68. Thoughts can make a dating world of pain when we don’t question them

Whether you’re a dating senior in your 70s or a mature dater in your 50s your thoughts can create a lot of pain for you. In fact they’re the sole source of pain. We look to our mind to provide relief. However, if you think about it no one has ever found a mind. We have a brain, which stores memories and helps us assemble them for useful tasks. But no one has found a mind. Why? Because there is no such thing. Mind is just a word we use for a bundle of remembered thoughts.

We think we create those thoughts. But if that were true we could turn them off and on couldn’t we? We wouldn’t have hurtful thoughts for hours or days at a time if we could just turn them off. No, thoughts come on their own. You don’t know what your next thought is going to be until it shows up. You’ve probably been aware at times that suddenly you’re humming a tune in your head. You didn’t ask for that to show up. In fact, it may be a song you haven’t even thought of for a long time. And here you are with this tune playing happily in your head.

When we feel emotional pain how do we get relief? The sages and mystics throughout the centuries have taught that since a thought isn’t real we can question its validity. Thoughts come and go, sometimes very rapidly, so they have no real substance. Yet when we’re caught in them they seem solid. For example, let’s say the woman you feel in love with says she doesn’t want to be with you any longer. That’s extremely painful. But questioning it can help. Is the thought that she should stay with you really true? What’s the reality? Is she moving on? Yes. So that’s what’s real, not your thought. The thought is a fiction.

So can you absolutely know it would be the best thing for you to be with her? I actually mean, can you really know that? If you answer truthfully you’d probably say no, you don’t know for sure, since none of us knows what’s best for our future. Then another question: How do you live when you hold onto your original thought that she should be with you, and now you see it’s not even true for sure?

Probably with a lot of pain. Without that thought, “she should be with me,” what do you feel? Probably a lot more peaceful because now you’ve seen reality. We honestly don’t know what should happen, though it feels like we do.

I recently had an experience where thoughts seemed to overwhelm me – thoughts of love and thoughts that brought pain. Even with this kind of questioning my painful thoughts seemed to stick for awhile. In the moment of inquiring the pain was gone, but then the thoughts would flood back in and I’d have to question again. So it’s not always a snap to feel peace right away when you investigate and see the truth.

But it’s only in seeing the truth that we’ll ever get rid of the pain. After all, when you think about it, that’s what happens after weeks or months of a loss. We finally begin to realize that life does go on without that person. In fact we may have met someone that’s a better fit. Thoughts can hold you hostage. But you don’t have to let them. See the reality that this universe has its own plan and it doesn’t always match ours. And see that no matter how we resist, the universe always gets its way. So why not flow with “what is”?

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer