Please help me destroy my belief in a soulmate. There is this female "otherness" that contains dukkha that intermittently disturbs my peace. It kind of centers in the stomach area but can jump up into my upper periphery as well.

If this otherness was non local it wouldn't be a problem. However, it contains with it a sense of outsideness that either must be painfully ignored, or pursued (also painful I shudder to assume)

I want to die so bad its not even funny.

Please find yourself a competent therapist and psychiatric treatment ASAP. Fooling around with vipassana when you have a major depression is not the best coping mechanism. While a certain amount of suffering in life is a necessary goad to practice, an incapacitating psychiatric condition requires help of a different sort. All the best to you.

I'm on three different medications, I have a psychiatrist appointment tomorrow, and I just told me therapist I didn't want to continue with her because I have a crush on her, although I didn't tell her that.

I feel better now. I think I am probably not going to get much feedback on this topic. I know I have seen people in the past post on here that they think soulmates were a myth.

Errr. I might be taking liberties with the above paraphrase.

I'm glad you're getting treatment. Find another therapist in the meantime.

As for soulmates, the best advice I can offer is to investigate the desire. Don't try to find out whether it's "true" or not, just investigate how it manifests in your life. Keep noticing when it comes up, how it comes up, what sensations are associated with it (I see you're already doing this last bit).

Human relationships are complicated, and require work, discernment, self-knowledge, and a degree of renunciation. They also require (as does everything else) that one be open to what is, as opposed to what one wishes were the case.

I am glad you are feeling better. Do you have any friends, family, psychotherapy support on the ground with you where you are?

What are your resources for dealing with your depression and what is being perceived here by some as a real cry for help in a time of deep crisis?

How accurate is this interpretation of your emails?

Can you possibly talk to someone you trust where you are now?

Are you going to be ok?

Daniel

Thanks for the responses, guys. I can't say too much about my life right now as I am still sorting a lot of stuff out.

There's nothing "wrong" or "bad" about believing in soulmates. Actually, beliefs don't really matter when it comes to insight, it's more important to investigate the sensations that compose those beliefs.

Mahasi Sayadaw was a firm believer in reincarnation, spirits, heavens, hells, etc. Many would say that all of this is just myth and superstition, but that didn't stop him from attaining arahatship. Jack Kornfield talks about a monk in one of his books-- the monk was a master meditator, but he believed the world was flat.

For the record, I do believe some people have soulmates. There is also the concept of Twin Flames.


Did you know that being attracted to your therapist is extremely common in pyschotherapy? I believe it's called transference. But at any rate, it's good that you are getting help. I'm only a PM away if you need anything

E

I'm thinking along these lines too. Believing in soul-mates is one thing, the conclucions you draw from that belief - how a soul mate should treat you, what should happen in life, getting what you want etc, what it "means",  is another issue entirely. The desire issue that Jane brings up is key here I think too.

As far as I know, in buddhism they don't say that the soul and soulmates don't exist - they say that they aren't your ticket to liberation. Nothing in the relative world will liberate you, even the most beautiful divinely-orchestrated soul-level-relationship, no matter how awesome it is, it's still a transient aspect of the world subject to the 3Cs. Only insight will get you liberation. Enjoy and celebrate those things but don't rely on them for your liberation!

--

As for therapists, sometimes a therapist might be the only person who has given you enough care and space to show these disowned and painful parts of yourself without judgment and with acceptance. For some people maybe their therapist is the only person who treats them as a decent human being, it's not surprising at all for me to think clients feel attracted and want to bond with such a person.

I've read about theapists who's primary path is to "love" their client, in the sense of showing acceptance and care and helping them to understand themselves and befriend them and treat it as a real relationship, albeit with a certain professional format. The same happens with certain workers in the sex-industry, who view their work as a form of sexual healing, through being/creating an accepting space in which people expose parts of themselves that they otherwise repress and feel ashamed of. I've heard many stories of sex workers whose clients end up actually just wanting to talk to them and be heard / understood etc, or whose sexual interaction is explicitly done as a form of catharsis (in the fetish areas especially).

Okay, I'll bite.

Soulmates..? Please.  Life isn't a Nicholas Sparks film.  Romance movies/novels are fantasy the likes of "Lord of the Rings."  This is not to say that you will never meet a partner, but rather the idea of "soulmates" is likely to add detrimental pressure that is likely to ruin your chances of finding and maintaining a normal relationship.

Kill the notion of "soulmates" and you would be much more likely to actually meet someone, get along well with them, and experience something that could last for years instead of months/weeks.  

The idea of soulmates drove a very difficult time in my life, I suspect it was a key belief I didn't want to let go of after A+P, which relied on the belief in a separate self known as 'me', which lead me to fight the teachings that the dark night had to offer. For me I had to attempt clinging to both of the ideas and trying to find that happiness I thought might be possible, happiness through finding the perfect partner who would make everything alright, in order to move beyond it.

It's one thing being told to kill the myth, its one thing knowing that you want to kill the myth, but if it's there it's there and the desire for it not to be there will only cause a tremendous amount of suffering. At times I found myself also thinking things like wanting to die, but from my perspective now the thing I wanted to kill was actually the egocentric self image I was attached to, ironic because I was clinging to it myself.

Now it's one thing for me to say that, perhaps none of it is relevant to you, but perhaps it is relevant but knowing it makes no difference? Well things in this life are currently how they currently are, and any attempt to fight it only causes suffering. Allowing things to be how they are on the other hand allows time and space for the study of how things are. Maybe your head is confused, but that which witnesses the thoughts is able to see the confusion and the suffering, untouched by it, and in that seeing your brain has the opportunity to observe and learn. Beliefs can be explored even if they can not be directly changed by the conscious mind, and in time you will either find evidence to back up the belief or evidence that things are in reality a little different.

I do not know what reality you will discover from your perspective. From mine, I found out that I am not a perfect human being, and there are no perfect human beings. I found out that we are all pretty clueless although we all try our best, and it is down to us to take responsibility for our own lives, our own actions, and our own learning and growing. It sounds like you are already doing that, I wish you the best of luck

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