Ardha wrote: ↑Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:31 pm
This is getting off topic.
To bring it back to the post of self compassion or love, which is something I heard mentioned about when it comes to being gay as something that helped people, I still repeat my previous post about how I have tried taking that advice in the past but nothing ever came of it. None of the exercises or procedures recommended to me helped in any way to make me feel compassion or self love. Plus I thought Buddhism said there was no self so how can you have self compassion and love?
These kinds of questions are really sophomoric, almost like a"gotcha"...but the trouble is that you don't really know enough to "gotcha" yet.
You should probably seek therapy above Buddhism if Buddhism is not helping, as Ayu says. If you can't find, afford a therapist etc, and want self-help, I might suggest checking out Get Out of Your Mind Get Into Your Life, which is a book on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It will not involve the same kind of philosophical difficulty that Buddhism seems to have for you, and is full of practical ways to deal with some of the problems you mentioned here, including some "secular" ways of practicing compassion towards your thoughts and emotions.
At this point I'm wondering what you hope to get from this thread. People have given you a variety of suggestions and you have repeatedly simply said they wouldn't work, that Buddhist ideas don't make sense to you, etc. That's all fine, I'm just wondering if we haven't exhausted the possibilities of what people can do for you here, or if we maybe need to narrow down what it is you are looking for.