285. You can’t let go of painful thoughts but question them and you can end the hurt

Let’s say Laurie is at a party with Dale and she sees him talking and laughing with another woman. Without a judgmental thought about it Laurie can be happy that Dale is having a good time. But often we don’t see things just as they are. We see them as we think they are and form judgments: “That’s not right; that’s rude, he shouldn’t be flirting like that,” and on and on our stories go. With those thoughts comes pain. Emotional suffering always comes only from thought, never from a situation, object or person. It’s always what we think about the situation or person that makes us hurt.

So it would appear that to get rid of our pain we have to get rid of thinking wouldn’t it? But no one has ever been able to control thoughts. You can’t get rid of them. They come and go on their own. If we could let go of thoughts we’d all have done it when they started instead of suffering for days, months or years about something.

We can’t let go of thoughts but we can question them to see what’s true. And when we understand life as it is instead of getting locked into our stories of how it should be, thoughts let go of us. They were never real in the first place. They only appear to be real because we believe them. Is it true Dale shouldn’t be having a nice time with a woman? It may look like flirting but do we know he’s not just being friendly? Even if Dale is flirting is it true he shouldn’t be? Do we know for sure how he should be living his life? Is it true that Dale’s actions can threaten Laurie? If there’s no threat would there be any reason to judge him?

Once we see what is, without our interpretations, analyses, opinions, and judgments, suffering is gone. It’s that simple. All it takes is investigating our thoughts to see what’s true so we can live in joy and harmony with things as they are.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

284. Follow your gut instead of your beliefs and dating is happy and enjoyable

Recently I read an article about emotional intimacy in relationships, which I shared with a friend. In recent years she had dated two men who, she said, were really nice guys, with fine qualities. But something was missing which she couldn’t put her finger on. There was nothing really wrong in their friendships but my friend knew she wanted more. It turns out that she wanted to be with someone she could share with on a deep, emotional level, though she couldn’t put that into words at the time.

When she read about emotional intimacy she realized that was what had been missing. Her intuition, or gut, knew something was wrong for her in those relationships but she couldn’t put it into words or make sense of it mentally until she read the article.

To me, her experience is a good example of why it's important to trust our inner instincts in dating, even when they seem to make no sense to our heads. Trusting your gut, or your true essence, is different from having your life run by old beliefs you’ve learned, which are usually not accurate at all. Gut feelings are a knowing, a clear sense, that comes before thought. It’s like the sense of knowing that you are. If someone asks you if you exist your response is automatic: “Yes, of course.” You’d have to exist and be aware of that existence to even have a thought. So knowing comes before thought. Intuition springs from that same source, our true nature.

Belief, however, is always a thought, recalling a memory of something we’ve learned. It’s not based on knowing or direct experience. As we trust our intuition more and more we see that those intuitive impulses – that Life Intelligence – is meant to lead our lives. It blinks our eyes, beats our hearts and brings forth our next thought. All we have to do is follow what’s intuitively obvious and life, including dating, becomes just an easy, enjoyable, peaceful movement of energy. There’s no need to try to mentally psyche out life. We don’t need to try to run the show. Instead, we can just go with what we know is right for us. And our heart, or gut, or intuition tells us what that is.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

283. What happens in mature dating is never painful except for our thoughts about it

All the heartache, disappointment, despair, loneliness and pain of mature dating comes and goes, have you noticed? Even in the midst of deep hurt there are moments of no hurt at all, such as when you stub your toe and your thoughts instantly go to that physical pain. Meanwhile your heartache just disappears – poof!

Where does it go? Was it real? Or was all that hurt just a thought? Since it can disappear in an instant what could the pain be except a fleeting thought? That’s why it makes sense to question thoughts and beliefs. While we hold a thought it feels physically real. Let’s say Ron’s thought is, “I want Adele to love me.” The more that thought is nurtured and fed the more Ron hurts.

But is it true that Adele should love Ron? Can he positively know that would be best for him? With that thought he’s in a world of hurt. Without it he’s just living life and watching things happen. When he doesn’t know for sure what should happen he’s open to what is. And with his focus off the thought what happens to the pain? It disappears in the simple awareness that Ron’s strongly held belief may not be true.

Thoughts seem to have great power to create pain for us. But in actuality they have no power at all because there’s nothing real about them. Thoughts are as fleeting as a lightning flash and as real as a shadow. Meanwhile, every moment a painful thought-illusion occupies us we’re not only hurting but we’re missing the only living there ever is, the life that happens in the present. And that present-moment life is not suffering at all.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

282. Bliss may be far-fetched but happy, adventurous, mature dating can be yours

You’ve probably heard of the sages and gurus who speak of living in bliss. It sounds wonderful. Isn’t that what we want when we’re seeking a partner? – bliss? But that idea may not be too practical in real life.

In my study of spiritual traditions I’ve seen that the word bliss is often confusing. People sometimes think it means living on a constant high. Others think it must mean some sort of spaced-out, trance-like existence. Maybe it’s been a translation issue, but the honest, people of clarity who share spiritual wisdom speak of the happiness that’s our true nature as being simply a problem-free life. As one teacher, John Wheeler, puts it, “Life becomes open, natural and joyous – not necessarily in an overt way.” It’s the simple realization that everything is all right just as it is. And when it changes, as it always will, that’s all right too.

We live in that knowing that life is just fine when we question the beliefs we hold that cause us psychological suffering – in dating and in other aspects of life. When we don’t think we have all the answers and when we realize living is happening through us, our focus on “my way” loses its intensity and we start being happy just with what happens in the moment. The natural intelligence that expresses itself as everything we experience doesn’t have problems and suffering. It’s always only our idea that life should be our way rather than the way it is that makes us suffer.

Do you ever really know what should happen in life? Are you really the small, separate person you think you are, who has to struggle with life? Life is living through us, as us, and when we see that, dating becomes simply an interesting, fun adventure, without problems.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

281. We don't "need" love when we discover that feeling loved is an inside job

We hear all the time that we have to love ourselves before we can love others. Or that we don’t need love from others when we truly love ourselves. The problem is, how do we truly love ourselves? Most people find that the way they try to get love from themselves is the same way they try to get love from others – by manipulation. When we try hard to give others what we think they want – to get their love through flattery and deceit – we’re manipulating. We’ve also made ourselves victims, waiting for someone else to make us feel happy and loved.

When we try to give ourselves what we think we want we’re also victims, hoping something we do will make us feel acceptable and worthy. You can take all the cruise trips you want, and soak in a perfumed tub with flowers and candles, but those methods of manipulation don’t do anything for self-love. Loving ourselves isn’t doing something, it’s being something. And what we’re being when we love ourselves is a spontaneously peaceful, happy person, content with life. Self-love and simple being in life are what’s always been there when we see through our self-loathing.

So, how do we love ourselves? We question our beliefs to see reality without our painful stories. At first that may pose a seeming problem because the things we don’t like about ourselves are the things we don’t want to look at. But that’s because we think when we recall what we loathe about ourselves we’ll just be reinforcing self-hatred. “Look at this terrible thing I did, and think about that cruel thing I said. Obviously I’m a terrible person.” We don’t want to think that.

But there’s a way to look at our past and see that it’s not something to regret and hate ourselves over. What blocks us from loving other people is judgment, and it’s the same with ourselves. We judge ourselves by believing our thoughts about how bad we’ve been. Then we’ve trapped ourselves into trying to find someone to love us so we can feel worthy. Of course it never works. Who’s going to love you when you, yourself, think you’re unlovable? That’s what you project. No, self-love is an inside job, not an outside job. And we’ll never see that unless we’re willing to question our beliefs and thoughts about ourselves.

What do we regret having done? Are we willing to look? Did we do the best we could at the time? Is it true we really wanted to hurt someone? Or is it more true that we were so hurt and confused that we lashed out as the only defense we knew then, the only survival technique we thought was available at the moment?

After we’ve questioned our long-held beliefs, and when we see that they’re not true, what’s left automatically is self-love. We don’t have to do anything to gain love. It’s what we are naturally, just as a light shines naturally when we clean the mud and dirt off the bulb.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer