78. Mature dating is an enchanting escapade when you see it without judgment

Nature is a great teacher. By nature I mean to include animals also. And we, as humans – human nature. We can learn a lot about living a happy, peaceful life by just watching the carefree, spontaneous unfolding of nature. You can bring that natural view of life into your dating world and more likely find dating to be an interesting adventure instead of what may have been a scary, painful experience for you.

Consider the ease of nature. For one thing, nature never fights itself. There’s an incoming and an outgoing tide, for example, never in argument or conflict with itself. Day and night follow each other, changing in length with the seasons, with never a clash. As the human aspect of nature, we never argue with the rising of the sun every day, with how gravity works, or when it rains or the wind blows. Unless we’re insane, that is.

Animals are a different facet of nature because they have senses, as do humans. They don’t have intellect, however, so they don’t have the capacity to think in the way humans do. They simply go along with life. If there’s danger their natural reaction is to run or fight but when the danger is over they’re back to living life again. They live in the moment and don’t regret the past or worry about the future. They never judge anything as good or bad, right or wrong. For animals, life just is. That’s obvious as we watch even our pets at home. There’s no emotional suffering for them.

We, as the human part of nature, have been gifted with intelligence, and it’s a great gift. The mind is an incredible servant and tool. The problem is, most of the time we’ve allowed the mind to become master instead of servant. It chatters away judgmentally and critically, dividing nearly everything into yes and no, or "I like" and "I don’t like".

A Chinese spiritual saying goes like this: When we understand, we are at the center of the circle. And there we sit while yes and no chase each other around the circumference. What the author, Chuang Tzu, means is that when we understand, or see the reality of life, we see that without our judgmental yes/no opinions life is smooth. Life, just as it is. That's all that can be said about it. It just is.

A modern-day East Indian spiritual teacher, Ramesh Balsekar, is the former president of one of the largest banks in India. He says all our problems would be gone if we simply lived life with acceptance and surrender. Or to put it in Christian terms, he says, “Not my will, O Lord, but thine.” Instead we nearly always have opinions. Most of us could feel quite happy and righteous writing a book titled: HOW LIFE SHOULD BE – ACCORDING TO ME! But what makes us think we know how life should be – even in personal matters and dealings with other people, including the folks we date, our relatives and our friends? Do we absolutely know they should be different from who they are? Do we know the relationship we counted on shouldn’t end when we want it to continue?

As one spiritual teacher from England said in a talk I heard, “Who are we to be so arrogant as to think we can tell That which created us how our lives should run?” You can call “That which created us” God or the Absolute or the Source or whatever words you want. We all know it as the Power that animates our lives – the Intelligent Energy that gives us life and keeps the stars in place.

When you have dating turmoil, confusion or pain you can look to see where your mind is dividing something into should and shouldn’t and where you’ve made a judgment. If you’re in emotional pain it’s a sure sign you’re resisting something. You think something that is shouldn’t be. You’re interpreting life your way, not accepting it as it is.

It’s tough I know. Maybe you were lied to, maybe you were deceived, maybe the object of your love just isn’t in love with you. But investigate your thoughts. Does the world sometimes function in the way it’s happening to you? Is that what sometimes happens to people? Is that reality? If you say yes, then maybe you can also see that perhaps you don’t have the big picture. Maybe you could just allow everything to be the way it is. You might be surprised at the stillness and serenity you instantly feel.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

77. Dating is smooth, with few problems, when you drop the ego-me idea

If you’ve read a few of the articles on this blog you know that I’m sharing ways to view life (senior dating in this case) that make it a pleasant adventure. I’m trying to point you to a way of seeing life that doesn’t include a lot of suffering. It’s what the saints and sages from all cultures and through the centuries have taught. It’s sometimes called enlightenment or awakening.

Essentially what it means is that all our emotional pain comes from our “ego-me” idea of how things should be. Without our preferences and opinions, though, we would simply witness life as it is. There would be no ego-me involved and we’d simply be seeing life without interpretation and judgment. The result is no suffering.

Since the age of two or so we’ve had the idea that there’s a me choosing life. But some careful examination shows there really is no me you can locate. Me is just an idea we’ve been taught. Since there’s really no me, then, there’s also no one who can actually choose. If you were the chooser you wouldn’t suffer from unhappy thoughts for long periods would you? Or you’d just switch off thinking for awhile when it got painful. It can’t be done. You don’t know your next thought until it shows up because you don’t create thoughts. They just arise. Since choices come from thoughts about the alternatives, and the thoughts aren’t ours, how could we possibly be choosing? Yet choices happen, by the same power that beats your heart, grows your hair and makes the wind blow. In short, we’re being lived.

The funny thing is, we’ve always been lived even while we thought we were doing it all. So nothing changes when you see this clearly, except that you feel a huge relief. You’re no longer feeling the burden of trying to run the show, improve yourself, feel guilt for past mistakes, etc. We’ve been like the little kid in the kiddy car at the amusement park. We think we’re steering this car called “my life”. Don’t just believe or disbelieve what I’ve said, by the way. Take a look and see for yourself.

Now, in practical terms for dating how can this be helpful? Here’s how. Thoughts and feelings show up on their own. We don’t ask for a sudden rush of jealousy or anger or disappointment feelings. Those feelings appear, usually because something in the moment triggers memories of hurt from the past. The pain is the signal that you’re not seeing life as it is. Instead, there’s resistance to something and a firm idea that it should be different. The ego-me gets involved, and with that opinion and judgment, there’s pain because you’ve started an internal fight. The fight is “my way” against “what is”.

Let’s say a sudden rush of hot anger arises in you from something your lover just said or did. If you were simply witnessing life you’d hear or see what happened like a baby would see it, without involvement. The hot rush would pass on quickly because it doesn’t have a place to land or an ego-me to get hooked into it. Instead, what happens for most of us is that we’re wrapped up in the anger immediately. Thoughts pour out, like “Why would he say that?” or “I’d never do what he just did.” Then all the analyzing and comparing and negotiating with yourself goes on and meantime you’re keeping that hot anger and suffering alive.

When the words are just seen as words, however, the feeling of anger fades because there’s no energy invested in them. And thoughts and feelings can’t live without energy. Actually, that’s all the hot rush was in the first place, a swirl of energy showing up in the body. With involvement it hangs around, sometimes for weeks. Without involvement it simply appears and disappears, like a wisp of steam. See that the universe, including what you resist, simply moves along as it always has. That includes all that happens in your dating relationship. When you see that “what is” might just be God’s way you could let go of your opinion and just be. That’s nature’s way, and life smooths out.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

76. What they say about you only hurts when you add your opinion

I heard recently about a light-skinned black woman from South Africa who’s angry with a man who didn’t want to date her because her skin is too dark. She says she’ll never forgive him for thinking she’s too dark. A couple of years ago a woman friend told me how hurt she was by what her dating companion told her. He was some years younger than she and he eventually told her she was too old for him. The woman was crushed and thought it was cruel that he would say that.

In both cases these women were suffering not because of what someone said but entirely as a result of their own thoughts and opinions. We can see this by investigating the facts. Someone may say you’re too dark-skinned or too old. Or they may say they don’t like blondes, or men who are bald. It doesn’t really matter what they say; they have a right to their opinion. It’s only when we think they shouldn’t say a thing that we suffer. Who says they shouldn’t think and say what they want? Do we want the right to our own opinions? Of course. Then don’t others also have that right?

“Yes,” you may argue, “but they don't have the right to say something hurtful that affects me.” But who added the word “hurtful” to what they said? Can they say something that hurts you? Only you decide that. When you drop your opinion that “this hurts” what’s left is just the words, “You’re too old” or “Your skin is too dark.” Can the sounds of a few words actually hurt you? It’s always our self-referencing ego-me that grabs onto words and then decides to feel hurt by them. See the words, instead, as just sounds or marks on paper. That’s what they are without your judgment and opinion. That’s a lot happier way to live than trying to control what someone thinks and says, which is like trying to control the wind. Impossible. And totally unnecessary.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

75. Controlling through anger is always a lose-lose in dating

Most of us don’t like to be controlled. Freedom is our natural state and we’re more at peace and content when we’re free to be ourselves. You know that from experience. Yet you may be a controller without even realizing it. And your controlling behavior can show up instantly in dating relationships because that’s when you can be most easily threatened and scared. There are several ways we try to control other people or situations so we can get what we want. I’ll talk about just one of them now – controlling through anger.

Even though it may happen seldom for you, when you’re angry at someone else it’s probably the way you’ve learned to try to control them. Whether your anger expresses itself in subtle seething and clamming up or shows up in rage or a temper tantrum, it’s your way of trying to make sure the person you blame for your anger toes the line in the future.

Two things happen when we try to control through anger. One is that we feel terrible inside, and the other is that it doesn’t work. Oh yes, you may seemingly force someone to do what you want. But you can also see that in the end your anger doesn’t work. Instead of drawing you both closer through discussion and a better understanding of each other, you create distance and hostility. The target of your anger and control doesn’t like being controlled any more than you do, so resentment builds.

The reason we want to control anything at all is our need for security. When we think our security is threatened we feel fear. What do we do? We do what we learned, probably in childhood. And if you learned that anger helped you survive as a kid you may be still using that method. To get past anger and the need to control, investigation is the only thing I know that works.

Some therapists say, “When you feel that hot rush of anger just stop and wait a few seconds before you respond.” ? Great idea, but ask yourself: Does it work? If it did, we’d have been successful at dealing with our angry bursts and fear a long time ago. Your own experience will tell you that. Calm, impassioned inquiry, though, after you’ve had an anger episode, will help you see the truth of a situation. You’re likely to see that you don’t need to control anyone. Since the need to control comes from feelings of insecurity you can start by asking questions such as: Is it true this person should be doing life my way? Do I really know what’s best in the big picture or do I just think I know? What’s the worst that could happen if I let things take their course rather than trying to make it go my way? Does anger really get me what I want when I’m trying to control others? Has it ever actually worked? Do I feel the love I want to feel in a relationship when I’m using anger as a weapon?

Seeing the truth in your answers may give you surprising results. As when you see a mirage you’ll never go there for water again, when you see the truth of your insecurities and what your angry behavior gets you, you may notice you never have to try using it again. Your belief that someone else could ever give you security was an illusion all along and now you see through it. What’s left then is peace and ease of living, the result of just letting life be what it is. The person you think made you angry is also part of life just as it is. Stop resisting “what is” and happiness remains.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

74. Senior dating evokes many feelings but they're never caused by your partner

The emotions we feel in dating relationships have exactly not one thing to do with another person, and everything to do with ourselves. “But that can’t be,” you say. “She said this and it hurt my feelings.” Yet another person in the same situation may not be hurt at all. The wise ones over the years have told us we each live in a different world. That sounds crazy. We all know there’s only one world and we all see the same things in it. When it rains we all get wet, not just some. Go to a concert and everyone hears the same music. So we can’t live in different worlds, you say.

On a concrete level that’s all true. However, there’s another world we also each live in, and that’s the subjective or personal world. That’s the world of personal analysis, interpretation, judgment and opinion. We apply these qualities to nearly everything we experience, and most people live in that opinion world all the time. For example, two people hear the same music. One says she likes it, another says he hates it. Still, the music is just what it is. Two people see the same art. One thinks it’s exquisite, the other thinks it stinks. The art, however, is neither good nor bad; it’s just what it is. A rude comment is made. One person is hurt, another thinks the commentator has a problem. The real truth, though, is that, without interpretation, the comment is just sounds in the air.

So you can see that the world we live in is only what we see based on past observations and interpretations. When we’ve learned someone else can hurt us we live in a painful myth. We’re assigning others power they don’t have and relegating ourselves to the role of victim. “Victim”, in the way I’m using the word here, means someone whose happiness is controlled by someone else. No one has control over your feelings, only you. In dating relationships we take on the victim position all by ourselves by giving power to someone else to determine how we feel.

No one can hurt you emotionally unless you choose to be hurt. In the same way, you can’t hurt anyone either. In short, what I’m saying is that the world we each live in is always our own belief about it, and rarely what it really is. If we like the music we hear we’ve overlaid the sounds with our opinion. Is the music the cause of our feelings? No, it’s what we bring to the music that makes it “good” or “bad”. To the child whose mom makes her take a nap that’s bad. To the mom it’s good. In reality it’s neither good nor bad, except for someone’s opinion.

Next time dating is painful to you, instead of blaming someone else and feeling like a victim just notice that it takes a “you” to decide to suffer. Another person wouldn’t be suffering in the same situation. So it can’t be the situation or the other person that’s responsible for your hurt. Then ask yourself: Am I sure this incident should be my way? Or does the universe function quite clearly just the way it does, without asking my opinion? Seeing life as it truly is, is always freeing. Seeing it through our myths, dreams and projections will always mean pain because our ideas aren’t true when you match them up with “what is”. Remember the saying, “Know the truth and the truth will set you free.” And the truth is that our emotional world is always, entirely, 100% our own making.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

73. Watch your emotional hurt evaporate when you stop resisting its pain

Seniors, like anyone else, are in the dating world because we want companionship and love, a natural response to life. It seems to be who we are, having a desire to pair up with a partner. Sometimes, however, that desire can get out of hand and create a great deal of pain in our lives. At those times we feel like victims of that suffering. There seems to be nothing we can do.

Desire, when you look at it, is nothing but a fixation on a particular thought. The thought is about something that looks attractive to the mind. In relationships the desire is to be with the person we’re dating, perhaps to make it a more permanent coupling. Suffering comes in when we realize the focus of our desire doesn’t feel the same way. We’ve probably all experienced that the pain from unrequited love can seemingly overtake life. We can’t eat, we can’t function very well, we look for ways of escape in running away or keeping extra busy. But your thoughts keep going back to the love you think you have to have, as persistently as your tongue goes to a tooth in your mouth that a dentist has just worked on.

One thing the mystics and ancient teachers have said throughout the centuries is that peace comes from accepting what is, just as it is. In the case of that gut ache that comes from a breaking heart that means to do the opposite of what we’ve learned to do. We’ve learned to try to escape it. But instead of running from the pain the unbelievable answer is to just be with it. Watch how it unfolds, without doing anything with it or trying to add or substract anything.

Instead of putting a label on it and translating it into a concept, a word, you just let it be. Be with it. Doing this, you wouldn’t say to yourself “I’ve lost my lover”. And you wouldn’t say to yourself that it’ll be better soon when she wants me as much as I want her. Instead, if there’s attraction there just see the attraction and let it run its normal course. See what happens.

When feelings are translated into thoughts and labels by the mind they seem solid, they transform into a thing in appearance. It’s not really the case, but it seems that way. That thing then becomes a knot in the gut or an ache in the heart. Yet there’s no physical cause; it’s all just physical reaction based on thought. A mass of energy has gathered and built up which in turn causes us to focus more on it and it continues to grow, in a vicious circle. Of course you resist the pain and the very resistance holds the idea – and remember it’s just an idea – in place and makes it more solid. Without resistance, with just watching and observing instead, as a scientist would, it dissipates and dissolves.

When you have a knot in your stomach if you look for it in your body you’ll realize you can find no self center or core to it. And as you look your attention is naturally taken off the cause of the gut reaction (my lover is gone) and so the effect of that thought (your hurting gut) has to disappear because it’s not real and never was real. It’s only a thought-made thing that appears real.

So next time you feel pain and hurt because of something that happens in a relationship or your dating, remember that thought can’t be in two places at the same time. If the intensity of your thought is in investigating the feeling rather than fixating on your desire, your suffering will dissolve instead of continuing to grow. In life, thoughts show up on their own and leave on their own, usually in pretty short order – unless we latch onto them by trying to change them or resist them. Stop the resisting and just focus on the feeling, accepting it as it is and it dissolves. It may come back again a time or two but when it does, handle it the same way. Look at it with clear eyes without wanting or needing it to change, and you’ll see it evaporate.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

72. Holding back your tears and fears could be riskier than fully living and finding love

And the day came
When the risk to
Remain tight in bud
Was more painful
Than the risk it took
To blossom.
- Anais Nin

Risking is living, and it certainly applies to loving and dating. The middle line of this aphorism says it well:

Work as if you don’t need to.
Love as if you’ve never been hurt.
And dance as if no one is watching!

We often hold back for fear and desire for security. We’re afraid of getting emotionally hurt. We act as though we couldn’t handle it if our heart breaks for awhile. But is that true? Haven’t you had a broken heart before and survived? Yet holding back in a relationship seems pretty common. We feel if we invest ourselves and really let go and feel the love we have for someone it may not be reciprocated. That would not only be crushing emotionally but also humiliating. Do we really want to be hanging out there alone letting someone know how vulnerable we are?

They could take advantage of us and that would be painful. But the line from the poem, “remain tight in bud”, points out that not risking is also painful. When we’re unwilling to risk we lead pinched up lives – narrow, tight, stifled, boring and dull. Living that way you’re dead to life while you live. Remember, we live in a world of dualism. It takes the opposite of a thing to have that thing at all – no up without down, no pleasure without pain. When we hide in a cocoon for protection we may not have the agony of suffering but we’ll also never have the joy of the butterfly.

When we hold back we don’t ever let our date or partner know fully who we are. We’re not vulnerable enough to show our tears and fears. We don’t want to look and feel like a fool. We’re “tight in bud” and so they never see the beauty or smell the perfume of the flower we really are if we’d let go and blossom. They can’t love the real you because they don’t know the real you. Living in protection we also don’t get to know our lover fully. We hold ourselves at bay because seeing the real beauty and depth of someone may draw us into even more feelings for them. That would mean more pain if the relationship goes sour.

When we really look at life, though, can’t we see that there never will be and never has been security? Your lover could die tomorrow. She could move on to someone else. You’re most likely a single senior because you’ve had a partner who’s now gone, either through divorce or death. You know life and love isn’t secure; it’s not meant to be. Part of the fun of life is it’s uncertainty and mystery. With uncertainty comes it’s freshness and fascination. Can you imagine how boring it would be if we knew what was going to happen next at all times? Living cautiously may save you from a large dose of pain but in turn it gives you the long, enduring, agony of misery and defeat that can lurk in the background for years.

You might even have noticed that as you live and take risks those risks are often captivating and enthralling even while they have an element of anxiety or fear. Newness is always full of wonder! If you find yourself working hard to protect yourself from hurt by not risking getting fully involved in a relationship, let that awareness settle in and ponder it a bit if you care to. Spontaneous, authentic living is free and open and full of life. Safe, risk-free existing is going through the motions. Which do you think will really give you the love and happiness you seek?

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer