275. You can end stomach-churning suffering that often comes with mature dating

Thinking of writing a book some day, I started taking notes about mature dating some years ago when I realized how much unnecessary pain and confusion I saw in people my age when it came to dating. The disappointment and heartache, in both men and women, is so obvious in dating because those feelings are so emotionally acute and penetrating. The feelings are often knifelike as they stab deep into our guts.

What I had realized by then was that these feelings are always self-created, though we do that innocently. We don’t realize that we create our own world each minute. In dreamless sleep there is no world and no stress or suffering. It’s only when we wake up and say “I” that we suffer. The mind is endless in its capacity to create huge dramas out of passing thoughts. All based on that little one-letter word, “I”.

But when we question our untrue thoughts the stress and suffering they’ve created disappears because there was no reality behind those thoughts. It’s like the turmoil we create for ourselves by worrying about something that never happens. You’ve done it. You know what I’m talking about. Your worry was all a mind game, but what a drama! And what pain that false drama created.

The movies we create are endless when we don’t stop to question thoughts. Are these thoughts true? In dating can we really know what someone thinks or what they mean by their words or why they do or don’t do something? Can you really know your date or partner should do or not do what you think? Are you sure you know what’s best for you in the long run? Can you be positively sure? Does your own history show you’ve been right in the past?

Thoughts are nothing more than a game the mind plays to keep itself alive and entertained. Meanwhile, life – reality, what is – goes on as it does, with or without our opinions or approval. We don’t need to figure it out. We don’t need to know the future, or why something happened in the past. We can live in not-knowing and be contentedly happy, watching life blossom and unfold in new surprises every moment. This is peace. This is the end of stomach-churning suffering.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

274. Looking at reality ends suffering – but it seems too simple

In our “doing” society we nearly always think we have to “do” something to get rid of the disappointment, pain or suffering that often comes with dating. Yet in this blog I’m saying, “Just see reality as it is and all the suffering drops away by itself.” “How could that be,” you may be wondering. “It can’t be that simple.”

That’s the surprising part of all this: it is that simple. Here’s why. Doing involves will power. By force of will we’re going to change our thinking. “Think positively, not negatively,” the experts say. But if will power worked wouldn’t it have worked for you a long time ago? When you’re hurting emotionally wouldn’t you just will the suffering to be gone and it would be gone? But we can’t do that.

Investigating our often false thinking and seeing the truth of life is a whole different game. It has nothing to do with force or will power or effort or doing. It has to do with simply seeing what’s true. Then the ideas that argue with the truth evaporate by themselves because they were hanging on an illusion.

Let’s put this in the form of a simple, hypothetical example. Darrell and Kate have dated several times and things seem to be going well. But days go by and Darrell hasn’t called. Kate’s mind starts working overtime: “He probably got to know me better and realizes he doesn’t like me after all.” “He’s rude not to call.” “I’d never just drop out without telling someone.” “Why am I always the loser?” Those are all plausible-sounding stories but what do they have to do with reality? Absolutely nothing. And they cause Kate to agonize in turmoil.

The truth is, the only thing Kate knows is that Darrell hasn’t called. Period. That’s reality, and without a story there’s no pain in that at all. The pain is born only when a story is born. Let’s say Darrell never calls again and Kate chooses not to call him. What does she know then? That she wasn’t supposed to have a further relationship with Darrell – because she doesn’t. That’s it. Is there suffering in that? Only if Kate thinks she should have had a relationship with Darrell. All stories we create are just thoughts passing by that we latch onto and make real for ourselves. They’re all lies, but we don’t know that until we look. And looking seems too simple.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

273. Did you know that desire is the source of any dating pain you feel?

In your dating life desire is the basis of all your emotional suffering. If you’re hurting in any way about dating it has to be because you want something or someone to be different. When we don’t get what we want we suffer – in the form of sadness, anger, jealousy, frustration, loneliness and more. I’m not talking about a simple preference, of course. I’m talking about a desire that says, “If only I had that I could be happy.”

Life, however, unfolds without our desires. It just shows up, always fresh and sparkling new every moment, offering unequaled surprises and beauty if we just stop and see it.

Usually, though, we’re too busy wanting and judging to just be with what is. “Being” seems too simple. "Being" is just doing the next obvious thing without interpreting it and without a desire to alter or modify it. You live in the truth then, the truth that you don’t need to know and can’t know what’s going to happen next. This morning, for instance, I was going to have a cup of tea and go out for my usual exercise walk. I opened the refrigerator – and there in the bottom was blueberry juice, running all over. I had put a frozen bag in to thaw and apparently it had a slit in it. What a surprise!

So instead of walking right away I spent the next half-hour cleaning up blueberry juice that had run all over. I had just thought I was going out immediately for a walk but what did I know? It’s that way with dating too. We think we know what’s going to happen or what should happen. And then we suffer when it’s not what we expected. Life gets much simpler when we realize that it is what it is. Life (or God, or Source, or Infinite Intelligence) is living us and everything else. Having a war with it gets you nothing but misery. “Being” with it as it is gets you joy and peace, and some surprisingly happy experiences.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

272. Your date or partner doesn’t make you hurt, your beliefs and expectations do

Change is normal; every split-second moves out to make way for the next split-second. The very definition of change is “different”. You see it easily in the flow of nature: seasons come and go, day turns to night, there’s the rise and fall of breathing, and the rise and fall of nations. There’s heat and cold, calm and turbulence. With change come surprises, but only because we have expectations.

In mature dating, where we’ve let our heart get involved, change and surprise often hits us square in the face. We’re emotionally deeply invested and we can’t escape it. When things don’t go the way we want we label it disappointing and heartbreaking. But life doesn’t knock us around when we see it as it is, without expectations and without trying to hold on to things that are on their way out, including relationships. When we don’t take things personally we see that there’s just life. There’s no need to try to make sense of it any more than a fence post could make sense of itself. Without realizing it’s part of a bigger picture – the fence – the post can’t understand.

We’re invited by the Life Force every moment just to see what we need by seeing what is. It’s unconditional love, and if it has to come in the form of suffering at times it’ll do that. Each minute we’re being invited to see that we are the essence of life, showing up in form along with everything else. We’re not the pained, bewildered little person that’s separate from the Life Force and thinks it has to make life work all by itself. In dating this means we can let go of stress, bewilderment and suffering, and simply witness and enjoy life as it moves and modifies, floats and flows – just as it is.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

271. If you’re hurting it may be a case of mistaken identity

In mature dating, any time we’re hurting emotionally because of what someone else says or does we’ve got a case of mistaken identity. We’ve identified ourselves as a person who needs someone to be a certain way for us to be happy. By our thoughts we’ve taken on the identity of a victim.

But is our belief really true? Do we really need another person to be different so we can be happy? Let’s say Sid and Janie are in a committed relationship and Janie says she’s pulling out. Sid is crushed and suffers for months. He feels if only Janie would come back he could be happy again.

But is that true? Reality shows us that after a time Sid gets over his pain and begins to happily date other women again and move on with his life. Janie didn’t come back and yet Sid is happy. So his sadness or happiness couldn’t have had anything to do with Janie. It was within himself, in his own thoughts and beliefs. Any time we argue with reality we hurt. See reality as just the way life is and suffering ends. In the end Sid may realize how lucky he is that the relationship with Janie ended because he now sees they weren’t meant for each other. He just thought they were.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

270. Mature dating pain is gone when we watch life just be the way it is

Whenever you’re feeling the discomfort or emotional pain of wanting someone to change you can relieve that suffering by looking inside yourself. We always want someone to change because we want something for ourselves. The stress is that they don’t change the way we think they should.

Rather than focusing on getting someone to change, which results in interfering with their lives and causes us a lot of stress, we can focus instead on whether it’s realistic to argue with the way life is. Just seeing life without our self-centered desires is the end of all suffering. When we don’t want anything different we don’t suffer. It’s that simple. Facts never cause suffering. It’s always our disagreement with those facts that make us suffer.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

269. Loneliness doesn’t have to be our life if we question our thoughts

In one day recently I heard about two people, both seniors, who are single and extremely lonely. One is a woman who told me about an emotionally abusive relationship she’s in but who clearly doesn’t want to leave it because she says she can only imagine loneliness. The other is a story I heard about a man who’s wife died four years ago and he’s been deeply lonely ever since.

It may be hard to see this but any feeling of stress and suffering, including loneliness, comes only from our thinking. This isn’t something I’m suggesting you believe. Instead I’m suggesting, if you’re interested, that you check it out for yourself. Many times during any day we all find ourselves busy thinking of something that completely abolishes our suffering, if only for a moment. In those moments loneliness is gone. In other words, you have to think about being lonely to be lonely.

The woman I talked with seems to be afraid to drop her unfulfilling relationship because, as she said, “I have no prospects” for another relationship. Instead of dealing with the present she’s trying to deal with a future that she’s imagining.

I know nothing about the widower except that he’s lonely. But my experience would say he’s probably thinking thoughts like, “I can’t be happy without her.” “I need her in my life to be happy,” etc. But is that true? If you asked him if he’s had times of joy and happiness in the last four years I’ll bet he’d admit he has. Maybe times with his family, his grandchildren, friends, even sitting alone in a peaceful setting such as beside a gurgling creek, or even watching a ball game on TV when his side is winning. So he’s had happiness without her.

The point is this: All emotional suffering comes from our thoughts. We believe the thought that says, “I need her.” But isn’t he functioning in life just fine? Is it really true that he needs her? Can he even know that her life would have been better if she’d lived? Can he know his life would have been better if she’d lived? No, we can’t really know any of that. Reality is always the teacher because it doesn’t lie. It doesn’t deceive. It isn’t phony. It’s just what is. You can count on it.

Questioning the stories we tell ourselves – if we’re willing to answer honestly – always leads us back to the peace that’s under all the mind’s shenanigans. The mind is a wonderful slave but it’s a terrible master when its thoughts pop up about life and we get involved with those thoughts. We feed those thoughts and give them a comfy place to stay. So when will they leave? We muck around in the sticky mud of suffering and call that life.

Before any thought can arrive, however, there has to be some aware being that the thought can show up in or on. That beingness is who we are, and it’s like a movie screen. It isn’t affected by the thoughts and movies that show up on it. It’s always at peace and without problems. Since that Aware Being must be there for us to even have a thought, and since it exists before thought, it must be who we really are.

Life changes moment by moment. It changes so fast, in fact, that before we can even speak of a moment it’s already gone. Our suffering comes from not wanting some of the changes and holding on to the idea that life should be our way rather than the way it is. Without that thought we move freely in the world, relishing new relationships and enjoying the sparkle of life in the moment, even in such a simple thing as doing the dishes. If we’re lonely we can live in our wretched thinking or we can live in the awareness that watches a thought come and lets it go, like a cloud in the sky.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer