120. Relax into “now”, disregard thought and mature dating is delightful and fun

Our thoughts create a great deal of suffering for most of us, especially in our dating and romantic relationships. Because these are among the most meaningful human connections we have we’re easily hurt in dating, especially at this mature stage of life when we really want a partner in our older years. It’s easy to feel pretty vulnerable.

The reason thoughts are so painful much of the time is simple: We pay attention to them. We give them validity. We think they’re true. Yet, if we look at our own experience we can see that’s not real. Thoughts aren’t valid; they’re not true. They’re not even ours. They come and go all by themselves. We have no control over them.

Maryanne has been dating David for a few months and finds he has a lot of qualities she admires. However, when he talks about women he’s dated in the past few years since his wife died she’s miserable and full of jealousy and pain. That was David’s life before he even knew Maryanne existed, yet she feels threatened. Instead of enjoying David in the present, in the time she spends with him, her thoughts race to the past and she’s in a world of hurt. The hurt is only in her thoughts and has nothing to do with reality.

So thoughts can be a big problem if we attach to them. There are two kinds of thoughts we can discuss here. We can call them working thoughts and fantasy thoughts. Working thoughts are natural for everyday living. They’re thoughts like “two and two is four” or “you need to add oil to the pan before you put in the onions”. Working thoughts are thoughts dealing with the present. Since the present is reality they’re not a problem. They show up when they’re needed.

Fantasy thoughts, on the other hand, are basically thoughts about the past or the future. They’re only based on memory and imagination and since the events we think of are not actually happening now they’re not real. When we indulge in past/future thinking we’re not present to the only reality there is – now! In the “now” there’s never a problem. It’s only thinking about past and future while “now” is happening that’s a problem.

Some people get the idea that since thinking is the problem we have to learn to stop thinking. But that’s a mistake. First, it’s impossible. No one knows where their “off” switch for thought is, and second, it’s unnecessary since thoughts aren’t a problem if we just disregard them. When working thoughts are needed they appear, and they’re in the “now” and not a problem. Fantasy thoughts of past and future are not needed because Life always takes care of itself without our input. Have you noticed that what we think should happen usually doesn’t, no matter how insistent our thoughts have been?

There’s a simple key to all this which dissolves painful thinking and emotions instantly: We can simply watch life as it appears, without forming judgments about it. There’s an awareness or a seeing of thought that’s separate from the thoughts. That simple, pure awareness is what we are. It doesn’t take any thinking to know we are, we just know it. Before thought comes in with its evaluations and judgments that sense of pure existence and awareness just sees life as it is. There’s no “little me” there that wants to condemn or change anything.

But thoughts appear in that open, pure, nonjudgmental awareness like clouds in a blue sky. Somehow these thoughts get hooked up with the idea of a “me” and suddenly we try to impose “my way” on the world. Since the world pays no attention to what this trivial, dependent “fantasy-me” idea thinks we’ve automatically got a problem. We think we know how the world should be and when the world doesn’t conform we feel betrayed, confused, lost and hurt.

Going back to Maryanne and David, Maryanne wouldn’t be hurting if she simply enjoyed David for who he is right now. If thoughts show up about past women in his life she could just watch them pass, like those clouds in the sky. She doesn’t need to feed them and feel jealousy or anger over something that’s just not her business and not even real. Those thoughts are about a dead past. That was then. This is now. And this is where the aliveness and mystery of life take place – right now.

Actual livingness only happens in each moment. It’s vital and full of life and real. Thoughts come up but we don’t need to invite them in, give them a home and pamper them with excessive indulgence. If we do, when will they leave? When we stay in our own business, leave other people to their own lives, and let God run this show the way it’s being run, our mature dating takes on a whole new flavor of ease and joy.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer