Get Over a Crush Part 2

Transcript

I want to talk a bit more about having a crush and getting over a crush, examining my own beliefs about how I would have a crush in the first place and become infatuated with someone even though I know it’s not healthy to think this way. Or not deeply satisfying to feel that kind of neediness.

And so, after feeling that way, it happened a couple of times I had to look within and think “Obviously there’s some kind of beliefs that I have about romance, love or myself that somehow is limiting me or getting me into this position where I start to have certain feelings.

The beliefs I discovered with some introspection were something like this: I need someone to love me romantically to feel complete.

Now I know intellectually that’s not true, that’s my advantage. Not everyone knows that. Sometimes people have that belief and they don’t have the greater context to say “No, that’s not true.”

If you do think that is true, maybe you can look at your own experiences and think when were those times when you felt complete and you didn’t have a romantic partner?

If you can think well you can see that there are those times and you start to see that you can be a complete person and feel like a complete person at any time regardless of relationship status or financial status or whatever unfortunate circumstance might be upon you.

So I know that’s not true. I know I can feel complete regardless of whatever relationship I am in or not in. I know I can love myself on my own, feel great and enjoy myself without a partner.

Another belief, something like this woman or this person in particular must be my partner.

Of course that’s not true, we have the cliché of there are a lot of fish in the sea, plenty of fish in the sea.

We have heard that cliché so many times but it might not sink in. So when someone says that we just say it’s just a cliché I’ve heard it so many times, I don’t take it seriously.

But when we investigate that intellectually we can see that it is true, we can see ok there’s 8 billion people on the planet and within your town, country, within your village there are plenty of potential partners. It doesn’t rely on one person.

We can see that intellectually but its another thing to know that personally, emotionally when we are in the throws of an infatuation. That’s why we try to look at these beliefs and cut them off before they happen because if we have the right beliefs in place that will help us take the correct actions and experience the appropriate emotions to the events that are occuring.

So we have these beliefs that help us feel happy. So having a belief like “its nice to be with this person but this doesn’t mean this person is going to grow old with me, have some kind of Disney marriage and run off and elope or anything like that.

It doesn’t mean that so we can have a more healthy belief like “Its nice to enjoy moments with this person” and that’s all.

We don’t have to create a grandiose scheme or fantasize about the whole thing we can just enjoy the moments for what they are. Another belief I discovered within myself, similar belief a feeling of love or like means that this woman should or must fulfill a particular role in my life.

Having this conditioning from culture or perhaps this conditioning of myself I have imposed, I believe that they have to comply with my expectations.

Now people never have to comply with my expectations and if I have a lot of expectations, that normally means I’m subjecting myself to frustration because eventually people will stop complying with my expectations.

So I don’t have to have particular expectations about how anyone person is going to act in my life, or how they will help or inhibit me.

I don’t need to have those expectations.

But if I have them and become aware of them in the moment and I notice, now I see I had that expectation that’s why I feel frustrated.

We can notice the feeling of frustration or disappointment or whatever it is and notice the expectation that we had.

The more we notice these expectations the more we can see how they aren’t necessarily realistic and we can let go of them, like so many boats at Loi Krathong.

Now having a feeling about somebody is nice, this is the least healthy beliefs that I try to arrive at by looking at what is more realistic. What can I really expect from others and myself?

Having a feeling about someone is nice, it does not mean they have to feel a certain way or do certain things. It doesn’t even mean they have to tell me the truth about their feelings, not even that they must acknowledge my feelings.

There’s no particular course of action they have to take, they can do whatever they want. And how liberating is it to realize that people can do whatever they want and I don’t have to let it affect me. It doesn’t have to disturb my mood, I don’t have to start or stop loving them.

I can feel how I want to feel and I can be happy regardless of what happens even if people act in a way that’s different from what I expect.

What a relief to have less expectations about the beliefs of others. I am complete now, of myself, I can feel a broad range of emotions including love and happiness on my own.

It is interesting how a lot of the time we talk about love and its romantic love and familiar love. You are free to feel love on your own, you don’t have to have anyone with you to feel love. You can love yourself and you can love the world, that’s what we call agape.

WE can have these feelings of love completely on our own lying there in bed as we drift off to sleep generating feels of love in our belly and our heart and feeling good, feeling complete.

I am responsible for my own happiness and love.

My emotions are my responsibility.

I enjoy my own emotions and I don’t need to depend on any other person to generate these.

Having a nice feeling is simply that, it creates no obligations in myself and others. That’s phrased negatively so I rephrased it to say interpretations can be treated as separate which I mentioned in another episode.

What does that mean?

If I have a feeling I might also have an interpretation of that feeling. I don’t need to join the two together as if they have to be linked. The interpretation can be treated separately and I can analyze the interpretation and say is this really so?

And maybe let go of it. If the interpretation doesn’t serve me.

So when we have emotions we can treat the interpretation as separate and that will normally help us feel more happy.

The point is love yourself and be good to yourself and you don’t need others to do that, you don’t need to place expectations on others.

Just have a good time. Thanks for listening and have a good time. That’s the important thing.