inkedbuddhist

Dude, that sucks. If I were there I'd hang around and commiserate with you, but I'm not. Don't you have a sangha yet? If not, you need to find one. I don't know where you are in Oz, but if you tell me, I may be able to hook you up with people who are in the know, and I'm happy to try. I have friends in Melbourne, and in Brisbane, and possibly some connections in Sydney as well.

One of the unfortunate things about meditation is that we can do it on negative objectsthings that only hurt us when we meditate on them. This is what you are doing to yourself right now. You need to use the tools of your practice to help you. They say the easiest way to break depression is to find someone to help, and help them. Your STFU project is a good idea, but it may be too impersonal for what you need right now. I don't know if there's a ready supply of homeless people where you live, but sometimes the best thing you can do is to just find someone who's at the end of their rope but hasn't lost hope yet, and do them some kindness that makes them smile. You could call it selfish, but it won't feel that way to them, nor will it feel that way to you.

For your nightmares, go to bed thinking about compassion and gratitude. As you're going to sleep, use your mindfulness practice to keep your mind either on kindnesses people other than your ex have done for you (because you can't dwell on your ex right now) or on opportunities you will have in the future to do kindnesses to others. Or if you have a close teacher whom you miss, put your mind on him or her as you go to sleep. It sounds hokey, but it might work. And when you wake up, before you open your eyes, set an intention to do something to help someone today. Do this even if you wake up with a nightmare.

As for the meditation thing, use your reason to break bad logic. There's no Buddhist concept of guilt. Negative karma you have committed comes back to you, so you don't have to worry that the books are unbalanced. All you need to worry about is what you put on the books going forward. And there is no The One. You are young, and you will meet someone new again someday, and you will do a better job with her because you've learned from the past. You don't have to despair. When I broke up with my sweetie of five years back in 1997, I thought I'd totally screwed her, but she's fine now, and I'm fine too, and some amazing things came into both my life and hers as a result of our breakup.

Anyway, I'm sorry you're going through this, and I hope this was helpful and not just long-winded nonsense.

Wow dude.. thats awesome.. you speak so much truth...

Have surrounded myself with friends the last few days.. good people make it so much easier...

Thanks again Mellon