Are We Attracted To People Who Teach Us Major Life Lessons?

[Thalassa]

I remember one night while I was chatting with JTG I was watching this video that said something along the lines of some people come into our lives for moment (to change things or help us or distribute karma), some people come into our lives for a time (to teach us a lesson), and some people stick around for life. And even though we were as probably as close then as we ever were, that may have been the time we were closest, roughly, I thought to myself "he's the middle one, he's here in my life for a time." And it made me feel sad to just know it, somehow.

(This opposed to me thinking I'd be with ESFJ ex forever and ever, and I wasn't, so maybe I'm just more aware or have higher consciousness than I did back when I was with ESFJ, if I'm this aware of things as they happen or before they happen. Maybe this is Ni development? Where as if I were more completely reliant on Se I'd believe whatever I felt in the moment, more likely?)

Anyway, so when we parted ways it was ROUGH. I mean I saw it coming slowly about a month before it happened, but I resisted it, and it felt like a slap in the face, like finding out your best friend in high school was talking about you behind you back, not literally, but that sort of feeling, like being kicked by your closest friend.

But then I became aware of my need for responsibility in the matter, because he blamed me for a lot of things, and I didn't see it (and I do still believe he's largely a narcissist, with an extremely intelligent mind but the emotions of a small child) ...but he did have a point about a few things, and I realized it.

So it was then, a few weeks later, I really dove into Taoism, though I'd started studying Taoism about six months before, I really felt it was time to work on myself. I also started reading about things like cognitive behavioral therapy. And while all of this was going on, Simulated World posted a video on another site by a Buddhist nun that was about an hour long with a comment like "Buddhist nun preaches Ni like a boss" or something to that effect, and that video fit SO PERFECTLY with what I was thinking and studying, I felt like I was on the right path.

I also felt like I should go on a spiritual retreat, and I did, roughly a year later after having the idea (my yoga retreat in Ojai after Thanksgiving a couple of months ago). I began studying yoga actually after the philosophical Taoism, contemplation of cognitive behavioral therapy, and even later taking on a transcendental mantra meditation practice, and watching the Twin Peaks series over again, and trying to glean all of the Zen Buddhist lessons from it (I really should go back and document those).

So yeah my yoga practice began after that, but the yoga practice really feels like what finally kicked everything into gear for me, psychologically and spiritually, not just physically. I mean I used to jog and do aerobics and I'e always done things like walked, swam and danced, but vinyasa yoga is a real physical work out as well as a mental one.

Then I had this painful breakthrough in the past week after the tiff with the ISxJ I'd been seeing here casually recently, and because it triggered off JTG, and it was about JTG and not about this ISxJ I barely know. So I talked to JTG again for the first time in months, and I have this whole learning process happen. It was absolutely horrible in a way, but so ideal and exactly what I needed to do in another.

Which brings me to the Zen of Moving in Stereo.

The weirdest part of all of this is that JTG's mom is a Buddhist. And I never once intended to be like his mother in any way, though I observed through my knowing him that she shares some of my reactivity issues, and I wondered if that's part of the reason why I felt "right" to him for a time, some kind of mommy thing, because he really bore my histrionics so well, better than anyone I've known for a very long ass time.

Everything really does happen for a reason, it's just a matter of having elevated consciousness and enough trust to see it.

It's kind of freaky.

 

[greenfairy]

I agree! Awesome you're into all this. I'm also a Taoist (and Hindu, and general pagan), and it drives my philosophical understanding. I do think every relationship teaches us lessons. I think everything happens for a reason in that there is a cohesive functioning of everything, and so each little thing is a part of the whole working smoothly. Part of this process is each person learning lessons and going through their (and other people's) karma. You never know, maybe stopping at one red light allows something to happen which allows something really important to happen for somebody. Maybe you help teach the guy in the car behind you a lesson in patience. But relationships are some of the most intense forms of life lessons. We attract people to ourselves who have what it takes to teach us our karma- usually with female-male energy issues. Sometimes we reject something about one of these in ourselves, and sometimes we have trouble letting it in because we haven't experienced it in a positive manner. Sometimes we attract unhealthy patterns which feel like home, so then we can finally learn that they aren't right and we really want the opposite. Other times it's really easy, and we experience the deep harmony of yin and yang for the first time, and incorporate it into ourselves, adding to the collective consciousness. (Also I agree what you're describing sounds like Ni in an ISFP, along with Fi developing a better sense of inner harmony. And inferior Te might attract powerful males into your life, but you have to strengthen your own Te in order to be that for yourself.)

 

[Thalassa]

I agree! Awesome you're into all this. I'm also a Taoist (and Hindu, and general pagan), and it drives my philosophical understanding. I do think every relationship teaches us lessons. I think everything happens for a reason in that there is a cohesive functioning of everything, and so each little thing is a part of the whole working smoothly. Part of this process is each person learning lessons and going through their (and other people's) karma. You never know, maybe stopping at one red light allows something to happen which allows something really important to happen for somebody. Maybe you help teach the guy in the car behind you a lesson in patience. But relationships are some of the most intense forms of life lessons. We attract people to ourselves who have what it takes to teach us our karma- usually with female-male energy issues. Sometimes we reject something about one of these in ourselves, and sometimes we have trouble letting it in because we haven't experienced it in a positive manner. Sometimes we attract unhealthy patterns which feel like home, so then we can finally learn that they aren't right and we really want the opposite. Other times it's really easy, and we experience the deep harmony of yin and yang for the first time, and incorporate it into ourselves, adding to the collective consciousness. (Also I agree what you're describing sounds like Ni in an ISFP, along with Fi developing a better sense of inner harmony. And inferior Te might attract powerful males into your life, but you have to strengthen your own Te in order to be that for yourself.)

Cool. Thanks for this post.