88. Valentine surprise! You feel love when you're giving it, not getting

Valentine’s Day is near and love is in the air. So let’s talk about it: What is love? You’re reading this article because you’re a mature man or woman, interested in dating to find another relationship. If I asked you what you wanted, bottom line, you’d probably say something like, “I want love”. It’s natural for us to think that someone will come along that stirs our hearts, and when we get that flutter of romance we’ll feel love. In other words, we’ll feel love when the other person gives us love.

But did you know it doesn’t work that way? We don’t feel love when someone gives us love. No. We feel love when we’re giving love, either to others or to ourselves. Isn’t that good news? I’ll say it again: We don’t have to wait for someone to love us to feel love; we can feel love any time, and it happens when we’re giving love.

That’s kind of a rash statement isn’t it? So let’s check it out and see if it’s really true. We’ll use a hypothetical example. Let’s say June is at a party. June is 63 years old and is beginning to date after her husband died two years ago. She was in a good marriage for many years, but her husband had the habit of criticizing her, and over the years her sense of self-worth had shrunk. So though she’s an attractive woman, she doesn’t have a very good sense of herself as a woman, and she’s quite critical of herself.

At the party Del comes up, introduces himself and begins a warm conversation with her. He’s clearly attracted to her and compliments her easily. But does June take in those compliments and feel love? No. She thinks Del is a handsome guy but he’s only trying to make her feel good because he’s nice. She knows he doesn’t really believe what he’s saying.

Now, let’s say we’ve got the same scene. But this time Susan is the woman at the party. Susan has a good sense of herself. She too is a widow of a few years but her husband had always told her how pretty she looked and how much he valued her opinions. Del starts the same warm conversation with her and compliments her. Does she take in those compliments and feel loved? Yes, she feels his warmth and sees his attentiveness, and it occurs to her that this guy may be a new partner some day.

So what have we got here? We’ve got the same Del, saying the same things with the same honesty and sincerity. Yet Susan feels love and June doesn’t. You know this isn’t a fairy tale. You know from your own life that this hypothetical scene happens all the time. It’s probably happened to you at some time, when you just couldn’t accept that anyone would actually think well of you because you’re feeling so down on yourself at that moment.

Since Susan feels love and June doesn’t, in the same circumstance, it’s obviously not Del who makes the difference. The feeling of love and warmth Susan has is because Del has become a mirror for her own sense of herself. The good news is that anyone, even an animal, can mirror our love back to us. Think of the love you feel, even for just a moment, when you hold a baby or pet a favorite animal. The baby can smile and a cat may purr but it’s pretty clear that the love you feel comes from your giving, not because you’re receiving something. Or take another example. Let’s say you’ve given money to a charity to help people who have been struck by a disaster. You feel love don’t you?

When you’re constantly looking to someone else to fill your need for love, at the same time you’re also holding in mind the idea that you lack love. When you keep reminding yourself you lack love, in this way, what are you going to feel? A lack of love, of course.

Love and loving is our natural state. People love to give love, and it’s only our fears and our need to protect ourselves that keep us from giving love. We all have a natural compassion for those who are hurting for instance. Isn’t that love? We want to help others when we’re not feeling coerced or abused. Isn’t that love? It’s natural in us.

Instead of looking for someone to give us love, we can try it the other way around. Give love instead. Try not being so concerned over the impression you’re making when you date. Instead, try just opening up to the man or woman you’re dating and see them without judgment and without trying to get something from them. See the hurt in them. See the longing in them. See the goodness in them. You can’t help but feel love. And isn’t love what you were looking for in the first place?

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

87. Where’s the formula for finding love again? There is none, so date and be happy

Is there a formula for falling in love, or getting someone to fall in love with you? We often hear that if we do this or that, we’ll find the perfect mate. Yet our direct experience shows that it doesn’t work that way, and we often then blame ourselves. The mind comes up with all kinds of reasons why falling in love works for everyone else but doesn’t work for you. You think things like: I need to lose more weight. I need to be more bubbly when I’m out with with a guy. Women like surprises so I’ll try to be more clever with romantic surprises. I’m probably not finding The One because I’m getting bald.

The mind takes the pure Isness of life and divides it up into cause and effect, performance and reward. The mind wants to put labels on everything instead of just seeing life as it is. There are no fixed formulas for living. Living happens, and we see that when we look honestly. For example is there a formula for winning the lottery, writing a best-seller, producing a hit movie or falling in love?

After someone succeeds at something they often look at what happened and say, “I did that.” Then some produce a formula and tell us they can show us how. But what they’re offering is a description, not a prescription. It’s a description of the unique happening in their life. It doesn’t mean those happenings will appear in anyone else’s life. There are no prescriptions for life because we’re not separate entities or units that make life happen. Life is happening to us not from us.

Did the guys who started Google know they’d become billionaires? Was that even their goal? How about Bill Gates or Paul Allen, the founders of Microsoft? Do you think they knew exactly the steps to take to becomes the richest people on the planet? If the people who go around the country offering get-rich seminars really were able to teach that wouldn’t nearly all the people who attend be rich? I remember thinking for years that I must not be following formulas the right way because at that time I thought more wealth would set me free, and it wasn’t working. Now I know why: I wasn’t destined to be rich, obviously.

You can probably verify what I’m saying by just noticing your own life. Did you plan to have it turn out as it did? Are you in the career you thought you’d be in? Do you have the life you thought you’d have? I was raised as a good Catholic, from parents who never divorced. That was my goal also, to be a good husband and father, with grandchildren coming to visit and big, three-generation gatherings around the Thanksgiving table. Yet, after 17 years of marriage and six kids there was a divorce. I was devastated. That didn’t fit my plan for a good, Christian life at all. But it was reality. It happened.

Two years later I was married again, to a wonderful woman who was a gift in so many ways, not just to me but to my children as well. Eighteen years later she died of cancer. Did she plan that? Did I? No, it just happened.

The point is this: Life happens. When we watch it unfold and play itself out through us and everything else, life is easy and without problems. Maybe we’ll find love, maybe we won’t. If we’re meant to date and pursue another relationship at this mature stage in our lives, that’ll happen. And it can be a fun adventure when we just see things develop as they will. It’s not fun when we think we know what should be happening and it’s not. It’s not fun when we think we must be doing something wrong because we can’t create what we want.

What’s true in life, I’ve finally noticed, is that life never asks for my advice and it doesn’t pay any attention to my opinions. When I stop offering them and simply see that this “me” is just part of the functioning of the universe, there’s ease. There’s peace. There’s the grace of simply Being and watching life as it is.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

86. Dating can hurt now as much as in your teen years … or you can see reality and date happily

Mature dating is really no different, when it comes to emotions, than dating at any other stage of life. You’ve probably noticed that if you’ve dated enough in these later years to have become emotionally involved with someone. It would seem strange to young people, but the joy and giddiness of your teen years doesn’t feel much different from similar feelings in these years.

Unfortunately, the same is true of pain. What squeezed your stomach into knots when you were in high school feels pretty much the same when you’re 52 or 67 or 84. (My dad remarried at 88 so I have first-hand knowledge that romantic feelings occur at any age. Talk to people who work in nursing homes and retirement centers.)

With a little maturity in life you’ve seen that all emotions come and go. The “…and go” part is the blessing of painful emotions. But often that gut-wrenching pain of disappointment or anguish doesn’t go fast enough. Minutes of empty loneliness feel like hours, and days seem like years. All there is, is pain it seems. Pain is everywhere you turn.

Fortunately, throughout history there have been Wise Ones who see life more clearly, and many in the past, and today, have been willing to pass on their wisdom. What they see and share is that living in the reality of life – seeing life as it is – takes most of the sting out of the suffering we feel. When there is pain it goes quite quickly.

These wise folks are like signposts, pointing the way to an ease of life we may never have known. They can’t take us there, just as no one can give you the taste of honey by talking about it. But they can show the way and tell us where to look so we can see life as it is. The way life is, is often different from the way we think it should be, and therein is the rub.

From the time we’re little we’ve picked up ideas of how life should be. Certain things are right and certain things are wrong. People should do some things and they shouldn’t do other things. Society, church, family and friends all reinforce these ideas. But they’re just ideas and beliefs. They don’t match reality. If we could have what we think is a perfect world we’d be happy, we think. But each of us has a different idea of perfection, and if everyone had the right to set up conditions the way they want can you imagine the chaos?

So it’s obvious that the way “we” think it should be isn’t realistic either. Then what is a view of life that can keep us happy and peaceful, and out of the pain? It turns out that seeing life just as it is, is the answer. You can’t really argue with what is can you? It already is, so apparently it’s supposed to be that way. I don’t mean “supposed to” in moral terms, but simply in terms of seeing things as they are.

That’s what awakened people and small babies do: They see life as it is, without thinking it should be different. They don’t try to change it or improve it or correct it in any way. “Well, so what?” you may be saying to yourself. “What’s this have to do with my dating?” It has everything to do with dating, and with all of life, actually.

Every single, tiny bit of our emotional suffering happens only when we think something should be different from the way it is. That’s kind of an alarming statement, I know. But wise teachings from every century and every part of the globe have all come down to the same thing. These people have all seen that life is just happening. It is the way it is. And it’s only when we think it should not be the way it is that we hurt.

Let’s cut to the quick, here, and look at this in a simple dating scene. It could go like this:
FACT: John stood me up.
THOUGHT: “He shouldn’t have done that.”
RESULT: Suffering.

This is the way most of the world sees life. We’ve been conditioned to just “know” that certain things shouldn’t happen and when they do it’s wrong.

From a clear, or enlightened perspective, however, the same scene would look like this:
FACT: John stood me up.
THOUGHT: “People do that sometimes in this life. John didn’t show up, so what interesting thing can I do now that I won’t be spending time with John?”
RESULT: Little or no suffering.

From those two hypothetical examples you can see that the only thing that changed was the thinking. When people see this they often say, “That’s too easy. You can’t eliminate suffering by just seeing life as it is.” But wait a minute. What caused the suffering in the first place? Wasn’t it the thought that “what is” shouldn’t be? The ego steps in, faces Infinite Wisdom, and says, “I know better.” Really?

Facts don’t hurt – ever! It’s only what we think about the facts that cause us to suffer. So doesn’t it make sense that seeing with some clear understanding of life as it is, can shift the feeling from suffering to peace?

What usually happens is that we feed energy to our mistaken beliefs (John shouldn’t have stood me up) and then we continue to expand on our own false ideas. We start adding stories and questions like “How could he when he seemed so nice?” “Maybe I’m just not a good judge of men.” “Did I say something that irritated him?” “I really liked him, and at my age I don’t expect to have many chances to meet men like him.” “This is probably the way my life is going to go; I may as well resign myself to just being alone the rest of my life.” We can add a million stories, every one of them prolonging our pain.

What’s true about all the stories, however, is that not one of them has anything to do with the fact that John stood you up. They’re just thoughts and they don’t affect the situation at all. Without all those thoughts you’re back to just the simple realization that John didn’t show up when he said he would. You have no idea why. Maybe you’ll check and find out he was sick, or in the hospital. Or maybe you’ll later learn he just doesn’t think you’re his type. Whether John is hospitalized or just doesn’t want to see you again, when you drop your stories and see reality as it is, you’re living in the natural state of just witnessing life rather than thinking you have the insight to know what’s best, or the ability to change things if you did.

Ask yourself, would accepting life as it is feel more peaceful and less stressful? Would dating be more fun and adventuresome if you didn’t take it personally and try to impose your ideas on “what is”?

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

85. What is love? Is it a throbbing heart or something else?

We’re dating at this age – at any age, actually – because we want love. But what is love? It’s easy to give a sentimental or romantic description of what love is. Most of us would probably include warm, glowing feelings in that description. We think of a pitter-pattering heart, and feelings of excitement and passion. Did you happen to notice that those feelings come when we’re thinking our partner is absolutely wonderful and can do no wrong?

In other words, that feeling of love we have, comes when we’re not criticizing and judging the other person. But most of what we call love in our society is more like a business deal, in reality. We love someone as long as they do what we want them to do. When they do what they want and it’s different from what we want, love often suddenly goes out the window. So was it love or was it a barter?

Over a period of years I was involved in a variety of programs I hoped would show me how to be more self-aware. Often the work I did was in small groups, and these meetings were revealing and intense. One thing I noticed is that people felt so much relief when they could share whatever was bothering them and feel safe, knowing the information wouldn’t be used against them. They weren’t being judged.

It’s obviously not our true nature to be judgmental because if you notice, when you judge others you don’t feel peaceful and happy. Judging results in a tight, constricting kind of feeling. Simply allowing your date or partner to be as they are can enliven your dating experiences and allow you to feel the inner happiness that’s also part of our nature when we’re not covering it with our accusations and judgments.

Of course when your partner isn’t feeling judged her need to protect herself and be on guard drops away. What’s left then, for both of you, is the natural sense of inner happiness and love that is the essence of who we all are when the self-centered, judgmental ego is out of the way.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

84. Without interpreting and judging, mature dating is an easy adventure

When we put labels on things, and judge them from a self-centered viewpoint, we usually cause ourselves a lot of pain. A simple example would be this. John has dated Mary a couple of times, then she tells him she doesn’t want to continue. John could interpret that from a self-centered perspective and feel hurt, telling himself all kinds of stories such as “she should have given herself a chance to really know me,” or “I shouldn’t have told her so much about my background.” Or he could see things as they are – Mary doesn’t want to date him any more – and simply accept that as the way it is. No story, no pain. After all, can he really know his interpretation of Mary’s action is right? Can he know he shouldn’t have revealed his background? If he really digs into it he’ll probably see that he can’t know those things at all. That’s just the mind trying to answer the question “why”?

The Tao Te Ching is a Chinese spiritual work from the time before Christ, consisting of 81 short verses of wisdom. It’s a classic that’s widely revered for the clear understanding of life it expresses, though at first some of its meanings may be hard to grasp. Its wise words apply to all of life, and in this case to the experiences we have in mature dating as well. Depending on our viewpoint we can have fun, happy experiences, or pain, as we date.

The mind is good at dividing and labeling, and with our thought-generated interpretations we suffer. Here’s an example of what the Tao Te Ching says about that:

When everyone recognizes beauty as beauty there is already ugliness.
When everyone recognizes goodness as good there is already evil.

In other words, we live in a world of duality – right/wrong, good/bad, beauty/ugly – when we label things. As soon as we say something is “good” we’ve automatically created something “not good”. If it had no opposite, there would be no “good”, only “what is”, which is what you’ve got without the label we put on things.

Later in the Tao Te Ching, author Lao Tzu says:

The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth.
Naming (the mind) is the mother of the ten thousand things.

You could call the “nameless” the Source of all that is, or the Absolute, or God (the God of your understanding). What Lao Tzu is saying is this: Without labels, things are as they are, simply originated from that One Source, which he calls the nameless. Then the mind (naming) comes in, and now we’ve got labels for everything. The labels, of course, are usually based on “I like” or “I don’t like”. Or we interpret: “She doesn’t want to date me any more and that means… (here we add whatever meaning our mind comes up with).

But without labeling, interpreting and judging, a fact is just a fact, just like rain is just rain. Rain isn’t good or bad, it just IS. How do you get past the idea of labeling and judging everything? By becoming self-aware. By just noticing – when you’re feeling emotionally hurt – what your thoughts are. You’ll notice you’re resisting something “as it is”. What do you think should be “your” way rather than the way it is? Do “you” really know what should be? Is it possible that “what is” is the perfect unfolding of this Infinite Intelligence and we’re just so small we don’t see the big picture? Do we think we know more than God?

Reality, without our label and story, isn’t painful. The only suffering comes when we don’t accept reality just as it is. Eventually you may see that there’s not even a “you” to make a judgment – that “you” is just another one of the objects of life. The One Infinite Source is just pretending to be “you” for awhile, as it pretends to be a tree, a thought and the wind.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

83. Fear of rejection is a bad habit, and it takes all the fun out of mature dating

Fear of rejection is a bad habit. That sounds pretty blunt doesn’t it? But have you noticed that fear is always based on memories of the past and, except for an immediate danger, it has nothing to do with reality? By reality, I mean just “what is” in any moment. As for the past, it’s dead. It’s over. It’s nothing more than a thought. Do you really want to let it rule your life?

Eileen is a woman I dated a few years ago who said she enjoyed my company, yet she hardly ever asked me to do anything with her. When we spent time together it was usually because I asked her. When I discussed this with her she realized that almost unconsciously she was afraid I might turn her down. She also told me I’d done nothing that would lead her to that conclusion.

Her fear was from events of the past that she had laid onto her current dating situation with me. She was an example of how allowing past memories to influence our present lives is nothing more than a bad habit. We remember the hurt we felt in the past, we conclude we don’t want to feel hurt or humiliated in the future, so we protect ourselves and withdraw. In doing that we begin to live a restricted, pinched up life.

When someone turns us down we call it rejection. But if we live spontaneously and drop the old memories there really is no way to be rejected. Without a label, a happening is just a happening, whether it’s rain when you hoped for sun, or someone saying they don’t want to date you any more. It’s only when we decide to take the event personally that we can feel rejection. No one else can do that to us. We can only do it to ourselves. Let’s say that Eileen had asked me to do something I really wouldn’t enjoy, and I had declined. Would that be rejection? Only if Eileen said it was.

I have another friend, Jolene, who asked me to attend the symphony with her one evening. She’s a cheerful, good-natured, attractive woman and I would have enjoyed spending an evening with her. But I also knew I wouldn’t be a good companion for her at the symphony because I don’t enjoy that kind of music very much. I wouldn’t be enthusiastic and I wouldn’t be someone she could share that experience with in the same way she could share it with someone who loved the symphony. I explained this to her when I declined her invitation. Her response was to say she appreciated my authenticity, and she seemed to feel no rejection at all.

If you find yourself fearing rejection you might just notice what you’re thinking. Chances are high that you’ve overlaid the past onto the present just like an old blanket. In that case, you miss the present because you’ve covered it up, and you’ve also allowed a dead and gone past, which now is nothing more than an illusion, to dictate life for you now. Of course you lose, 100% of the time then. If you don’t take the risk for fear of rejection you have no chance of getting what you want.

On the other hand, if you do take the risk, at least two things could happen. First you might get a “yes”. And even if you get a “no”, what have you lost? You’re in the same spot aren’t you? Fear of rejection means not asking and therefore not getting what you want. Asking and getting turned down also means not getting what you want. Is there a difference?

What does the “no” mean if it comes? It could mean anything, from something similar to what I felt about the symphony to a “no” from someone who has a stomach disorder and worries she might not make it to the bathroom on time if she went out. Whatever the reason, the reality is someone said “no”. It happens, whether it’s being turned down for a loan, a job or a date. That’s reality. That’s life, and without our judgmental thoughts it’s just the way it is. No big deal unless you make it so. As the Zen saying goes, “Don’t worry, be happy.”

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer