Conference hydra::dejavu

I think my response falls under the category of "Non-Advice":

Whichever route you decide to follow will be okay. If things work out, then 
you can enjoy yourself and your life.  If they don't, then you will learn 
valuable lessons that perhaps you could not learn in any other way.  
Whatever the result, you will not break, but will continue to grow with 
strength and love. Nothing can go wrong.

Trust the process.

Jill

    re: .0
    
        It has been suggested that there are four criteria to look at
    in order to make a decision.  They are the intellect, emotions,
    intuition and the physical body.  Which is "right?"  No one, any
    of them, all of them.  Somewhat as Jill in .1 says, the process
    will work (especially if you have practiced it.)  You need to know
    what you think about it, what you sense about it, how you feel
    emotionally about it and how your body feels about it (e.g., lump
    in throat, queasy stomach, aching heart, headache, etc., etc.)
    then determine which ones are the ones which will affect your
    decision.  No one else can do this for you.  It is something only
    you can weigh.  
    
        There are always choices...the only forever is change.
    
    Frederick
    

Follow my head or my heart?  I tend to do better when I follow my head.
My heart doesn't have a very good memory when it comes to the bad times.

Here's my story about reuniting with an ex-girlfriend:

About three years ago an old girlfriend, Jill, stopped in to visit me at 
school.  We had broken up two years before and I had not seen or heard from 
her for at least a full year.  My heart fell for her again within the first 
few minutes of seeing her.  My mind was blinded by the rush of emotions that 
seemed just as strong as if we had never been apart.  My immediate feelings 
were that I should break up with my current girlfriend and go out with Jill 
again.  I couldn't believe that I had broken up with such a wonderful girl
as Jill.  [I think its important to note that I was the one who broke
off the relationship and that she did not want to break up. I'm sure that 
even after two years she would have gone out with me again.]

I saw Jill again about two weeks later and by this time my mind had regained 
control.  I realized that:
       a. we were both different people than when had first fallen in love
       b. the conditions which led to our breakup had not changed and would 
          continue to be a problem if we got back together.

I hadn't really fallen for her again, I had fallen for the memories of how
we used to be.  As I thought about it, I remembered more and more of the old
problems.  I had remembered only the good times, and none of the hard times.
By stopping and evaluating the situation with my mind (not my heart) I saved
both of us the pain of breaking up again.  

I think its OK to follow your heart so long as you can step back and also 
look at it with your mind.  You need to balance or justify each decision that
you make. For examle, each month when I make my car payment I re-justify my 
decision to buy a speeding-ticket-red Corvette convertible.  Now that 
decision was definitely made with my heart!  My mind said, "what do you need 
with a two seat, 13 mpg car that you can only drive for 6 months of the 
year?"  My personal solution was to balance the corvette with a practical 
secondary vehicle (a 4-wheel drive Bronco II that gets 21 mpg).  


As far as reuniting with an old S.O., you have to seriously consider these
questions:

 o   Why did we originally break up?
     - has the situation changed such that the problem can never reoccur?

 o   Why don't my friends want me to go back to this person?
     - do they know something about this person that I don't?
     - do they remember my pain from the last breakup better than I do?       

 o   What has changed since we broke up that's now causing my old S.O. to 
     want to be with me again?     


Good luck,

--Jeff "J�A�F�O" Hebert

    
    
    Thanks everyone for your advice.
    
    In 1148.3 Jeff mentioned that he was falling in
    love with a memory and not the actual person.
    I think I may be doing the same thing..  
    
    But for now it feels right, and only time will tell
    if I am doing the right thing.  
    
    Thanks again.
    
    Jill

    
    
    Or you can act upon the quote:
    
    "If you don't do it, you'll never know what would have happened
     if you had done it."
    
    

I always act with my head unless the feeling is too powerful
than my heart automatically takes over.

question?  Why isn't this in Human_Relations?

Meredith
    
    

    
    I have a biased opinion due to a close friend getting burned three
    times in a row by three different girls who had all recently broken up
    with some guy who had treated them badly and given them a car (usually
    a Trans Am or some such) to drive around in.  Eventually they all went
    back to the harsh treatment.
    
    I call this the "Beauty and the Beast" syndrome.  I hope this in not
    the case with you....
    
    Guy

    Re.0 (Sabanski)
    
    From firsthand experience, my recommendation would be to forgive, but 
    do not forget, the past. If you see the same things happening again, 
    then back away from him because you don't deserve to be treated poorly 
    by anyone, ever.  Use both your heart and your head to determine this.
    I've enclosed a list to help you see the difference between what a good
    relationship should be vs. one which is not good.
    
    You might be interested in reading topic 688 in this conference
    (excerpts from "Bradshaw On: The Family"), especially if you think you
    might end up marrying this person.
    
    Cindy
                   
    ====================================================================
    
    {From: "Challenge Of The Heart", edited by John Welwood, p24}
    
    Excerpts from essay on "Love As An Addiction", by Stanton Peele
                            --------------------                   

    CRITERIA FOR LOVE VS. ADDICTION 
    
    (Or in other words 'Need Vs. Want')
    
    1. Does each lover have a secure belief in his or her own value?
    
    2. Are the lovers improved by the relationship?  By some measure
       outside of the relationship are they better, stronger, more
       attractive, more accomplished, or more sensitive individuals?
       Do they value the relationship for this very reason?
    
    3. Do the lovers maintain serious interests outside the relationship
       including other meaningful personal relationships?
    
    4. Is the relationship integrated into, rather than being set off
       from, the totality of the lovers' lives?
    
    5. Are the lovers beyond being possessive or jealous of each other's
       growth and expansion of interest.
    
    6. Are the lovers also friends?  Would they seek each other out
       if they should cease to be primary partners?
    
    These standards represent an ideal, and as such they cannot be
    fulfilled completely even by the healthiest relstionships.  But
    given that every relationship is bound to contain some element of
    addiction, we can still tell what makes one predominently addictive.
    
    This occurs, as in drug addiction, when a single overwhelming
    involvement with one thing serves to cut a person off from life,
    to close him or her off to experience, to debilitate him, to make
    him less open, free and positive in dealing with the world."

    Which is What?  or should it be witches?
    
    I had to go back and look at my menue to see which notes file I
    had entered.
    
    Actually, I am reading Shakti Gawain's book, "Living in the Light"
    right now, and as she had a lot of very sensible things to say about
    relationships, you might enjoy it.
    
    I put an entry in the introduction file yesterday and in the accident
    note, too, in which I mentioned that a global view is important.
    That being the case this very common problem could be addressed
    from many perspectives, i.e., New Age Relationships, Co-Dependent
    Relationships, Psychotherapy, Assertiveness Training, and most
    certainly Human Relations, that is assuming that your boyfriend
    is a human being.
    
    In any event, you can change yourself, but you'll never be able
    to change another person.  If your old bow is treating you well,
    with a nurturing and supportive stance, that's fine.  Has he changed?
    
    M.J.
    
     

    re: .9 (M.J.=?)
    
        ...just a nit.  No, we cannot change others, but yes, they
    can change.  What happens is a bit of a dichotomy.  The "miraculous"
    nature of reality is that as we change, the reality changes.  We
    can change in such a manner that what we then observe is that 
    the other person has changed, too.  The point is that we cannot
    "dominate" someone else to change.  That's not how change works.
    But it's also short-sighted to say that we cannot change others.
    (We cannot do it directly, however.)
    
    Frederick
    

    Does it matter with what you think? Head or Heart? Is it not all
    the same, anyway? I find it extremly difficult, if not impossible
    to seperate my head from my heart and say "do not enter this
    resolution". In essence, you will do what you are supposed to do.
    Nothing else. Please, do not let the experience weigh you down.
    As I have heard from others before, I am not a human having a spirtual
    existence. I am a spirtual being having a human experience. Let
    it flow and enjoy this. Besides, maybe it's karma from a previous
    or future lifetime. But I digress...
    
    Enjoy this while you may...
    

    re: .11
    
         Yes, that's pretty good, from my perspective.  My "yes, but..."
    has to do with the point that one isn't their own Higher Self
    until they are...that is, we are not making spiritual decisions,
    we're making human ones.  As we grow, as we develop our own sense
    of spirituality, then we can make decisions using our "co-creators"
    as guides or helpers or as the co-creators they are.  And, (to give
    credit its due) as Lazaris has said, we cannot co-create unless
    we first learn to create.  Our Higher Self already knows how to
    create.  We don't.  Once we do...    but in the meanwhile, we make
    decisions as appropriately as we can.  So, yes, we "need" to look
    at our "hearts" as well as our minds, and it may be helpful to 
    add the other two aspects that I mentioned earlier, too, before
    we DECIDE.  If you already have a working relationship with those
    inner parts of self, the "unseen friends," then by all means
    utilize them.  It is my opinion that most (as in almost all)
    people do not have that rapport.
    
    Frederick
    

    Alice Bailey, in her unfinished biography, stated that the task for
    all of us in the new age ahead is:
    
    		To learn to think with our hearts
    		And love with our heads.

    
    
    I came across this in the poetry file...
    
    As I enter each new romance
    I make a promise to myself
    Do not push too hard with 
    him or put him on a shelf.
    
    But as each one comes and goes
    I've found one thing to impart, 
    I do not follow what's in my head,
    I listen to my heart.
    
    My head will tell me "Don't fall so
    fast".  But my heart then says "
    I really want to make it last."
    
    I should learn to listen to my head
    more often than I do.
    Then maybe it won't hurt so much when
    each romance is through.
    
    
                                 Author J. Morrissey

    Just a final work on heads vs. hearts!  First, I find it easier to
    think of this as intelligence vs. feelings, but that's a semantic issue
    really.
    
    I'd like to reply to what Frederick said.  "The reality changes.."  Our
    perceptions of what the reality or truth is can change, but real is
    real and truth is truth.  It's Friday and that may not make much sense!
    
    "We cannot change others."  Agreed.  The point, I think, is that we
    cannot control other behavior.  Usually they will only change their
    behavior towards us if we change our behavior.  Otherwise they just go
    on the same old ways.
    
    I am trying these days to make really good friends with people, male
    and female before I get in too deep and get burned.  It takes time to
    make good friends, and friendship is the essential base for any
    worth-while long lasting relationship.
    
    Mary Jane Smith O'Neil = M.J.
    

    re: .15 (M.J.)
    
          I would agree with everything except one point which has been
    discussed within DEJAVU several times...it is *not* just that a
    perception of reality changes...it is the reality itself that also
    changes.  Truth is not truth and reality is not reality...to the
    extent that you wish to state it.  Truth is subjective and objective
    only within the subjectivity of it.  Similarly with reality.  And just
    what is it that you would call real?  The appearance of physicality
    and everything that goes with it?  Consider the quanta, etc.  As we
    go along, we have discovered and are discovering that most of what
    we have always considered solid isn't at all.  There has never been
    the discovery of a solid object.  Everything is composed only of energy
    in different forms.  So, again, what's real?  My friend Lazaris
    suggests that only emotions are or can be real...everything else is
    illusionary.  And only emotions with positive AND negative potentials
    are REAL emotions.  Anyway, though you weren't reading this then, 
    apparently, all this has been the basis for much discourse here in
    DEJAVU over the past couple of years, should you be interested in
    seeing what others say or have said.
    
    Frederick
    

    
    re: root(.0) and last several
    
    For me, I follow my heart in matters of inutition, personal
    relationships, and lots of the rest of life.  I used to follow my
    head - aka intellect - and ended up in a lot of negative relationships
    with destructive people.  The interesting thing is that I knew in
    my heart at the time that they couldn't be trusted, but wouldn't
    let myself admit it to myself.  Which is not to say that I don't
    invoke intellect when necessary, but I listen carefully to what I feel
    (or at least try to) in most situations.
    
    For me, reality and truth are relative (aka context dependent.)  I
    used to believe in ultimate truth and ultimate reality but too
    many experiences in my life have shown me otherwise.  Reality changes?
    Two weeks ago I would have been in violent disagreement, but not
    anymore.  
    
    	aliso3n   (the three is silent)
    

        My personal belief is that one should listen to one's heart more
     than ones head.  Listen to the emotion/feeling that is happening
     and go with it.  I don't shut off my head completely but I do try
     and let it take a backseat to what my "emotion/psychic" self is
     feeling.

        Granted, this doesn't always work out.  I'm living a situation
     right now that is quite unpleasant, to say the least.  I followed
     my heart and I got burned for the time being.  I don't know what
     the outcome of this particular situation will be.  I "know" that it
     isn't finished even though it's been stated that it is.  

        I feel a psychic link involved here which has yet to be
     explained or revealed.  My Aries head is in analyze overdrive at
     this point and I do wish that I could shut if off!  ;^)  I can
     analyze things to death.

        But I will follow this to it's completion to learn or experience
     what ever the lesson is.  

        Guess that's enough babbling for now ....

        Vicki

    Why treat the head and heart as each other's deadly enemies?  After a
    number of years of subtle warfare (which forunately never escalated to
    open destruction :-)) I hit upon the notion of dialogue between the
    two, of letting them talk to each other.  (I got the ideas from reading
    the various books on types of therapies where you imagine parts of the
    Self interact with each other.)
    
    At first, of course, there was hostile silence, punctuated by yelling
    matches.  No wonder, since I'd kept them apart for so long, telling
    each one bad things about the other, that they were quite suspiscious. 
    At first they wanted "me" to be the moderator, the mediator.  Now they
    tend more and more to talk things out and then let "me" know where "we"
    stand.  A decision made jointly, with all interested parties 
    participating, is almost always better than letting one of them go it
    alone.
    
    It is good for the head and heart to be curious about each other's
    motives, to ask each other for clarification and receive the respect of
    an honest answer.  This process certainly is not without struggle.  It
    is one thing to simply accept a feeling at face value ("I want to go
    back to my old flame and give it one more try") and quite another to
    figure out why.  My own heart has often been hurt when my head won't
    accept its feelings at face value.  My head is often indignant when my
    heart responds to its knowledge in the opposite way from what seems
    logical.
    
    Marcia

re. -1



Marcia, I really like that.... it seems to make more sense to me if they
both have something to do with it.  I think what happens with me thou,
is when I first meet someone I start analyzing them (most be the aquarian
in me  ;^)   )....do I agree with their outlook, ...do I feel comfortable 
with them...etc  In this first meeting I use mostly my head, what happens 
is as I get to know the person all that drops away if I feel good around
them and it seems my heart takes over.

M.e.

    Re.19 (Butchart)
    
    Hi Marcia,
    
    Group concensis - I like that!
    
    Cindy

    It's great for people to try and define the differences between
    head and heart, and then use those definitions as a way to choose
    a more pleasant path.  Whatever helps, go for it.
    
    I would just like to say that it might also be good to not get
    too attached to those definitions, and the boundaries you think
    they have, and the roles you think they play.
    
    Jerri

    
    
    	re: .14
    
    	Thanks for entering that...
    
    	I've written so many sometimes I forget about them.
    
    	JJ (author of .14)