240. With no dating agenda you’ll have easy fun instead of fear and nerves

If you’re nervous before you meet a date or partner you know you’ve got an agenda for that meeting and you’re afraid it won’t work the way you want it to. If there was nothing to lose you wouldn’t feel nervous. What’s the biggest thing people are afraid of losing in dating relationships? Their sense of self-worth.

They define themselves by what other people think of them so their fear of rejection can be huge. Conversely, when you don’t need anyone’s approval you spend time with a date and enjoy the adventure and the unfolding of whatever happens. That makes dating fun rather than an effort and struggle.

Many singles are so focused on winning approval from a guy or gal that it’s no wonder dating in these mature years is such a chore. If you believe you need appreciation or approval from a date that belief will probably show up in your body as fear and nervousness. If so, that’s a time when you could investigate honestly to see if those thoughts you’re holding are really true.

When you look you see that we never have any control over what someone thinks – about us or anything else. So why bother about what they think? That’s their business, just as what you think is your business. “I need her approval,” is that true? “I need him to think I’m great,” is that really true? Aren’t you paying an awfully high price if you believe self-created lies like those? Reality would never agree with you.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

239. Could it be that your mature dating pain is self-created?

Someone told me the other day about a bumper sticker she'd seen. It read:

REALITY IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK!

How true that is. Most of us look at reality through our filters of good/bad, right/wrong, should/shouldn’t and other opposites. Reality is just what is, as it is. It’s neither good nor bad until we put that label on it.

In mature dating the moment you think, “He shouldn’t be so friendly with her,” “She shouldn’t be dancing so close with him,” “If he cared he’d call,” or make any other judgment your experience is not based on reality. You’re viewing life through your “belief” filters and you suffer. Your experience, then, is a self-created myth.

Loving life as it is, full of mysteries and surprises, is living in harmony and peace. Before judgmental beliefs can even appear you’re the beingness that allows the appearances to show up, like space permits objects to show up.

That beingness or presence has no opinions or judgments. It’s simply love and uncaused joy. Questioning your painful beliefs reveals that unborn love and joy at any moment because it’s who you naturally are before you lay on your judgmental thought-filters and start looking through them at the skewed world you’ve created.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

238. Most people love with strings attached, so is it love?

Most people don’t love you when they say they do. When you’re giving them what they want and agreeing with them they say, “I love you,” and they’re kind and warm. As soon as you don’t do or say what they want they get hurt or angry or jealous or sad. They’re not getting their way and they think that’s your fault. They’re unhappy with you, and their personality switches from kindness to coldness, from warm to icy. They berate you, withdraw, threaten, yell, sulk, blame, call you names, and find other ways to verbally or physically assault you, attempting to force you to be what they want.

People like that are confused. They think there’s a right and wrong way to be. When you don’t do it their way you’re doing it wrong. That’s why you’ll hear people say, “I would never do that,” or “I’d never say that,” referring to something you did or said. They’re implying, of course, that their way is right, yours is wrong, and you’d better change.

Would a yellow rose say to a red one, “You’re too flashy and garish; I’d never show up red!” Most people haven’t questioned their thoughts and seen that life shows up in all kinds of ways, expressed as all kinds of objects, including people who are different. That’s reality. That the way life is. Do you have a right to be the way you are? Does your date or partner have that same right? Sure.

You may be a guy who values monogamy and you learn your partner is having an affair. Should she stop? Only if she wants to. But you’re not her victim. If you ask, and she refuses to be monogamous, you know you weren’t supposed to have a monogamous relationship with her. You know because it’s not happening. Remember, reality always wins. You can wish her well, knowing she’s living her life the way that feels right to her, and also knowing your way is not her way and it feels natural for you to move on. That love is unconditional. It doesn’t demand that anything be different and you can both be at peace.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer