231. Dating is painful when we believe our stories instead of seeing the truth

When dating or relationships cause us pain – and they often do – we usually feel sure that the source of that pain is the other person. “If he hadn’t…” “If she would only…” We can nearly always point at our date or partner as the reason why we’re hurting. After all, “He’s the one who lied to me,” or “She’s the one who secretly dated other guys.” So it goes against everything we know to hear that the only source of our emotional suffering – ever – is that we argue with reality. We think “what is” should be different. And the problem is, it isn’t different.

But let’s investigate life a bit and see what’s real. We say, “Jane shouldn’t have cheated on me.” But reality is that Jane did what she did and we label it cheating. Trying to argue with that or make Jane wrong is just asking for a lot of pain. The way life actually is, people sometimes cheat. Have you ever cheated in your life? That’s the way it is. That’s reality.

When we try to play God and say it shouldn’t be that way we’re going to hurt. Yes, I know, it’s easy to say that any good person would agree that Jane shouldn’t have cheated on you. That’s the way most of us have been taught to believe. But belief in a lie doesn’t make it the truth. The truth is that people cheat and in this case Jane cheated. “Cheating” is the story or label we’ve attached to her actions. And that story may not even be true.

Can you say she shouldn’t have dated someone else? What’s the reality? She did, right? Can you say it shouldn’t have rained today. What’s the reality? It did. Without adding our story that’s just what happened, and since the power that shows up as this world seems a lot more intelligent than we are maybe we could just trust that it knows what it’s doing. Seeing reality without adding our story isn’t painful. It’s just seeing reality, like seeing the sun.

It’s when we argue with reality that we suffer psychologically. Put another way, it’s our judgments that life should be our way that cause us pain. Yet, if you notice, no amount of judging you’ve ever done has ever changed what is. Any judgment that makes reality wrong and wants it to be different causes us stress because it’s a lie that opposes the way things are. Seeing without judgment goes along with the way things are, and we’re content and peaceful.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer