From "Early Morning Buddhist Inspirations"

[sabrinamari]

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

Thich Nhat Hanh



What you think upon grows...

Comments

Loving another

[ingridsummers.livejournal.com]

If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.


This is where the challenge lies. It is so easy to get caught up on my own personal needs and why isn't spouse meeting them. I sometimes forget that his needs exist and if we want a partnership, I have to be attentive to them as well. It's back to that tenet of balance again. How to be careful of myself and what I need, while at the same time balance that with attentiveness to my partner.

Re: Loving another

[jasminewind.livejournal.com]

I sometimes forget that his needs exist and if we want a partnership, I have to be attentive to them as well.

For me, there's something about PMS that makes me [almost] totally and completely selfish and incapable of acknowledging the needs, pain, or experiences of my partner, and to a lesser extent, my children.

It makes me feel really unstable to revolve in perceptions this way and it has taken me several of months to recognize it (coming back into fertility after pregnancy is a lot like getting being 14 and getting your period for the first time again!)

And, I don't know what to do about it. I have heard that B vitamins might help...

Neither do I know why I chose this venue to vent about this particular issue. Hm.

[sligoe.livejournal.com]

My hardest lesson is learning that the reverse is true. I have to allow someone to meet my needs and not pretend that I don't have any needs. I have to learn to ask to have my needs met---no one is a mind reader, after all---and I have to be willing to be vulnerable enough to let someone else in and care for me.

It is so easy for me to care for others---but having someone else care for me is difficult, very difficult---even when it is what I crave sometimes. So maybe the person that I have to learn to understand, and ultimately love, is myself.

Growth is painful sometimes.....