100. Dating pain relief isn’t about doing and fixing, it’s about seeing – just seeing

I get a regular e-newsletter from a prominent psychologist and author. I admire much of her work that’s available for people who want to improve themselves. At one point in my life, before I came to the understanding that we're all "being lived", I found her work extremely worthwhile. In today’s newsletter she talked about changing our damaged and wounded selves so we can negotiate life more easily.

When we’re in pain (and dating, even in our mature years, can sometimes lead to immense pain) we naturally think we have to do something to get out of the pain. That’s what we’ve been taught all our lives – that if we do something our lives will change.

Unfortunately, that method presupposes that there’s a “me” with an independent nature and power, who can do something. It’s that same idea of a “me” that thinks something needs to change. And that same “me” who indulges in the hurt in the first place.

Getting past our dating hurts isn’t about doing something. There may be a temporary fix in that method but what the sages and saints have asked of us throughout history is to stop and take a look inside. They’re telling us that when we simply be with a situation and just watch it, without engaging in it, the emotions simply die away on their own. When we’re busy trying to do something we’re fully engaged with thoughts and the feelings they arouse. We’re resisting “what is”, and that’s always the cause of our pain.

Life – including our dating life – happens as it happens. It doesn’t go the way “we” want, it goes the way it goes. Have you noticed? We can argue and fight and resist and dig in our heels as much as we want and Life still does what it does. Period. That’s the end of the story. If we look we see this. What’s more, we as so-called persons are simply a part of Life functioning as it does. It functions as thunderbolts, gorgeous sunsets, cute puppies and apparent people. The key word there is “It functions AS….” Life, It, God, Spirit, The One – whatever words you want to apply, is everything. “What is” is another term for God.

When we stop overlooking the natural Presence and Awareness that we are we see that we’re not independent entities who can do anything. We’re simply an appearance in that One Presence that allows everything to be. The sages often called it space-like awareness because it’s like space, the one indescribable nothingness that allows everything to show up. Without it nothing could be.

This all sounds pretty ethereal and mystical. How does it apply to the painful emotions that can arise in a dating relationship? It applies this way, and it’s this simple. So simple the mind fights it. And for good reason: It’s the death of the mind. When we look deep inside and discover that we can’t find anything that can be called “me” except for a thought, we’re relieved of a huge burden.

No longer do “I” (the apparent person) have to make my life work. No longer do “I” have to fix or change or correct anything in life. Instead, in that understanding that we’re being lived, we can simply relax and watch life unfold the way it does. If something feels painful in a relationship we can notice that it’s we who put meaning to something and then felt hurt as a result. Without our interpretation and judgment a thing is just what it is. Do we really know John shouldn’t have dropped us? Am I sure Mary shouldn’t be angry at me? No, of course not. What’s the reality? “What’s happening” is the reality. No need to fight it or try to control it because we’ll always lose – the apparent “we”, that is.

The natural state of a baby is uncritical, undemanding, nonjudgmental. When a baby’s physical needs are met she lives in a natural state of joy and wonder. Except for being involved with thoughts, that’s our natural state too. Christ said it: “Unless you become like a child you’ll never enter into the kingdom of heaven.” That kingdom wasn’t meant to be some future life. He had to be speaking of the natural peace and ease of life that is the essence of who we all are. Stop and see. When you watch thoughts for just a moment, instead of grappling with them and engaging with them, you’ll see there’s just a quiet happiness. You might like it.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer