We use other people to feel okay.
– Byron Katie
Yes, we use other people to feel OK.
We medicate ourselves with their love, their attention, their affection, their admiration, and through touch and sex. (We can even medicate ourselves through drama since it’s a distraction from more uncomfortable feelings and thoughts.)
And all that is OK, although it sometimes comes with a lot of struggle and suffering. We hold on for dear life when it looks like we may lose it. We experience withdrawal when we lose it. We seek it when we feel we don’t have it. We wish what we have is different and better at making us feel OK.
We use others to fill that hole or void in us that many of us experience. We use others to cover up or compensate for a sense of not being good enough, and any other ways we feel deficient.
There is another way. And that is to meet our own experience with kindness, and gently explore how our mind creates these experiences of void and deficiencies. That’s where we can find a more real and thorough resolution and a more genuine and ultimately satisfying relationship with ourselves and others.
When we use others to feel OK, we create a sense of separation between us and them. And when this softens or falls away, what’s left is a sense of intimacy.
……..
- we use other people to feel ok
- we medicate ourselves with other people
- their love, their attention, their affection, physical touch/sex
……..
Byron Katie is a master in expressing truth simply and blunlty.