our sense of self-worth and self-acceptance. Without constant validation from others we cannot seem to hold back the self-deprecating thoughts that taunt us, the insecurities that plague us, and the incessant feelings of being inadequate.

Compounded by advertising that purposely brings attention to and magnifies our insecurities by making us believe we are lacking something, we enter adulthood with few of us believing we are likable, lovable, or “good enough.”

So, developed as a coping mechanism to protect our impressionable and vulnerable inner child, our clever ego takes shape. The more our ego develops, layers upon layers of karma (our conditioning) is accumulating in us. Slaves to a persona we’ve created to blend in, this persona develops as an extension of our ego. As it develops, the love and self-acceptance we once had for ourselves dwindles. We become further and further removed from the essence of who we are and knowing ourselves. We wear this mask so often that we barely recognize or remember the essence of the person hiding behind it.

El Astuto Ermitaño – Cuadernos del Yogui

Living in the world that has been reduced down to a marketplace, survival involves more than simply making money. Spiritually, emotionally, and psychological we are challenged by this rigorous journey we call LIFE, and navigating through it and managing to keep our head above water is challenging.

Our entire perception of the world that surrounds us is the product of what has been marketed to us, and in my previous article I mentioned that society programs the individual out of the individual, only to create “isotypes.”  This is because the way we see ourselves and the world is nothing more than a product of exposure. Who we associate with, what we watch, what we listen to, and what we read, leaves impressions upon us that create the lens we see ourselves and the world through. This is Karma!!!

With the advent of social media, everyone, with the exception of those who have largely disconnected from it, are living in their own “virtually reality,” completely fabricated by the beliefs they hold.

Our entire perceptual experience of the world around us is nothing more than an amalgamation of beliefs and assumptions that we project onto the canvass of our mind as we try to make sense of the world, others, and our feelings about all of it.  What we see in the world depends largely upon what we look for.  We don’t objectively see things as “THEY” ARE; we only see them as “WE” ARE, meaning, a reality that is filtered through the lens of our beliefs, assumptions, opinions, and perspectives that are largely the product of marketing and propaganda, and observing the behaviors of others. Our perception of the world has been prescribed to us.

ALL WE SEE IS OUR BELIEFS!!!

This has a profound effect on all of our relationships. What we see in the world is based almost entirely on what we’ve been told to look for.  Our cognition has been programmed, and we filter reality through the lens that has been fashioned for us. Our conscious experience of LIFE has been prescribed to us, from our view of the universe, the world, cultures, history, medicine, politics, religious beliefs, love, relationships, and on and on. The only sense we make of this dimension of our consciousness, has been taught to us as being so. Once provided with the answers, our curiosity is largely sabotaged. We stop searching, we stop observing, we stop questioning, and to a large degree, we go unconscious, living life barely above the alpha rhythms of our sleep state, at the level of impulsiveness, unconscious, automatic patterns of behaviors and reactions to any action or perspective that’s incongruent with our point of view or beliefs. Sadly, this is the level of consciousness where most of humanity remains trapped. The physical world, the political news/propaganda, celebrity lifestyles, the understanding of themselves, EVERYTHING has been explained for them, their learning is done, their journey of self-discovery is over, and few rise above living at the level of “functionality.” They go through the motions of working, paying their bills, obeying authority, practicing their social etiquette, and playing at romance the way it is taught, with the same dismal results, time after time after time. It’s no wonder why history, both as a society and individually, repeats itself. We repeat the same lessons until we learn them. Until we collectively and individually rise above the level of our karma, we’re doomed to repeat the same lessons over and over.

As I’ve already alluded to, even our concepts of love and relationships are the result of marketing and modeling the behaviors of others who have had their entire concept of love modeled and marketed to them. As a result, we’re all role-playing, expressing romantic love/lust in all the creative ways we’ve had it modeled for us by Hollywood, our peers, our parents, and perhaps reality TV.  This is truly a case of the blind leading the blind, as we struggle to figure out why we all trip over our feet in relationships. Simply put, we’re all approaching love and relationships in the same dysfunctional way, with no real foundation to build upon.

In virtually every aspect of our lives – in society, business, and in commerce, we’re taught to get as much value from what we’re investing in, with as little cost and investment of our time as possible, in any given transaction.

Unfortunately, this mindset spills over into the way we handle relationships, especially romantic relationships. We “emotionally barter” with others, by “investing” time, money, gifts, and emotions into the person we are romantically involved with, extending ourselves to them with the hope, and honestly, the expectation, that the relationship we’re cultivating will indefinitely yield the experiences and the feelings we dream about having with another person. In other words, love isn’t a free gift, it’s completely transactional, expects reciprocity, and a return on our investment. We do this because in a very insidious way, society has primed us to import our self-worth from everything external to us. We lose ourselves to the relationship, by attaching our self-worth to another person’s approval of us, their choices, and their behavior, never realizing that we and we alone are responsible for the way we feel. No one else!!!

It bears repeating, the ONLY relationship we are ever having is the relationship we are having with ourselves, within ourselves.  Every external relationship only draws to the surface the beliefs we hold about ourselves. This is important to understand.

It’s unfortunate, but whether we realize it or not, most of us tend to place people in our lives in the way that is most self-serving for us and meets our own self-interests.  

Real “LOVE,” has nothing to do with another person, but is instead only a reflection of the relationship we are having with ourselves.

Again, LOVE SEEKS NOTHING from another, but instead is only a giving, a sharing of, the love, appreciation, gratitude, honor, and joy we have in knowing ourselves and participating in this thing called “LIFE.”

So many are so lonely and are looking for love, but looking in all the wrong places. Looking “out” is “EGO.” Looking “in” we find the essence of who and what we are – complete, whole, sufficient.

Endlessly searching, the lonely join dating websites, with some even seeking out “dating coaches” and “relationship experts” in an attempt to figure out what’s wrong with them and why romance eludes them. The underlying belief each carries is that “if only I find ‘THE ONE,’ that one person who will see me, accept me, and be with me, I’ll drown in a sea of eternal bliss and all my self-loathing will cease to exist.”  They never realize that if only they were to lift the foundation of beliefs they hold about themselves, that search will end in an instant. We look inward for approval, not outward; realizing no external relationship can cure our diminutive appraisal of ourselves. Even if we are to find the “ONE,” in a very short period of time, most of our insecurities are magnified dramatically in romantic relationships because they challenge the beliefs we hold of ourselves hoping our lover never figures out those beliefs are now bolstered by their affection towards us. Take it away and we return to baseline . . . self-loathing. 

What most so called “relationship experts” are prescribing to those who seek their input, is not a roadmap to enlightenment and the true bliss of loving and honoring ourselves that accompanies such an awakening, but rather the dimly lit and perilous path that only leads the masses deeper and deeper into codependency, the darkness of our ego, and our emotional ineptitude, as the blind lead the blind, promoting a “playbook” of sorts to courting another, romance, and love as an emotional exchange that demands reciprocity.

Writings on the subject of love and relationships of course, appeal to our conditioned understanding of society’s underdeveloped concept of love and relationships, but ultimately steer us further and further from even the hope of ever experiencing truly unconditional, AUTHENTIC LOVE.

Though well intentioned, many, arguably most “experts,” don’t know the first thing about relationships, because they’re pushing a worn-out narrative, we’ve all known forever.  “You’ll eventually find the ‘ONE,’ and then you’ll be happy.”

They unknowingly perpetuate this outbound pursuit of happiness and self-acceptance by taking a “formulaic approach” to relationships.  “Do A, B, and C, and you’ll cultivate these feelings in your lover, which they will then reciprocate and reflect back to you.”  It’s all about how to modify your behavior to create a fairly predictable behavior in your lover.

I would love to hear from you and hear your own personal thoughts on relationships in the comment section below. Let me know if the content of this article resonates with you, provides perspective, or helps you see things in a different way that empowers you to make different choices or see life and relationships through a different lens. I value your thoughts and feedback and look forward to hearing from you.

Love & Light to You in your continued Journey of Self-Discovery!

David