108. Do you scream and kick in “adult” forms when you don’t get your way?

Little kids will often go into a rant, scream, stomp their feet and generally make a ruckus when they don’t get their way. But have you ever considered that that’s also how many adults behave when we don’t get our way in the world of romance? For adults the result is called emotional suffering. Even as mature adults we often do the same thing as kids, but in a different form. Adults may also scream, or their expression of unhappiness may take a seemingly more sophisticated form such as silentseething, manipulating by not communicating, using unkind labels and names, and various other forms of emotional or even physical violence and blackmail.

Here’s an example of how it works. Carolyn thinks her date Jim is “too friendly” to Janey at a party. Carolyn doesn’t want him being friendly with another woman and she lets him know by sulking, blaming and pouting. Put another way, Carolyn doesn’t like not getting her way. “Her way” is to have Jim not being friendly to women. She’s telling him, in effect, “I don’t want you to live your life your way, I want you to drop that and start living your life the way I tell you to.”

When we hurt emotionally it’s virtually always because we’re resisting something. We’re arguing with “what is” and think it should be “what I want” instead. As a result we suffer all kinds of emotional turmoil and upset, including sadness, anger, jealousy, loneliness, etc. Life, on the other hand, just happens as it does, including our dating lives. Instead of holding onto our beliefs about how life should be and then getting upset when it isn’t that way, it’s much easier I’ve found to simply go along with life since it’s not going to change whether we’re upset or not. Have you noticed that?

In the example above, Jim has the right to talk or even flirt with anyone he wants to, just as Carolyn has. After all, would she want Jim telling her how she has to behave? Of course Carolyn also has the right to choose not to be with Jim too.

You may be thinking, “Yeah, but if she loves the guy she doesn’t want to lose him. No wonder she’d be jealous.” But again, when we think life has to be our way (Jim should be with me and not be friendly to other women) we’re going to hurt when it isn’t. Carolyn wouldn’t have to hurt if she weren’t attached to having things her way, and instead noticed that what’s happening is just what’s happening. Christ said “Know the truth and the truth will set you free.” It seems clear to me that he was talking about seeing the reality of life as it is, not as we think it should be. The reality in this case was that Jim was talking to Janey. What that meant to Carolyn was all her own story, based on her judgments and interpretations.

It’s easy for us to build dream castles of a life together with someone, and we don’t like to see them shattered. But when we let go of our attachment to having life be our way we can more easily just roll with what is. Then there’s room for adventure, playfulness and discovery in this mature dating world. Or… we can hold onto wanting life to be our way and figurately scream and kick and suffer. When the dust settles though we’ll see that “what is” is still just what is. It didn’t notice our kicking and screaming.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

107. “Why?” may be the wrong question but “what?” can lead you to dating ease

There may come times when you want to investigate your own behavior in a relationship that’s causing you to suffer. Harry says something and you immediately feel hurt and get defensive. You may intuitively know it’s not Harry’s fault that you feel hurt. Something inside just got triggered and hurt rushed in, unbidden and unwanted.

The tendency for most of us, I’ve learned, is to start asking ourselves why. Why am I hurt so easily? Why do I get so angry and defensive? Why did I have a mother who was so critical and made me feel worthless when I was small? Why do those same feelings come up that used to come up with my late wife when we had a problem?

Unfortunately, “why” questions always keep us stuck in a psychological morass. They keep us going in circles of self-recrimination and self-denial – often based on an ego-me that wants to be right. We start trying to find ways to force ourselves to remain calm in the future through will power. Yet, we’ve probably all seen that will power doesn’t work. If it did, we’d have had the problem solved long ago.

There is a question that works, however, and will lead to reality and peace. That question is “what?”. What happened? Just that. Very simply, what happened? Without our twist on it, without our spin, without adding how we think it should have been, what happened? When there’s clear understanding of reality as it is, without our judgment, the problem we thought we had dissolves on its own. It’s like going to the lake to get a bucket of blue water. Once we see that it’s not blue, even when it appears to be, we don’t need will power not to take our bucket to the lake again. Understanding pierces through the illusion and we never try for blue water again.

It’s the same in any situation when you’re hurt. Harry said some words and without our judgment of them or him where can there be a problem? Just like there can be no problem with a pink tulip – unless we think it should be yellow. Then there’s a problem. So “what” is a useful question. What is the truth here? What do I think should be my way instead of the way it is? Do I know that for sure? What’s my life like when I think I have all the answers to this matter? Do I really have the big picture and know on a larger, long-term scale what’s best? Is it possible the Universe is playing itself out perfectly, just because it is? What would my life be like if I didn’t have that belief that’s causing me to hurt? When we see things as they are we realize it’s crazy to argue with reality. And “what is” is always the reality.

[If you’d like a more thorough way of investigating reality to get out of suffering see Article #19 in the November 27, 2005 archives in this blog or go to www.thework.com and read about Byron Katie’s simple method called The Work.]

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

106. It’s never your partner’s fault if you’re suffering in your relationship

When a relationship has problems the other person is never the cause. I know that may sound crazy but stick with me a minute. First of all, I’m not asking you to believe me. Instead I’d ask you to look at your own direct experience. How do you know when you’re having a problem in a relationship?... you’re suffering. You’re hurting in some way. Your partner may be hurting too, in which case you’ve both got a problem. But the relationship as such can’t have a problem because relationship is just a word, not an entity. It’s just a thought.

So you know you’ve got a problem when you’re hurting. It’s not a relationship problem, it’s a “you” problem. You may also feel that the problem is caused by your partner. If he hadn’t said what he did or if she hadn’t done what she did, you wouldn’t be hurting. But is that true?

Let’s look at it this way. If your partner said the same words to someone else that are hurting you would they necessarily be hurting? No. So it’s not the words that are causing your hurt, it’s your interpretation of what those words mean to you that cause your suffering. In other words, whenever we’re hurting emotionally it’s all about us and has nothing to do with the other person. Yes, they may trigger thoughts in us, but the thoughts are the cause of our pain, not the trigger. Two people could hear a person say the same sentence and one may think it was funny while the other thinks it was sarcastic. Is either person right? No, not really. The actual reality is that some words were said. The judgment or interpretation was added by the listeners.

It’s always that way about everything in life. We project onto it what we believe and then live as though our belief is true. Often it isn’t. Some years ago I had a friend who dated regularly but didn’t really enjoy it. She often said, “It’s brutal out there.” That was her judgment. For me dating was always an interesting adventure. It didn’t seem brutal at all. Different interpretations of basically the same experience.

If you think your partner shouldn’t have behaved in the way she did you’re immediately suffering because you’re resisting what is, just as if you thought it shouldn’t be raining when it is. Whenever you resist reality you lose and you suffer. “What is” doesn’t care what you think. On the other hand, if you see that your partner just behaved the way she did, and you don’t add a judgment to that, there’s nothing to be hurt about. After all, don’t you have the right to behave the way you want to? Doesn’t she also? You don’t have to make her wrong or try to force her to change. All you really need to do is find someone else to be with if you can’t accept what she does.

Your partner is never your problem. Partners have no power to get into our minds and emotions and create pain-thoughts. Only we have that power. Life is the way it is. Flowers bloom when they’re supposed to. It rains when it’s supposed to. Your partner does what he’s supposed to and so do you. I don’t mean “supposed to” in a moral sense, just in a “what is” sense. What is, is. There are no mistakes. It’s all the wonderful mystery of the Beloved manifesting exactly as it’s meant to manifest. Seeing that, you can relax and take life with ease, relishing the wonder and glory of it all, just as it is. Have fun!

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer