208. We suffer, not because a relationship ended but because of what we think about it ending

Everyone knows that dating can bring heartbreak. At least it looks that way. Something ends in a relationship: it could be a long romance or even just a short period of dating. But when it ends we often feel pain, sometimes excruciating pain. It seems natural that we’d feel pain and loss for something that has ended. Everything in life seems to say that that’s the way life is; it always hurts when something ends.

But sages over the centuries have been seeing and saying something different. They say that when you look closely the pain from loss only comes about because we think what has ended shouldn’t have ended. We want it our way rather than the way it is. Life, however, doesn’t care what we want and it doesn’t alter itself whether we’re suffering or not.

Life is a great teacher, and the workings of nature give us a simple way to view it. It’s easy to see in nature that everything changes. Change means something ends to make way for something new. Notice, it ends. Seasons end; day ends, night comes; plants grow and die; rain comes and goes; our heartbeat ends, to be replaced by a rest period; the incoming tide ends and begins to move out again. Everything ends. Everything changes. That change is in front of us at every moment even as each moment ends to make way for the next one.

Now, as obvious as that is, we still seem to have the idea that a relationship shouldn’t end, and when it does we hurt because after all everyone hurts when a relationship ends that we wanted to continue. But that suffering we feel isn’t the reality of life. We’ve made up our own suffering. Our war with life is what hurts and lacks any feeling of love.

Seeing life as it is, however, is love. There’s no judgment, no resistance, no fighting. When you see that a relationship is over you know it’s run the full course it was meant to run. You know that because it ended. The sages constantly taught that Life is love and that it’s living itself just fine. We can be completely happy and at peace if we don’t argue with it. Without opinions about how life should be we simply see it as it is, without judgment, with love.

You may be thinking, “This guy obviously hasn’t had relationship heartbreak because he just doesn’t know how it can hurt.” Yes, I know. I’ve been there. And it hurt a lot because I didn’t know it was only my thoughts about it that were causing my suffering. I thought it was the circumstance. But circumstances and events and what people say and do can’t ever hurt us emotionally when we see reality instead of our home-made, self-centered dream.

I know there’s naturally emptiness when a relationship ends. There seems to be a hole in your gut and sometimes you can’t think of much else except your loss. But those are all thoughts. Remember, when you’re in deep sleep and not thinking you’re not hurting. So it clearly isn’t the ending but your thought about the ending that makes you hurt.

Seen with real clarity we can realize that we don’t really know this relationship should have continued. Rather, in fact, we do know: it shouldn’t have continued… because it didn’t. We know something ends to make way for something new. When we can watch what new comes into being to replace what ended we just see life with amazement and curiosity, not pain. Life has shown all of us through direct experience that an experience we thought was the end of the world was replaced by what we later saw as a blessing. Endings aren’t bad unless we say they are. Otherwise we just notice that endings are the natural way life functions. Let it be, enjoy the adventure of what comes next, and be happy. Living in “not knowing” can be just plain fun.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

207. Want a partner, or got a partner and don’t want him – it's all about viewpoint

We think we know what happiness is, and it always looks different from what we have right now. That’s why all our lives we’re striving for something else, something more, different or better from what we have. Dating in our senior years is usually another way that striving and seeking happens. We think if we had a partner life would definitely be nicer. Even people who have left marriages because they weren’t happy usually feel that their partner was the cause of their unhappiness and if they had a different partner they definitely would be happier this time.

Pam is a friend of mine who lives in a mature community; all the residents must be 55 or over. She moved into this community about 8 months ago and is still getting acquainted with other residents through the many activities that are available there. The other day she met with a group of women and was surprised when a couple of them told her that a lot of the residents who were beginning to get to know her were envious of her. These were married women who looked at Pam’s free and single lifestyle and wished they had that freedom. Freedom to date whoever they wanted, to come and go when they wanted, to be accountable to no one. They were thinking, “How lucky she is!” Meantime, Pam tells me she’d rather be in a partnership, to have someone she can talk to and do things with, someone to confide in and trust.

This is another example that while most folks are nearly always thinking life could be better if… they’re not seeing the reality that life actually gives us everything we need at the moment we need it, even though we don’t think so. If we’re totally honest – and I mean deep-down honest – can we say we know life would be better if we had that mate we want?

Without making that kind of judgment about a future that hasn’t yet arrived does life in this very moment – as you read this – have anything wrong with it? When you believe you know for sure you need a partner to be happy how do you live? Isn’t living that way – arguing with reality – stressful and painful? What if, instead, you trusted the universe (or God or any term you want to use) to provide your life just the way it is providing it right now, just as it provides your next breath and your next heartbeat. Some power has been providing for your needs since you were conceived.

Maybe we could just relax and know everything is perfectly the way it should be because that’s the way it is. Dating, then, would still go on but now it could be just a fun adventure, not something done to achieve an end result. If you just picture that for a moment and let it settle in, does it seem that living without an agenda for your dating would be easier and more relaxing?

The real heart of the problem is that we think we are a separate “me” that needs to make “my” life work. But we’re not separated from that One Source. We just haven’t been taught to question that “me” thought. Where is this me? Does it really exist? Can you find any direct evidence of it or even pinpoint where it is? When we see that we’re being lived, that we don’t need to try to control things, life gets infinitely easier. I invite you to investigate and see for yourself.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

206. You’re getting older… does it really pay to fight it trying to attract a mate?

It’s interesting to me that the way – the only way – we end up suffering emotionally is through belief in our thoughts. I know, that’s a radical-sounding statement. So stay with me for a few minutes and let’s see if I can show you what I mean. Then you can judge the validity of the statement yourself.

Last night I had a conversation with a long-time friend of mine, Anita, who was feeling sad about the fact that she’s getting older. The conversation clearly showed me she was creating her own pain just by her thoughts. None of us have to do that if we can simply see life a little more clearly.

“I’ve seen more doctors in the last few years than I ever have in my life,” she said. “It just makes me sad.” Anita is widowed and in her late 60’s, and she’d love to be in a relationship. So every time she thinks of getting older she also thinks no one will want her.

Where Anita is creating her own suffering, it’s so clear, is in an area I talk about a lot. She’s trying to fight reality, and in the process she not only loses but also makes herself miserable. What is reality, in this case? Well, it’s clear that in real life we all age and we all begin to lose some of our youthful physical abilities and we’re all eventually going to die. You can’t argue with that. Yet – and here’s the strange part – we try.

We think it shouldn’t be this way. We think it’s awful. We mourn the fact that we don’t have the energy we used to have, or that our knees hurt when we stand up, or that we have wrinkles and sagging skin we never had before. “Yes,” you might be saying, “but who wants to get old and wrinkly and have sagging skin? It’s hard enough to find a partner without having to also go out in the world without the youthful good looks I once had.”

But let’s look at the actuality of life for a moment. Whatever you look like when you look in the mirror, and whatever you feel like when you’re active physically, that’s just what life has dealt you isn’t it? You’re not being singled out as the only 50 or 60 or 70 or 80-something who’s getting older. That’s just the way life is.

Now, we can fight it and bemoan it and suffer it or we can just accept life as it is. We seem to have those two choices. Meantime, aging doesn’t stop. It doesn’t care what we think. It’s going to be what it is, just like life is what it is every day. Every spring the trees put on new leaves and every fall they lose them. Every minute or so the tide comes in. And every minute or so it goes out again. There’s summer, spring and fall. Nature has its ways and it acts through everything, including all animal forms, which includes humans.

Reality always wins. It always rules. But let’s look for a moment at what happens to us when we try to argue with it. How do you feel inside if you’re sad and miserable because you’re aging? You might actually take a moment to let yourself know what that really feels like inside your body. And how does that feeling affect your happiness, your joy, your spontaneity? Do you think what registers inside you might also register on the outside to the men or women you’d like to date or have a relationship with?

While we’re in the mood of being sad and disheartened about aging how do you think we come across to any potential partner or date? We’d have to reflect that wouldn’t we? So as far as I can see when we argue with what is we lose in at least two ways: We don’t feel happy, which is the biggest way, and we also lessen our chances of finding joy in our dating and of attracting someone to us. Who wants to be around a sour puss who’s inwardly miserable about getting old?

And the main point is this: For what? For what reason are we believing our thought that it’s terrible that we’re getting older? Is it terrible or is it just life? It’s only terrible if we say so. It’s all a myth. We’re creating a nightmare and living in it as though it were real – self-created misery. Seems to me it’s a lot easier to see life just as it is without throwing up arguments that change nothing and make us suffer. Without our made-up story life is just fine. No judgment, no suffering. You prove that to yourself every night when you sleep.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer