Nefastos wrote:I find accurate & ingenious the old model of cardinal sins, where the eighth one besides wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony was despair.
Can good things come from despair?
Yes absolutely, I spent a life time caring for a sick relative, who never got better, this relative got dementia eventually. I spent years trying to find ways of helping my relative, who would always tell me they loved me but disliked me. My relative had a mental health illness so I did all I can not to take it personally. Every time I tried to assist, I would be told don't come to see me unless I tell you too. This relative was so cruel to me. I purposely have not moved out of London because this relative needed me regardless of all the cruelty. In the end I was told "I hate you". I spent years wondering why did this relative hate me so much. I just wanted this person to be happy. When I was a child growing up this relative would tell me that I had the devil beside me and that I was going to hell. This made me really scared. This relative even put a spell on me, never to be 'sexually' tempted.
Eventually, I learnt this...
I did not need that person's love or acceptance to love.
I did not want anything for this person, not even happiness.
I do not need another person's love to feel love.
I am not a victim nor do I allow my self to be victimised.
It was their journey, their free will to have and want what they choose. Loving another does not give me the right to 'choose a want for them' even happiness. It is each to their own. This doesn't mean I do not wish the heavens for them, it just means, that I recognise that even though we were blood related, each retain their own choices. Family tend to 'force', cast and judge how we should be. Regardless of good or bad intentions. Sometimes it takes feeling the emotions despair and victimisation to understand free will, others free will.
To truly recognise and know that love is something we feel within, not for another, or from another, or for god even. Just to feel it for our own selves. Not from an egotistical point of view.
The greatest gift we give to anyone is our love, because there is nothing we as loving beings wouldn't do for those who we love. But we have to feel love for our selves first before we can truly love another.
The question my friend helped me understand is this...
How do I know that my love for this relative was not harming them. I may have had good intent to wanting them to get better and be happy. But who am I to know what my relative life or soul journey is?
Am I helping or restricting their choice of existence?
Was my love true to them? Because I wanted them to love me back, does that mean my love had conditions.
This relative caused me lots of emotional pain and true despair from their cruelty. It took this much for me to recognise that my love was needy, it had conditions and that true love exist on both side of the dual coin.
Despair or any other Sin is not really a Sin, they are gifts for us to understand that good Vs Evil is here to help us empower our selves and evolve.
On another dimensional level, I feel these sins exists but are not trumatic, we experience them from a different set of existence.