157. “Love yourself” they say, but how do you do that?

At this stage of life, in senior and mature dating, many of us know that when we expect someone else to love us and make us happy we’re always a victim. I’ve read personal ads online that say, “I want someone who will make me feel special and adored and loved.” But when we’re looking to someone else to do the job of making us feel loved aren’t we giving them an awfully big job? When they don’t succeed we get hurt and angry. When they love us according to what love looks like to us we feel great. Either way, though, we’re always reliant on them to provide our happiness. Not a good place to be.

Many relationship experts say, “Don’t rely on others, love yourself.” They’re nice words and they sound warm and fuzzy. But what do they really mean? How do we do it? Do we go out and get more massages, more new clothes, take more cruises or seek more sex? Lately there’s more research being published about what most of us have seen in our lives already – that acquiring more things, people and experiences doesn’t make for lasting happiness. Experientially we know this, yet we don’t know what else to do so we keep looking for the next thing that’ll help us feel loved and happy.

There’s nothing wrong with newness in our lives. In fact, life is always changing so it’s always new. But when we’re attached to something new, and think it will make us feel happy and loved, we’re lost. So what’s the answer? Here’s the key the ancients have been sharing for centuries, and I’ve seen in my own life: We don’t love ourselves by getting more. We love ourselves by giving something away – our false thoughts and beliefs.

For example, we believe that having a partner in our lives will give us love and happiness. But is that true? Is it ever possible that someone else can make us happy or cause us to suffer emotionally? It’s only what we think about their words or behavior that can make us happy or sad. Let’s say a couple is at a party. The woman has a nice conversation with another man. Her date may feel jealous and miserable. Another guy in the same situation, however, feels at ease and pleased, knowing his friend is engrossed in interesting conversation she enjoys. Does the conversation cause the pain, or is it the interpretation by each guy? Is it the woman who makes him happy or sad, or is it his own insecurities and therefore his own interpretations of what that means?

When we feel another person can give us the love we seek, we’ve automatically put ourselves in the position of seeking and searching. There’s no happiness in that because while we’re seeking we’re also feeling, “I’m not happy now but I will be when I get what I want.” One East Indian sage used to tell his students, “To crave is to slave.” Another way of saying that is this: Seeking is suffering. It’s stressful, we’re continually reminding ourselves we’re not happy, and even when we get the object of our desires we know from experience that the joy lasts only a short time.

So what’s the answer? How do we love ourselves? How can we be happy? If we see that “getting” hasn’t brought any lasting happiness let’s look and see when we actually are happy. Isn’t it in those times when we’re not looking for anything, not searching and seeking? It might be while watching a sunrise, or when we’re contentedly engrossed in a good book or a project we’re working on. Or the moments when we’re fully engaged in playing with the dog or holding a cooing baby. In those moments when we’re just totally lost in life as it is we later notice we were totally happy, not needing love, not needing anything.

With a little investigation you’ll see that exactly the same thing applies to getting something we’ve wanted – whether it’s that new gal in your life, the new car or a big-screen TV. The happiness we feel doesn’t come because we got something. If that were true we’d be happy as long as we had that thing. Instead, the happiness we feel comes from not wanting for that short time until the next desire pops up. Not wanting, even though it’s for only a short time, lets us relax and just be in the world without a problem.

Notice that we’re in the same relaxed, contented place we’re in while joyfully playing with that baby – not wanting or needing a thing. Wanting and seeking is always a problem because we’re on that stressful path of effort to get it. So self-love is really just about being, which means letting Life appear as it does and realizing that all our thoughts that it should be different have never worked and have only caused us pain. Finally we may just stop, and rest… and be happy! In that relaxed place of ease you really smell the flowers, maybe for the first time. You really see the green of the tree leaf, feel the texture of the knife in your hand as you cut vegetables for supper, hear that distant whistle of a train.

From this place of just being present you may experience a vitality of life you haven’t known, with no pressure to get anywhere, accomplish more or be better. Then taking steps to connect with a new date or partner just flows naturally. You're just on a fun adventure, not needing someone to make you happy. You get to simply share life with a date or partner, without expecting or demanding, without seeking, and without judgment, knowing your happiness doesn't depend on that person you're with. Total, unconditional acceptance of life just as it is… that would be my definition of self-love.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

156. Looking “out there” she couldn’t see reality and her own answers

In my last article, #155, I wrote about Muriel wanting more from her relationship with Jeff, when he simply wants to be friends. As it turns out, we later exchanged several emails about her situation since she was asking what I thought was wrong with Jeff - and men in general - because he doesn’t want to commit to a romance and marriage.

I suggested that to find peace she could simply see reality (Jeff wants only a friendship) and stop trying to figure out why Jeff does what he does. Obviously the reason she wants to figure him out is to counteract his reasoning and thereby change his mind. But if she simply sees that Jeff wants only a friendship, without adding her story and questions, she could then choose to have the friendship he wants, or she could choose to move on. Either way she wouldn’t be waiting for him to change so she could be happy.

As we dialogued by email, however, I saw again that it’s sometimes quite difficult for people to simply see reality and stop thinking about how life should be. It takes a willingness to let go of your old thinking. For example, when I suggested seeing Jeff just as he is she responded with things like, “He puts a lot of pressure on me. For instance, he says, ‘You can cure your diabetes yourself and get off medication. I can’t marry you til you do.’ And he has said several times, ‘I won’t marry a woman who drinks coffee. Have you stopped?’” She thinks it’s unfair for him to feel that way about her. But isn’t “unfair” just her judgment? Isn’t he, in fact, just being Jeff? Doesn’t he have the right to think and feel what he wants?

If she wanted to relieve her own suffering about this I again suggested she forget about what Jeff wants and just see the truth and deal with that in a way that serves her. Her response: “You seem to be saying, ‘I don’t care what happens to you as long as I am peaceful and happy.’” In fact, I’m saying just the opposite. I’m not saying “don’t care about the other person” I’m just saying when we see them as they are and stop trying to change them that is caring about them.

In the next email she wrote, “I still think it is a male thing to avoid relationships.” Again I realized we were talking about apples and oranges. Trying to figure out why men do what they do (and Jeff in particular) can never bring peace. But seeing that they behave or think in certain ways is again just seeing reality as it is. It may seem to be true that some men won’t commit, but if that were the case for all would there be men and woman getting married every day?

Our thoughts about what should be will always bring us pain because at the same time it’s saying that what is is not right. However, when we see what is as just the way it is and stop fighting it we can live in harmony with the world. We want others to change so we can be happy. But we could just skip the middle man (the person we want to change) and provide our own happiness. After all, it’s nobody else’s job.

When we clearly see life and other people’s action just as they are our actions will then flow effortlessly from that clear seeing. But when we’re putting all our energy into trying to guess or second-guess another person, who’s there for us? There is no clarity in swinging in the wind based on what someone else is doing or not doing.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

155. She suffers from her self-created “sweet and sour” relationship

I got an email today from Muriel, a woman in her mid-60s that I’ve written about before. She’s had an on and off relationship with Jeff for four or five years and lives in a lot of pain because she apparently doesn’t see reality.

Today she wrote that she and Jeff have many things in common, and she listed many of them. “But.” she says, “when we start talking seriously about a future together he freezes up and goes into his cave. He says he loves me, but why can’t we just be friends.” She adds that that doesn’t make sense to her, then goes on to ask my view.

Muriel is in what I’d call a self-created sweet and sour relationship – sweet in the pleasure she gets from being with him and sour in the suffering she endures because he won’t commit to the kind of relationship she wants.

To resolve her suffering Muriel puts a lot of energy into trying to understand why Jeff feels the way he does about her. Of course what she really wants is to be happy, and she feels that understanding will bring that happiness. But in trying to understand we put ourselves in the role of victim because we can never really fully understand why another thinks or feels as they do. So all the time that we’re waiting and agonizing over not understanding we’re a victim, suffering. When we drop the idea that we need to understand, and just see and accept reality instead, we can be out of our agony.

If Muriel would stop looking “out there” for the answer and instead check inside herself she might notice that without her story of what “should be” she could simply see what is: Jeff only wants to be friends – period. From that clear seeing, without judging him, she might notice that her actions would flow naturally and effortlessly.

One option would be to settle in with a friendship. Then she could probably spend time with him freely and without the longing for more. She could also stop nagging and manipulating him, which happens when they start “talking seriously about a future together.” Obviously if he wants only a friendship he isn’t the one who brings up that subject, which can only be Muriel’s attempt to pressure him to move forward when he doesn’t want to. There’s no love in that. That’s manipulation borne of self-interest.

Reality in this situation is to simply see that Jeff is just being who Jeff is. He’s not deceiving her. He’s not using her. He’s not trying to change her. And he’s not manipulating her. She, on the other hand, is trying to manipulate him, and in the process creating a lot of pain for herself by not living in harmony with what is. If she doesn’t want to be just a friend she could move out of the relationship. But she wouldn’t need to do it in anger; she could do it with love. Whether she stayed as a friend or moved away from him, in both cases she wouldn’t be trying to control him and she could be free of pain by just living in reality.

When we think we need a partner or date to change we’re the ones who need to change, and the change we need is to see that the loving thing to do in a relationship is to let the other be who they are. They have as much right to live their way as we have.

Any time – any time – we want another person to change it’s because we feel if they change we’ll be happier. In effect we’re saying, “I want you to change even when you don’t want to because I really don’t care about your happiness. I just want my happiness.” Now, I recognize that sounds pretty harsh and you may be saying to yourself, “No, I want her to be happy too and I know she’ll be happier if she does it my way.” But isn’t that justification for self-centered behavior that we may not have noticed about ourselves until we really look?

If you really want your dating partner to be happy you could just leave him alone. And if you really want to be happy yourself why not skip the middle man (the person you think should change and give you what you want) and give yourself happiness by just flowing with life the way it is rather than deciding how it should be and fighting it. After all, do you really know how life should be? Until you let your dating or romantic partner be who they are you’re starting a war with them. I don’t see love in starting a war. But I see total love in acceptance and nonjudgment.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer