When Buddha spoke about suffering, he wasn’t referring simply to superficial problems like illness and injury, but to the fact that the dissatisfied nature of the mind itself is suffering. No matter how much of something you get, it never satisfies your desire for better or more. This unceasing desire is suffering; its nature is emotional frustration.
+ Buddhism + suffering + suffer + want + desires + craving + empty + dissatisfied + mind + enough + satisfied + desire + longing + frustration + mindfulness
We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them.
+ reality + people + want + image + projection + disappointment + love + desire
People don’t really want to be cured.
What they want is relief; a cure is painful.
+ eating disorder + addiction + cure + painful + relief + recovery + difficult + want
I felt stuck in the bottom of a wishing well. I was desperate to shout what I wanted, but I didn’t know what that was. I knew only what it wasn’t.
Any authentic struggle with addiction must involve deprivation. We have to go hungry and unsatisfied; we have to ache for something…Withdrawal symptoms are real, and one way or another, they will be experienced. If we can both accept and expect this pain, we will be much better prepared to face struggles with specific attachments.
+ struggle + addiction + deprived + deprivation + hungry + real + symptoms + eating disorder + want + experienced + accept + pain + attached + unsatisfied + ache + empty
I am myself. That is not enough.
+ myself + enough + complete + more + perfection + want + sylvia plath + incomplete
That is the fear: I have lost something important, and I cannot find it, and I need it.
+ fear + lost + something + important + empty + find + need + yearning + incomplete + essential + john green + want + desire + depression + anxiety
She got tired of herself. She got tired of not being able to say what she wanted or do what she wanted or even want what she wanted.
+ tired + exhausted + want + depression + eating disorder + desire + say + longing + fatigue
I myself did not know what I wanted. I was afraid of life, I struggled to get rid of it, and yet I hoped for something from it.
+ depression + leo tolstoy + want + life + afraid + anxiety + hope + meaning + dreams + confusion + suicide
The bulimic will absorb the food and then reject it, she will agree to internalize her emotions, then reject them. She wants to feel loved, and at the same time she fears that people won’t notice what is happening inside of herself. She lives in fear of what others think.
A bulimic person’s shame may lead her to try not only to hide her eating- disordered behaviors but also her basic needs and yearnings. She may wish that her needs and desires did not exist and may try to act as if she does not need or want anyone or anything. when that attempt inevitably fails, she may wish others could magically read her mind and respond to her needs and wants without having to ask for anything. To avoid shame of expressing her needs and desires, she turns to food rather than relationships, for comfort. Instant gratification, that you can’t find in other places.
+ sensing the self + bulimia + needs + yearnings + shame + eating disorder + hide + need + want + desires + food + relationships + avoid + expressing
