220. Without your thoughts mature dating can’t have any problems

You have a dating problem. Really? Who decided that?

Let’s say the woman you’ve been dating doesn’t want to see you any more. You’re disappointed and feeling hurt. You want it to be different. Now let’s imagine you have a friend who happens to be in the same situation. The woman he’s been seeing doesn’t want to see him any more either. But he’s not hurting. He figures it’s just the way life is, and moves on. So where did your problem come from? Obviously from your own thoughts. It’s not real. It’s self-created.

Every single problem we have results from our thinking that life should be different. We’re the ones who decide what should and shouldn’t be. We’re the ones who decide what’s good and bad, right and wrong, painful and pain-free. Yet the strange thing is that when we look at our own life, our own experience, we can see that we don’t really know how things should be. We just think we do. We’ve all had plenty of experiences to prove that if life had gone the way we were so sure would be best it may not have turned out so well. At the very least all we can say is that we don’t know.

My neighbor lost her son to a freak accident when he was 20. With an experience like that it would be easy to discount what I just said. You could say that nothing good came out of that at all. But do we know? Do we know what his life would have been like had he lived? Can we really question the Power that created him in the first place and then decided when the life in him should stop? In truth, without an opinion, he lived exactly as long as he should have lived. Not a second too long or too short. You know that because that’s the way it was.

The simple seeing or presence that we are witnesses and registers all kinds of events, thoughts, and feelings that pass through our awareness. Our only problem comes when we latch onto them, put our own interpretation on them, and then suffer as a result. It’s that Little Me idea, with its judgments, that’s the center of all emotional hurt and pain. It all starts when we believe our thoughts. Thoughts are just energy passing through. Nothing more. We don’t ask for them, we don’t control them, we don’t choose how long they’ll stay. Why not just see life as it is, without our self-centered opinions, and be happy? After all, that’s our true nature, just the pure being-awareness in which everything shows up, just like space makes it possible for objects to show up.

See that and you can’t help but be content and problem-free. This is what all the spiritual traditions have been sharing throughout the centuries. It’ll make your dating pain-free, guaranteed.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

219. Answers to a reader’s questions: What does make happiness in mature dating?

An anonymous reader wrote yesterday asking for clarification of statements I’ve made in this blog about mature dating. The questions were good so I’m quoting them and hopefully providing some clarity here. Behind these questions is the assumption that we’re in charge of our lives. So let’s examine that assumption as we go through the reader’s questions.

Q. Why are we called sentient beings and insects are not? Don't we all digest food, our wounds heal, the natural functioning goes on? Sometimes I think you are describing a vegetative state here, insofar as humans are concerned. These things often happen in a vegetative state, so is that called happiness?

A. Yes, bodily functions often do go on naturally in a vegetative state but I’m referring to a conscious state, to normal, everyday living. If you were vegetative, meaning unconscious in my understanding of the word, you couldn’t be happy or unhappy because you would be unaware of feelings.

Happiness is the absence of resistant thoughts. When we’re not thinking something should be different we don’t have any problems and we don’t suffer emotionally. Without problems in life most people would think of themselves as happy, or content, or peaceful – whatever word you choose. That’s the happiness I’m talking about. It’s only when we step in to judge life that we feel so miserable. And judging means thinking that anything should be different.

Q. What happened to "effort"? Is it "effort" that makes one unhappy, therefore it is to be avoided?

A. Here’s an example of where the idea of a person who can make an effort shows up. Without that assumption of a person who has an opinion there is no effort to make life be a certain way. Rather than effort, which is designed to get a result we want, what I’m referring to is simply seeing life as it is, without an opinion about how it should be. When we see life as it is we make no effort and have no struggle and no pain. When we think something should be different, whether we think, “My date should have called” or “She shouldn’t be so friendly with that other guy” we set up our own suffering. What we haven’t noticed is that people do what they do and life is what it is. How do we know they shouldn’t be doing life “our” way? They’re not, that’s all. Reality is reality and to argue with it is mad. It’s already a done deal.

Q. I almost get the impression from your blog that any relationship will just move along all by itself. Is that true? What does that look like?

A. Yes, what I’m speaking of refers to relationships and to all of life. Life and relationships do move along by themselves. What it looks like is this: You’re sitting in a group having a conversation and without realizing it you cross your legs. If someone asks if you crossed your legs you’d probably say, “Well, I obviously did that but I sure don’t remember it.”

Or take seeing, for example. We say, “I see.” But do you have to do anything to make seeing start? Do you have to think: I want to see? Do your eyes have to decide to see? No, seeing happens by itself doesn’t it? So is it true that “I” see, any more than it’s true that “I” cross my legs, blink my eyes, digest my food, beat my heart or breathe my lungs? Even thoughts aren’t yours. Thinking happens. We have no idea what our next thought will be. And if we controlled thoughts would we choose to have sad or painful thoughts, sometimes continuing for days or months or years? “You” did none of those actions or thinking, yet it appears.

It’s the same with relationships, and we all know it from our own direct experience – things happen and we’re not in control. You have a huge fight with your date and you’re sure it’s over for both of you. Three days later you’re speaking again and you’re totally surprised. Or you’ve given up on dating or ever finding the right man. A week later you start talking to the guy in the supermarket checkout line and a year later you’re married to him. (This actually happened to a woman I know.)

Q. If nobody makes any effort, then the life force didn't want it to happen? I'm confused here. Perhaps you can clarify for me.

A. Yes, whatever effort or lack of effort that happens IS the Life Force doing what we call effort. It doesn’t involve anybody, any “me”. Action (that we call effort) happens or it doesn’t, just like rain happens or not. If movement (effort) is supposed to happen through somebody it will. You can make all the effort you want and not get what you’ve been striving for. So it isn’t effort or no-effort that produces results. Results simply show up as they are, just as effort shows up as it is.

The most important thing to realize is this: This is about seeing that we’re not independent individuals who have any independent control over anything. Who we are is not separate from the one, single power or life force that appears as everything, including you and me. Everything appears out of that silent stillness, that void, and returns to it. We exist and we know we exist. We can’t deny it for the simple reason that it would take presence to make a denial. So we’re present and we’re not the power behind our presence or our awareness of it.

Then thought appears on the scene and the little me gets in the picture, thinking it’s in control. We think we’re the doers when in fact life, including our life, is being done. We’ve simply shown up out of the silent stillness that’s the background of everything. That emptiness from which everything shows up is like space. Space can’t be seen, smelled, touched, tasted or objectified in any way. It has no boundaries, no center point, nothing you can describe. Yet you can’t argue that it’s there. Without space nothing could exist.

In the same way, without that silent, space-like emptiness or void, nothing could be. For you to even know you have a thought or have suffering there has to be something separate from suffering that knows it. That knowing is presence, your pure essence or what’s often called your natural state. We’re not separate from that emptiness, which I sometimes call the life force, or source or the absolute. (I seldom use “God” because the word has so many mixed connotations.).

In other words, we’re being lived. It’s only that thought of a “me” we think is separate from the source that’s behind all our suffering. When there is no “me” that assesses and judges everything, life can simply be seen as it is, without judgment, opinion, or interpretation. Of course, without judgment – thinking something needs to be modified or changed – we’re content, happy, at peace. We’re simply watching life unfold, including the life that unfolds AS “me”.

This way of seeing the reality of life applies to every aspect of every relationship and every moment of life – the life we’ve mistakenly thought was ours. Animals and very small babies already live in that natural functioning. They make no judgments. That’s why they’re content, happy, without problems. What else could you want in life but to be happy with everything just the way it is? Seeing life that way could there be any struggle and suffering?

See life as it is and you also see that peace and happiness is there, waiting, as it’s always been. We’ve never been anything but that Presence-Awareness thinking we were separate and had to struggle to make “our” life go. When the separation ends and there is no me-thought that wants life to be “my way” all suffering dies too. What’s left is happiness. Ahh, what a relief!

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

218. Mature dating is a pleasant stroll when you don’t have to make it go your way

All the worry, stress and discomfort of mature dating can evaporate if we’re willing to give up what we think we know about life and see what our direct experience tells us. I’m talking not about beliefs, which are always learned from someone else, but knowing. When you know, belief is no longer necessary. If you know how to swim you don’t say, “I believe I can swim.” Belief is wiped out with the knowing.

What I’ve come to know by studying the teachings from a number of wise ones with a clear understanding of life is that Life is living us. Functioning of a body we call “me” is happening by itself. When you look deeply you can’t find anything with an independent nature you can call “me”. Your very life isn’t under your control at all. “Me” is only an idea, a thought. You can check that out if you’re interested.

The problem is that “me” seems so real. We say I walk, I talk, I am the doer of my life. But when you take a look you’ll see from your own experience that you can’t locate a “me”. But then you’ll say, “Well then, who’s walking, for instance, if it’s not me?” Good question. I suggest you look and see. Are you walking? When you’re walking along and having a conversation with someone are you consciously moving each leg and setting your foot down with each step? Do you even know how to move your leg? Isn’t walking just happening?

Are you actually responsible for blinking your eyes? Do you wave your hands and arms around consciously as you talk, to help express yourself? Or do they move without your even realizing it until someone points it out? Do you grow yourself from childhood to adulthood? Have you made your hair turn gray and added wrinkles to your face in these mature dating years?

A chameleon changes color as a camouflage to protect itself. An octopus not only changes colors but can also change its “skin” from smooth to rough or variegated to match its surroundings so it can’t be seen. Do you think these animals consciously make that happen? Or is it just the way nature functions? Would the Life Force function in what we call the animal world but not for you in your human world?

When we realize that we’re also part of nature, just as an octopus, and that we’re being lived in the same way a natural relaxing into life happens. We no longer have that self-centered reference point – that filter that everything passes through – as we ask ourselves: How do I like this? How does this affect me? The me-idea that’s been the center of our universe can just drop away and the natural functioning, that’s been going on all the time, will be at the forefront instead of in the background.

Thinking we have to make life go our way to be happy is a mental habit that causes us a lot of pain. Realizing that Life knows what it’s doing and just relaxing into that knowing is freedom, peace, and happiness. All the emotional turmoil of mature dating can just evaporate in that knowing. What’s left? Just the joy of “being” as we move spontaneously and effortlessly in the dating world and in all other areas of life.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

217. It’s freedom not marriage that makes us happy and healthy

When I talk about good relationships I think of freedom. To me that’s what a happy romantic relationship is about, the freedom both people feel to be themselves without sensing that their partner is judging them or trying to change them. Now comes a recent essay in Time magazine about marriage, saying: "There's good evidence that it is freedom that makes us healthy and happy, not the bonds of marriage."

The article, by John Cloud in the February 8, 2007 issue, cites some interesting facts from a recent book titled, Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, by Bella DePaulo. One study, she says, cites the fact that married people are only 0.115 points happier in life on a 0 to 10 scale than singles. But the researchers couldn’t tell which came first, the marriage or the happiness. Maybe, Cloud points out, happy people are more apt to marry because they’re more social.

DePaulo cites another study that concludes, "It is better to have no relationship than to be in a bad relationship." That’s probably not much of a surprise to anyone.

In general, what all the studies show, Cloud says, is that we tend to feel better when we can mate up and then end it when things go bad. And we feel worse when we can't find a partner or when we feel trapped by a bad partner. Thus the conclusion that it’s freedom that makes us happy, not marriage.

As we’ve been pointing out in these articles, we make assumptions about how finding a mate would make us happy in these mature years of our lives. But do we really know? Wouldn’t senior or mature dating be more pleasant and easier if we didn’t hold onto the idea that we’re absolutely sure we need a mate? The stress could end.

When we expect experiences to bring us happiness we haven’t noticed that all experiences repeat themselves endlessly and never bring lasting joy. We’re always on to the next experience, looking again for satisfaction. Yet the Source that makes all those experiences possible is never striving, searching, or stressed at all.

That non-judgmental Source, or awareness, is the changeless background that all experiences show up in. It’s that knowing that lets us say, “I had an experience.” When we live from that awareness, where we simply witness life, we’re like the movie screen, unaffected by the drama showing on it. We see life as it is rather than suffering the pain of want and need, trying to get what we don’t have.

Maybe, as the article points out, what we don’t have isn’t better and we’re just stuck with our own idea that it is. Trusting that Source can end the entire struggle. Whether you have a relationship or not will happen or it won’t. Why not go with the flow of life as nature does and just be happy now rather than living for that day “when”?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

216. If you let mature dating happen as you let dinner digest it's fun

Dating, when we’re considered by society to be mature, or seniors, is a slice of life that seems to amplify the basic struggles most of us feel in life generally. Dating sort of holds our emotional life up where we can examine it pretty easily. A lot of feelings that would normally appear for us over a long period of time are squeezed into a short space and have a lot of energy.

One of the first things we see is that life, reflected up close and personally in our dating, is often a real struggle. We suffer and we’re in pain, and it’s not easy to escape that when things don’t go well with our dating. We struggle with desires and fears. We worry and fret about whether we said or did the right thing. What is our date thinking about us? we wonder. We scramble and sputter as we work at trying to impress our date or partner, and we feel stressed. No wonder senior dating is no fun for so many.

But is it normal to be so obsessed over doing life right? When you think about it, your body calls for very little attention when you’re healthy, except for the normal requirements for food, drink and elimination. It’s only when something is wrong with our bodies that we’re concerned and pay attention.

Yet with our personalities we seem to be always paying attention, as though something is wrong. We worry and stew over all kinds of things that show up dramatically when we’re dating. But does a personality really need to have any designs of its own? Does a person need to be concerned about doing it right in the dating world?

The Life Force that we are expressions of is guiding us effortlessly, even as we’re scheming and negotiating to make our life work. That Life Force takes care of the body’s actions effortlessly and without your attention. Cut your finger and it heals. Eat your food and it digests itself; the energy goes where it’s needed in the body.

The personality, too, has no need to worry about itself. After all, it has no life force of its own; it’s not a separate entity with any separate power at all. It’s every movement and every breath and yes, every thought, is an expression of the Life Force, that intelligent energy that keeps the planets in place and brings us humans into life and takes us out again.

Normal life and normal dating doesn’t need to include stress and strife, when instead we could relax and be guided from within. When that happens life becomes a journey into the unknown, a mystery and a fascinating trip we can watch with interest, and in peace, contentment and joy. That’s our natural state. We’ve all experienced it in those times when we’re so totally engrossed in something that we later notice that life at those moments was totally peaceful and without a problem.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

215. Do you really need a partner to be happy? Your answer might surprise you

Wanting what we don’t have is always painful to some extent. I’ve heard people say, “No, it keeps my life interesting. It gives me something to look forward to.” I can hear that. But when you question it you also see that wanting says we’re not happy with what we’ve got right now. I call that unhappiness pain or suffering. It’s certainly not harmony and happiness.

In fact, have you ever noticed that even people who say they’re striving for peace are wiping out the very peace they say they want? Striving isn’t peaceful.

I talked to a woman in her mid-60s recently who’s been divorced many years. She told me she really wants a committed relationship. You know the picture: two people riding off hand-in-hand and heart-in heart-to the golden sunset together. Her desire for the pleasure of a relationship is pain itself. To her, the pleasure of a partner would be the end of her pain. But then pain is always the end of pleasure too. They rotate until people can see life clearly and simply allow what is to be the way it is, without judgment, opinion or expectations.

We tend to forget that when we had a committed partnership life probably wasn’t all roses. (And this is coming from a man who had what I easily described as the best marriage of anyone I’d known until my wife died.) I agree that companionship is wonderful but why not just watch as that Infinite Intelligence, the source of all things, simply rolls out life before us, moment by moment?

When the painful thought comes up: “I want a partner in my life because I know life would be better,” investigate. Ask yourself if you can really know that for sure. Do we have any proof of that at all? Then you may be able to just relax into life as it is. And that certainly could include finding people to date and enjoying the whole mature dating process, but without a need. It’s the attachment to a need that’s painful.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer