I am an ambitious, happy and mindful person. I am 27 years old and quite satisfied with life. Sometimes. My relation with my family is my bigger issue in life. My mother and sister don’t get along, my mother has a fear of conflict and my sister is very accusing towards her. This affects me a lot. I get sad and upset when they argue, since it’s so little that upsets my sister and my mother can’t seem to find ways to defense herself or talk in a good way with my sister. I also have a brother who lives far away and when he visits the family will gather and often aggressive discussions will occur. I don’t feel comfortable with this at all and since I feel there’s a lack of respect, love and stability, I get disappointed and will not get involved in the discussion, so I often go home feeling sad and confused. I seem to keep a lot of my anger inside and I feel that my family is draining me with energy. I feel much empathy with them cause they’re my family and we have been
through a lot together but on the other hand I feel hatred cause they can’t take care of themselves or each other or me. I don’t know what do to not to feel this anxiety about my family.

I have been in a relationship for 22 years, the first 18 were fine, then slowly over the last few years things have changed. My partner now seems very intolerant of what I do and what I say. We are both practitioners of Vipassana meditation, and my partner meditates every morning and has done so for the past 35 years!. Our differences of opinion lately, have been very frequent and are now escalating in to him becoming very loud and very vocal and angry, not a characteristic that I would ever have expected to see. He comes across to all people as a passive, caring, loving, lovely man. When we have a disagreement and I try later to talk to him about why this might be happening, I get told that it is in the past, and now everything is fine. I understand this, but my emotions get very affected by the intensity, so it takes me awhile to let go. I am also told that I start 95% of any disagreements, and that I need to change. If I suggest something about his behaviour, I get told “one finger pointing, three fingers pointing back”. My partner always seems to have a quote or saying to cover everything. I am feeling guilt, I am feeling overwhelmed, I am feeling scared. I am feeling my emotions strongly in my body, and am trying hard, i try to watch my sensations and not get caught up in them but at times I seem to be failing dismally. I know that I obviously contribute to the conflict, but feel that I will be giving in to his demands and kowtowing to all his demands if there is to be a change. He says he needs to change as well, but he continues with the same intolerance, and is still loud and angry. When we argue he becomes very personal and belittling, I find this very hurtful, he sees that as a weakness, “getting caught up in my ego”. I am now thinking it may be better to walk away and let go of this relationship. Thank you for listening,

I live in an English speaking country and I have read a response you had about interracial marriages however it was in response to someone who was already married and I am wondering in my situation, I am open to marrying any race/religion so long as the person has the qualities I believe will suit me and I who I feel is right for me and who I have chosen but how would I go about from breaking my parents wish? In another response you told a 27 year old that it was okay for them to leave an abusive father even if it meant leaving the mother as it wasn’t her job to protect the mother and that she was old enough to leave and live her life. Is that the same for someone of an Indian background?

I have recently began my working career, and I am struggling with the long working days that seem to bring me very little fulfillment and happiness. Throughout the working day I often feel empty and most days this feeling comes home with me. I have committed myself to a take on journey to spiritual enlightenment, but find it hard to stay on track while I am at work. I have found that my long days at my desk job often drain the spiritual progress I have made out of me. I know that I will soon make a large life change and leave this job, but until I can do that, what are some exercises I can practice while at work to make my day feel more fulfilling?

I am wondering what to do about the current situation that appears to be my living experience that I am struggling with, and how to go about managing living in this world in wholeness. For the last three years it seems to be that I am stuck between two worlds and I am struggling with the fusion of the two worlds within this reality on earth. This becomes difficult as I find myself unable to manage communicating with people here. Most often words or thoughts will come forward from pictures or colors in my mind, and be spoken from myself that others will not understand. The words will make clear sense to me, and I know exactly what I am saying but others will become irritated and frustrated and not understand anything that I am saying. When I listen to how they are interpreting them I cannot blame them or be angry because the meanings of these words, will sound like an inside out or backwards and forwards meaning at the same time. This is hard to explain because up is down and past is present in these sentence structures. My heart breaks for them as well as even my own self because the presence of being becomes suppressed and stuck within this space between two worlds as sharing of the living experience here appears to be murdered and feels like I am unable to “BE”. This creates a lonely and lifeless feeling living in this world. I don’t know what to do as I try and live here with everyone and ground myself in this reality that they know, but I cannot escape the other truths as this is the place where I see the most beautiful experiences and realities of all people. I see the most profound aspects of one-self being oneself here. To be in this world without this acceptance from the other is so heavy and negative, like living a half-life. I try sometimes to blind myself from it just so I can communicate with others and share this living experience but it does not happen that I can stop myself from seeing this other perception within these experiences here. I try not to talk about it but it will just fall out of my mouth while having the most basic conversation, and I will notice the other person’s body and mind shift in a way where I see they do not understand what I am saying. And it is quite simple to me. So I will retreat back into a darker place where the other person seems to want to be. But again this is after I realize I have said things that don’t seem to fit in their linear reasoning. I am distressed as I am not ready to leave this world here but I am struggling to find the balance of living in both, in a whole way. I feel at times lost to this world and this concerns me. Is there any advice other than meditation to help me balance this. as the meditation just makes this otherworld stronger inside this world. I love the peace this brings to me, but it does not seem to bring peace to the others in my life. It seems to agitate them or bring about some kind of pain or something. I notice their light compressing into shadow, as do my own when this happens. Like I am hiding my being because I see it causing friction or irritation or something. I let it be as it is and quite myself the best I know how but after three years of this loneliness I don’t feel that this is serving others or myself. I feel no purpose moving any longer through being here. And this seems to have only strengthens my communication with spirit and though I feel connected to all here and not lonely, I notice the difficulty in creating communication and relationships and even functioning like a normal person on the surface of this world where so many live according to ideas that appear to be half or partial truths. I need to balance or fuse this somehow. I know I have purpose here in this world, as it is that I am here now.