279. Living in our make-believe world makes for a lot of suffering in dating

Most of the time we live in an unreal, make-believe, invisible world – a lie of our own creation. We wake in the morning and create our world out of our thoughts and beliefs. Here’s what I mean. Louise has been dating a guy and suddenly, without warning, he says he wants to date someone else. She’s crushed, and agonizes for months over what went wrong and why he isn’t with her any longer.

Marie has the same experience. She’s been dating a guy and without warning he tells her he’s ending the relationship. Marie, however, sees the reality of life and knows to just witness it as it is. If she has doubts or sadness she questions herself to see if it’s true that the relationship should have turned out the way she expected or hoped, instead of the way it did. With some clarity she sees that she doesn’t know the big picture and she can’t be positive that this relationship should have continued.

In fact, she can be positive that it should not have continued… because it didn’t. Living life without emotional suffering is seeing that life is just the way it is. Suffering would only occur for Marie if she thought it should be her way rather than the way it is. She would have to think that she has a voice in the matter, when in fact she’s simply being lived, as is everything else.

Once she realizes life happens the way it happens she can easily take it in stride and simply enjoy the next experience, the one that always replaces whatever disappears. This is clarity, peace and happiness. And it all comes from questioning our beliefs and seeing reality as it actually is. All our stories then end and all the suffering is gone without a story.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

276. Was it true that sex too soon ended her relationship?

For many of us there’s a lot of stress in dating. In many cases it’s a new experience after being married or with a partner for years. Something has happened – death, divorce – and you’re single again. And now you’re in your 50s, 60s, 70s or more. You want to find a partner. You don’t want to live life without companionship, love and warmth. That’s a strong desire for you, especially now that you’re older.

Sad to say, that very desire is the beginning of a lot of trouble because we can easily think we have to be something special to be wanted or loved again. So, almost without realizing it, we begin to play the game of “make-believe”. We become inauthentic, trying to be someone we think is more acceptable. When we’re with a date we agree with things that in our hearts we don’t believe. We do things we don’t really feel is true to ourselves because we want love and approval. We’re trying to impress.

Reality, however, is that we are who we are. Each of us is given different personalities, different talents, different interests. We don’t have to try to be something we’re not. Acting is so stressful compared to “being”. “Being” is simply moving through life without effort, spontaneously, naturally, authentically – and happily.

Some years ago I met a woman who told me her story about a past relationship that ended. It was painful to her for a long time and she naturally questioned why it may have happened. What she concluded was that she got into a sexual relationship with this man too soon. “If only I had waited then probably this relationship wouldn’t have ended,” she said.

But since she was willing to explore the reality of those painful thoughts she realized, with some questioning, that she couldn’t know that her beliefs were true. In fact, she realized that the relationship ended not a moment too soon or too late. How did she know? She looked at reality and saw what happened. It’s like seeing that it’s raining outside. You know it should be raining because it is. You know anything should have happened because it did. Thoughts about it won’t change a thing. What is, is.

When we think we have to control how a relationship goes by being phony and false we’re living in a dream world. If a relationship ends it was supposed to end. If it continues that was meant to be. We can stop trying to be the “right person” for that wonderful man or woman we think we need in our lives. With some questioning we can even see that we obviously don’t need a relationship when we don’t have one. We think the right relationship would make us happy but can we know? Doesn’t that infinite, intelligence-energy that expresses as the universe seem to know what it’s doing? We could just trust life, live honestly and authentically, and be happy and relaxed in our dating. The ease of that is what I call dating fun.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

243. Protecting yourself from potential romantic pain makes you a loser every time

During the years I’ve dated as a senior I’ve met more than several women who felt they had to protect themselves from being romantically hurt. To do that they’d hold back on sharing any real feelings for a guy. They wouldn’t hold hands when they felt like it, they were afraid to cuddle and kiss, and they tried to remain somewhat cool and aloof. They were almost trying to hide their interest in a guy even from themselves.

But does protecting ourselves from something that hasn’t happened and may never happen make sense? Unmet expectations would be the only reason a person would be hurt emotionally anyway. But why look to a future that’s made up purely in our thoughts? Now, in this very moment that’s already passed even before you can say the word “moment”, is the only time that exists.

Pictures of the past are only thoughts happening now. “Future” pictures can only show up now. Yet most of us live most of the time in our past and future thoughts and miss now, which is the only vital, alive moment there is. We’re hardly ever home. We hatch a future in our minds that we’ll be gut-wrenchingly torn apart because a romance doesn’t work the way we want it to. Then we invent a mechanism for dealing with that scene by protecting ourselves ahead of time. And it’s all just made up in our heads. It’s not real.

“Yes, but,” you say, (can’t you just hear it?) “I’ve been hurt before and it’s been excruciating. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I could barely function. I don’t want that to happen again.” That’s understandable. But the reason for that pain in the past was invalid. It doesn’t need to be that way in the future. In our innocence we’ve believed our thoughts that, for example, “if this person leaves my life it’ll be the end of my world.” But is that true?

With a little bit of understanding we can learn to question those thoughts that pop up out of nowhere. Do we really know this is the person for us? Are we absolutely sure? How do we live when we believe that myth we’ve created? Aren’t we miserable? Haven’t we been sure in the past and later realized our beliefs were wrong about many things? When we’re so sure we’ll be hurt or we need this guy or gal in our lives it feels so right because that’s what we think. Feelings always follow thoughts. Wake up in the first seconds of the morning before thoughts pop in and you’re not hurting at all.

What if you realize that this intelligent universe always rules. You can’t ever win by arguing with what already is. If someone leaves your life you’ve probably been spared. Thinking you know it should be your way would be the only cause of your pain. But flowing with the way things are you’re back in peace.

Not only is it unnecessary to protect yourself from future suffering that doesn’t ever need to be there, but when you do protect, you’re holding back the real. Your date or partner never has a chance to know you. You only give them a mask to know. How can that help a romance to flower?

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

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