203. My suffering for a partner led to freedom and this blog, written to point you to freedom and peace also

I started writing about mature dating because of my own dating experiences after my second wife died. I was lonely and I really missed the companionship, warmth, and love of a woman. I wanted another partnership. Now, more than 12 years later, I’m surprised I still don’t have a committed partnership. But I no longer suffer. Life is happy just the way it is.

Along the way I’ve learned so much more than I knew was possible to learn. Actually, I didn’t learn, as much as I saw, the world for what it is, simplicity itself. As I dated in the early years I was also on a deep and committed spiritual search, a search to learn who I was, looking for a way to alleviate my suffering. That search took me, finally, into the realization that my pain wasn’t coming from the lack of a partner. It was coming from my inability to see life just as it is. Seeing that, I naturally wanted to share it – and this blog was born after some years of note-taking based on my experiences. I had seen many others hurting from the same thing I had been hurting from – a belief in their thoughts about life rather than seeing life for what it is, just as it is.

Dating as a senior turned out to be a wonderful metaphor for all of life. I had been trying to find my happiness by getting the world to line up the way I wanted. Eventually I realized that’s not the way. If it had been people would have found happiness a long time ago by using sheer will power to make things go their way. Or we all would have used affirmations or the certainty that we create our own reality and we’d have done that – created our own reality.

But after years of living and years of struggling through motivation programs and self-help books and courses of all kinds I knew that didn’t work. Finally I saw that the answer is so elusive because it’s so simple. It was a matter of questioning my firmly-held beliefs to see if I actually knew what I thought I knew. It turns out I didn’t. Freedom and peace, to my surprise, came when I allowed deeper, intuitive answers to surface, and saw that I wasn’t in charge of my life and neither was anyone else. All I had to do was to realize the truth that I’m being lived and the power that lives as me and all of life is always at peace and living in harmony.

Argue with that and we hurt. See the truth of that and we simply live as awareness, peace, happiness, and love, watching life unfold. That, surprisingly, is who we’ve been all along. We just didn’t know, while all the time we thought we did. What a shock! What a gift!

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

202. Your “thoughts” about reality can make mature dating miserable

When your mind is clear and you’re seeing reality as it is, not believing your thoughts about reality, mature dating becomes as simple as a leaf floating down a stream, serene and happy. As we notice that life always does what it does, with or without our approval, we can see clearly that anyone can come and go in our lives as Life wishes.

The stress of dating is gone when we give up our ideas of how things should go. We don’t even have to give up our ideas, actually. All we have to do is see that we’re not in control and never have been, and our control ideas evaporate by themselves. We see that Life has its own way and we’re being lived as part of that way. We never know what’s best, we just think we do.

As we stick to our judgmental thoughts we hurt. As we question those thoughts and see what really is, we just notice that all things come and go, including people in our lives. If we find people to date, good. If we don’t find someone to date, good. It only means that’s not supposed to be happening for us right now. If someone comes into our lives, good. If that someone – even someone we think is very special – leaves that too is good because we know it’s simply the way of it.

So if someone ends a relationship with you it doesn’t have to be heartbreaking. It’s only heartbreaking when we think it shouldn’t have ended. Seeing the reality that all things end can take the pain out of it. We see that we enjoyed the experience as it was and now it’s obviously time for us to enjoy new experiences. How do we know that? Look, here it comes! Every moment, after all, dies as a new moment is born. That’s simply the way life is.

We can live in harmony with the way things are because they’re going to be that way whether we like it or not. We can go along peacefully and happily or we can go screaming and fighting. Either way we’re going to go. When we stop arguing with reality we’re automatically happy. Some people might call that surrendering to God’s will.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

201. No wonder mature dating is painful and disappointing if you add your own interpretations and warp the truth

If you’ve read a few of the entries in this blog you’ve seen that I’m suggesting your dating can be easy and fun when you stop looking “out there” to find happiness and instead start looking “in here”. We each create the world we live in every moment; it’s all projection. When we clear up the projector lens rather than try to clean the spot off the screen we find success. The projector lens, of course, is the filter through which we see the world. When you’re seeing through a purple filter everything appears purple. (Note the word “appears”.)

It works like this: The guy you’re dating says something, you put meaning onto it, you react and respond based on the meaning you added, and you don’t even notice that’s what you’ve done. What you’re reacting to is not what he said but what you heard and what you attached to what he said. This is just one example of how we so often don’t see “what is” but only what we “think” about what is. We believe our thoughts, see them as reality, and act on the lie we’ve just projected. We're at the front of the theater trying to clean the black smudge off the screen, not realizing we put the spot on the lens. In fact, we’re always living in the world we create, never the same world anyone else lives in. It’s all personal and it’s all projection.

A few years ago I attended a sponsored dinner with a woman I was dating. Wine was being served and during dinner she excused herself to leave the table. I casually remarked, “Are you going to get another glass of wine?” Instantly she gave me “that look” and became cold and distant. Later she was able to talk about her reaction, telling me she thought I was criticizing her for drinking too much. That hadn’t even entered my mind; it was entirely her own projection and her response sprang from her belief about what I’d said, not what I actually said.

That’s why questioning our thoughts is so important if we want to date happily and without stress and suffering. Without investigating and seeing reality as it is we usually believe our thoughts and create all kinds of pain for ourselves – in dating and in every other part of our lives.

A balanced mind is always at ease, not for or against anything, simply seeing life the way it is. When you stop accepting your habitual way of seeing life and question your thoughts you’ll find dating can be an exciting adventure, full of surprises, full of fun – peaceful, not stressful. Then dating doesn’t have to go a certain way. Any way is fine because that’s reality, and how can you argue with reality? Maybe that poor guy didn’t mean what you thought he meant. Maybe her leaving is the best thing that could happen to you. Do you clearly know life should be your way? Maybe it should be just the way it is.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

200. Authentic mature dating relationships aren’t built on fantasy and illusion

In the dating world have you noticed how easy it is for people to fall in love with their romantic fantasies? I met a woman several years ago who was saying, “Let’s go to France! Let’s go to Branson, Missouri!” after we’d only seen each other a couple of times, for coffee and lunch. I told her I didn’t know her well enough to even consider trips like that at such an early time in our friendship, and a few weeks later I chose to stop seeing her because I knew she was dealing in fantasies that would eventually bite me.

A Zen master is quoted as having said, “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” Whether his words are applied to seeking a spiritual truth or to dating relationships they’re right on. We too often fall in love with our images and fantasies and when the air clears and we see reality we wonder why things didn’t work. The amazing thing is that the red flags appear to always be there. Over the last dozen years or so I’ve dated a number of women who have told stories of disillusionment with past relationships, where they eventually felt hurt and deceived. I’ve literally asked almost all of them, “As you look back now were there any red flags that you didn’t pay attention to at the time?” And the answer I’ve gotten every single time is, “Oh yes, there were flags; I just didn’t want to pay attention to them.” They were in love with their cherished illusions, not reality.

You see that lived out in cases where women who are physically abused continue to stay with their partners, apparently not able to see that reality says, After being abused one or two times it’s time to leave. Instead, they appear to believe their cherished illusion that this time the guy will really change, and sometimes they die for that belief.

What I’ve learned is that any time someone thinks you’re a princess or a prince – or you think that of someone else – you’re almost certainly dealing in illusion. In the nitty-gritty of everyday life, which is where we live when all the fancies and fantasies are finished, life isn’t about a fairy tale. It’s about loving someone as they are, not as we imagine them to be. Fantasies never last long. Reality lasts because it’s authentic and real. It has the soul-satisfying depth of truth and honest love.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer