119. When we drop our personal opinions a life of ease and happiness that’s been there all along has a chance to show up

When you’re hurting emotionally in your dating relationships it’s always because of something you’re thinking. Thought precedes emotion. Proving that is easy: You don’t hurt emotionally when you’re asleep and not dreaming.

So that makes things pretty simple doesn’t it? If I don’t want to hurt all I have to do is stop thinking! But whoaaa! How do I do that? Hmm, it turns out we’re not in control of our thinking are we? We don’t know where the “off” switch is. Thoughts come and go on their own, unbidden and unrequested.

Well then, how do we stop the emotional turmoil when our dating goes bad? How do we stop that ache in the gut, that lonely emptiness, that tightness in our jaw, that worry that I’ll never find anyone? There are two ways we can deal with that suffering.

One is to simply notice what we just said, that thoughts show up on their own and they’re not ours. The problem is that we’ve been conditioned to think they mean something. But if you look closely you’ll notice that life has always done what it wanted regardless of what we thought about it. So when painful thoughts show up you can just notice them and put your focus again on what’s happening in this very moment. After all, this moment is the only place where there’s real, vital life going on. Thoughts are always about the past or future, both of which aren’t real.

When you’re ignoring thoughts I’m not talking about resisting them. I’m not saying to turn this into some kind of chore where you’re telling yourself you shouldn’t be having these thoughts. That’s resistance, and resistance simply holds thoughts in place: The thought has to stay there for you to be able to resist it.

The second way to deal with painful thoughts is to question them. A thought comes: “I need Joe in my life,” and you question that. Is that true? Really true? Can you even know for dead sure that you’re better with Joe in your life? Maybe the Universe has a higher vision than you do and maybe it’s been running this planet for eons and knows what it’s doing? When we lie to ourselves by telling ourselves we know best we always hurt. When we see the reality – that Infinite Intelligence has been running the show all along and probably knows perfection better than we do, we can just relax into watching life. That’s easy and effortless. Without your personal ego-centered struggle, life for you becomes just what’s always been there waiting for you as a quiet backdrop – silence, stillness, peace, acceptance and love.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

118. It’s called relationship freedom: You can't freely stay if you can't also leave

If you don’t feel free to be yourself as you date or form partnerships you’re probably not feeling peaceful and happy. We generally feel stress when we have to monitor ourselves, watch our words, and pick through a mine field littered with “don’ts” “can’ts” and “better-nots”.

We’re never victims in a relationship, however, unless we choose to be. If we stay with a partner where we have to always be defensive and on guard it’s because we want something. We think the suffering from our lack of freedom is worth what we want. In the end, however, it’s our choice.

I always say, “You're not free to stay if you're not free to leave.” Freedom goes both ways. You can’t have one without the other. So when you feel free to leave a relationship you also know you’re staying because you want to, not because you have to.

I don’t advocate using “I’ll leave” as a threat or even as a solution in relationship discord. It’s simply a reality. If we don’t like our partner’s behavior we can ask them to change, but we don’t need to try to force or manipulate them to change. Manipulation and control is not love. We never “need” others to change because we’re not trapped. Consequently, we can love them as they are, whether they behave as we want or not. And in our love for them and ourselves we may also choose to move on to other dating and a new partner.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

117. When you’re in “their” business or “God’s” business you’re in a hopeless pit and you’re bound to suffer

In dating and partner relationships there’s one way to live that takes you out of a lot of stress, hurt and disappointment, and leaves you in your natural state of peace, joy and love. That way is to recognize what you can’t do anything about. John M.R. Covey, who with his wife Jane gives marriage seminars around the world, thinks it’s important to see that you have control only over yourself in a relationship. He says when you try to control other things, such as your partner you feel like a victim.

Byron Katie, author of I Need Your Love, Is It True? and Loving What Is sees life in a simple way. “I’ve noticed there are three kinds of business in the world,” she says, “mine, yours and God’s.” In her view, “God’s” business is dealing with the weather, natural phenomena, your birth place, the parents you were born to, etc. Another person’s life is what she calls “Your” business. “My” business is just that – how do I see life?

Katie goes on to add a critical element if you want peace in your life and relationships. She says, “Any time I’m in “your” business or “God’s” business I hurt.” Why? Because any effort we make to change the externals of life is totally hopeless. What we can do, however, is to just see life as it is, without needing to change it. After all, God, or Divine Intelligence, or Spirit is really expressing itself as everything, including us as people. It’s all one showing up as many.

Yet, in relationships how many times do you hear people say things like, “If he would….” or “She should just….” It’s easy to think that we could be happier if our partner would change. Have you noticed, though, that when people do sometimes change we’re still not happy? The mind then simply goes to the next thing they should change, or how the government should change, or the weather, or your mother. The mind is never satisfied because it’s job is to divide all things into good/bad or right/wrong. You can check this out in your own life: What we do best is to compare and judge.

When you’re unhappy about anything you might ask yourself, “Whose business am I in right now?” Is it someone else’s business or God’s business? What is it you think needs to change? It’s simply the inability to see that life is just the way it is, that causes us emotional suffering. It’s always about resisting what is and thinking we know better. But do we? Do we really have the big picture and know more than the Infinite?

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

116. When romantic “love” includes judging and manipulation it’s not love

The notion of love, in a romantic sense, often isn’t really very loving. In a romance people don’t usually love, they want something. Let me say that again: People don’t love, they want something. Sounds pretty harsh doesn’t it? But how many people do you know who actually love their romantic partner without strings – unconditionally? That’s what I call love.

On the other hand, aren’t most relationships based on a lot of judgment? We judge our partners and think they should change. Then we get mad at them, say and do hurtful things, withdraw, and in other ways try to manipulate and control them when our partners don’t do what we want. In other words most so-called “love” relationships are based on a trade-off: You give me what I want and I’ll be nice to you. Is that how love acts?

It seems to me that a more honest description of love than the mushy, mawkish, romantic notion people think of, is to look at the behavior of one who loves. The words, “I love you” are easy. The behavior demonstrating that? Well, that’s another matter. Which are you going to believe, the words or the actions?

Authentic, unconditional love looks different from the trade-off people call love. It seems pretty clear to me that when a person accepts another without judgment that’s love. There’s no desire to force or manipulate or coerce or change your date or partner in any way. You simply accept them as they are. There may not be the physical or sexual attraction to every person that we call romantic love, but when there’s acceptance I’d call that love. Then when that ineffable spark of romantic attraction lights up two lives, and it’s coupled with the kind of nonjudgmental acceptance I’m describing, that relationship is what I’d call true love. No strings. No judgments. Just acceptance and freedom for both.

What is it that keeps people from loving unconditionally? It’s always judgment isn’t it? We judge another person, think they should change, and then go about trying to make that change happen. And we’ll use just about any manipulative trick in our tool bag to do it – guilt, anger, revenge, silence, sarcasm, nearly anything. We often do this without even thinking much about what we’re doing. For many of us it’s simply using old habits we learned, for example: “If I get mad enough at him he won’t do that again!”

Since I’m saying judging is not love it may help to be really clear about what judgment is and is not. That question sometimes comes up. So let’s see if we can clarify that a bit.

First, selection is not judging. If you select pie over cake for dessert you’re not judging. You’re not saying the cake is bad or wrong or needs to change; you’re only saying pie is your preference. The same goes for a person. You can choose to be around Harry and not spend time with Ray, but that doesn’t mean you’re judging Ray. You simply see that you and Ray have personalities that don’t match. You don’t think Ray needs to change at all.

Second, description is also not judging. Joe may be 6’5” and you call him tall. That’s not a judgment, just a description. Or he may get very angry. His face is red and the arteries in his neck are popping and he’s yelling. To say he’s angry isn’t a judgment either. It’s just a description.

Judging is this: When you think someone should change you’re judging. You’ve decided that a person should not be the way they are. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t think they need to change you’re accepting them as they are. That’s love. It’s just unconditionally allowing them to be the way they are. Without adding our ideas to the way the Universe should be, we don’t ever need to judge anyone in a moralistic sense, saying they’re bad or wrong because of their behavior. How do we know how they should be? Reality is that they are just as they are. Period.

To use the example of Joe above, let’s say Joe is not only angry but he’s angry at you. If you’re saying, “Joe is angry at me,” you’re describing him. If you’re saying, “Joe is angry at me and he shouldn’t be,” you’re judging. The “shouldn’t be” is where judgment has stepped in.

Let’s say Joe is angry at you and blaming you for something you didn’t do. You might feel pretty righteous about judging him – saying he shouldn’t be angry at you. After all, he’s got his facts wrong. But you’ve still judged him, and this is where understanding judgment gets a little tricky. If we stay with Joe’s anger, and don’t add our interpretation or story to it, we simply see that Joe is mad. When we think we know he’s wrong and should not be angry, that’s when we’ve judged. We’ve come in at that moment with our beliefs and certainties and applied them to Joe. We’re saying, “I know how Joe should be and it’s not this way.” But do we really know? All we really need to see is that he appears angry. That’s reality. Reality is just “what is”, without our opinion, interpretation or judgment.

Now, it may sound like I’m being moralistic and saying it’s not nice to judge someone. I’m not saying that. This has nothing to do with our ideas of morality. What I’m saying is that judgment hurts me, first of all, and it also hurts my relationships. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t bring relationships closer. A simple way to notice when you’re judging is this: It never feels good inside. Even a slight judgment brings a subtle, suffering. There’s a tension, a hot flash in the gut, a tightening and contraction – some feeling of distress.

When there’s no judgment there’s simply seeing – as a baby sees, or a dog. There’s no opinion, no interpretation, no thought in you that the person needs to change or make corrections. The very instant we judge our date or partner what’s our next response? We want to change them don’t we? Manipulating and controlling is not love.

We’re in the trade-off mode again. We’re thinking, “If I can get you to change and be who I want you to be I’ll be happy.” In that mode we’ll do pretty much whatever it takes to force that change. We’ll use anger, withdrawal, hitting the person in their weakest, most vulnerable spot – almost any kind of control or manipulation to get what we want. Notice that – we want to get what we want. Is that love? I don’t think so.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

115. If you think your partner needs to change you’ve got a problem!

If you think your date or partner needs to change you’ve got a problem! Why? Because you’re pinning your happiness on what they do. You’re thinking, “I can only be happy if you do what I want you to do.” It’s as though you feel you must be with this person, therefore you also must get them to change to suit you. You’re confused. You’ve set yourself up as a victim. You think your happiness depends on them, and you’re in a no-win bind.

Let’s say Darren and Jody are dating. Generally it’s going well and Jody is feeling closer to Darren as time goes on. But she’s noticed lately that Darren gets easily jealous. When they go to a dance or a party he watches her like a hawk and gets angry if she spends any time dancing or talking with other men. She knows that kind of controlling, manipulating behavior would come up in other areas of their relationship as well. So Jody would like him to change that unhealthy behavior and may ask him if he’s willing to work on it. So far so good.

The problem comes if Jody thinks she needs Darren to change and has a right to demand that. She might then try to manipulate him into changing. If a relationship is to be truly loving and free both people have a right to live their lives the way they want to. Then they’re being together without conditions – no strings attached. In this case Jody could certainly ask Darren to change but she’d also make it clear she knows it’s entirely his choice.

If he chooses not to work on his jealousy issue and not to change, Jody doesn’t need to be a victim. She’s free to leave any time. Without brow beating him or trying to push him in any way she could simply tell him she doesn’t want to date a jealous man and she needs to move on.

It’s possible Darren could see that as a threat and think she’s manipulating him. But if he did that would be his own issue and an incorrect perspective. If Jody was coming from a place of unconditional love she’d know she was letting Darren be totally free to live his life the way he wanted. If he wanted to be with her he would need to change that unhealthy behavior but it wouldn’t be a forced or manipulated issue.

I’ve noticed that many times in relationships one or both people feel its their right to try to force the other one to be different. There’s no love in that. When people do that they’re selfishly wanting what they want. In effect they’re saying to their date or partner, “I want you to stop living life the way you want to live it and start living it the way I want you to live it.” Would any of us want someone telling us that? Probably not. Freedom works both ways.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

114. Let thoughts run without your involvement and dating will be relaxed and pleasant

All emotional suffering comes from thoughts. Not all thoughts bring suffering. But all suffering is from thoughts.

I know that may seem like a bold statement that deserves some questioning. So let’s question it. It seems like our suffering comes from things that happen in our lives doesn’t it? Since we’re talking here about dating and romance let’s just keep the focus there. When we suffer in our dating it can take a lot of forms. Virtually anything that feels stressful and uncomfortable is what I’d call suffering. It can range from feelings of loss or abandonment to jealousy, anger, self-pity, sadness, disappointment and much more.

It seems that these feelings come up most of the time because of what someone else has done or said. Their behavior, it seems, is the cause of our suffering. But if you look at the situation more deeply you’ll probably notice that it’s not the incident that causes us to hurt, it’s the thought we have about the incident. A simple way to see that is to notice that when we’re asleep and not thinking there’s no suffering. When we awake again, thoughts come in about a hurtful incident and we’re back in suffering. So clearly it’s not the situation but the thoughts about the situation that make us hurt.

If we look a bit further we may also notice that the thoughts about a situation that make us hurt are always thoughts that the situation should be different. They’re always thoughts of resistance to what is. A simple example:
Joe said such and such. That’s just a fact. No pain there.
Joe should not have said such and such. That’s a story or a belief about how it should be different. Immediate pain.

As soon as we add our opinion or judgment about an incident we hurt. Without exception it always works that way. So we could sum this up by saying judgment or resistance brings on our pain. Since we don’t like being in pain the question then is how do we get out of that?

There’s a simple way, and that way is to not get involved with “like” and “dislike” thoughts. And how do you do that, Sir? you ask. Well, thoughts have to appear in something don’t they, just like a word might appear on a chalk board. If someone wrote the word “red” on a chalk board and asked what we see, most people in a room would say they see the word. Hardly anyone would say they see a chalk board, yet it’s much bigger and more apparent than the word.

It’s the same with furniture in a room. Ask people to name the first thing they see in a room full of furniture and they might say “chair”, or “couch” or “lamp”. Hardly anyone would say “space”. Yet that’s the first thing any of us ever sees – the space that allows the furniture to be. When you notice it you’re aware that it’s much more obvious than the furniture, but we overlooked it.

Now let’s transfer that to thoughts. They have to appear in something don’t they? What is that? We can call it consciousness or awareness or beingness. Put simply, we have to be before a thought could even exist for us don’t we? No one who’s conscious can say they aren’t or that they aren’t being. They would have to be to even say “I’m not”. So beingness, like space, is the no-thing or nothing that gives everything, including thoughts, a place to show up.

That sense of being is always there. It’s the essence of who we are, and it has never changed. The being you felt as a small child, as a teenager, as a 40-year-old and now has never changed. Thoughts and beliefs, on the other hand, are changing all the time. What we believed years ago or yesterday we no longer believe.

The same being we were when we woke up this morning is the same being we were when we ate breakfast, read the paper, had lunch or mowed the lawn. It hasn’t changed, just as the chalk board doesn’t change. But the thoughts that have appeared in that beingness throughout the day have changed constantly. Yet the beingness hasn’t been affected by those thoughts at all. Even if the thoughts were painful thoughts, your emotions might have been in turmoil but the beingness was just the no-thing awareness that allowed it all to appear.

This is a kind of long prelude to the question: How do I get rid of the pain caused by thoughts? And now here’s the answer. Since it must be true that being exists before thought and that it never changes, you might see that pure being is our true nature. That’s who we are. If we put it into words we’d all say we know one thing for certain, the fact that I am. We don’t have to check with anyone or even have a thought to know I am. Thoughts have nothing to do with who we actually are. They’re just content showing up in the beingness.

So instead of letting your focus go into thoughts as you interpret or judge events and people and situation, let your focus instead stay with the beingness or awareness that has no need to correct or change anything or anyone. The content of life – all the thoughts and happenings – goes on for all of us. But when you see that they’re simply passing vibrations of movement in space why put energy into them?

That beingness you are is always stable and unchanging, however. Like space, nothing ever affects it. Yet it’s the light that allows life to be. It’s the Divine Intelligence that we all are. That “me” you call yourself wouldn’t be able to have a thought or blink an eye or raise a finger without that Intelligence energy that animates it and gives it life. So “me” is insubstantial and has no independent nature at all.

The “me” we think we are is being “thought”, being “moved”, being “lived” by that one Divine Energy that appears as a person. That One-That-Is-All breathes us and beats our hearts and grows our hair and digests our food without a thought from us. That same One Divine Intelligence also “sees” as us, “hears” as us, “tastes” as us, etc. Seeing happens before the thought, “I see”. Hearing happens before the thought, “I hear.” So obviously thought isn’t needed for our lives to run just fine. Thought it nothing but a translator, often coming in to say, “I did that.”

When you see that you don’t need to spend energy judging, interpreting and wanting to change events in your thoughts you can relax. Those events are being lived by the Divine Intelligence just as you are, and that Intelligence has been in existence long before we got here and will be long after we all leave here. In fact, it’s eternal. It had no beginning and will have no ending. So from our puny little view isn’t it a bit arrogant for us to think we know how the Universe should be functioning?

When we keep our focus on the beingness or awareness that we are, instead of the thought-content, we begin to notice life is just the way it’s meant to be. How do we know that? Simple – it is. And with that you stay out of the pain-provoking thoughts and just relish the simplicity and beauty of Life as it is. Then dating and romance are just happenings to play in and enjoy. Have fun!

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

113. I found that guilt is nothing but a bad habit. Have you considered giving it up?

Guilt. It’s something we’ve all learned. It’s something we’ve all suffered with. It’s something we’ve all been guilty of (pun intended). And for what? Is there any winner?

Guilt and regret can cause immense suffering, especially in our dating and romantic lives. The person we most want not to hurt is sometimes the person we’re the meanest to. Then what happens? We may apologize, we may make amends. But we probably feel guilt, sometimes intense guilt. We may feel it for years as we look back on marriage, divorce, death of our spouse. We could have done it so much better we often think. I remember after my wife died that I regretted all kinds of events I remembered where I could have been kinder to her, could have been more attentive, more loving. Fortunately I realized that had to stop, and found some new ways to look at life.

Maybe these will help you, as they helped me. There are a couple of ways to look at guilt and its cousin, regret. One way is to ask: Does it help? Somehow the mind seems to think that if we’re guilty enough that’ll propel us to be good in the future. If we can feel terribly guilty it’ll be a strong enough impulse to stop us from doing the bad thing that deserves our guilt.

But wait just a minute! Whatever that terrible thing is that we feel guilty about, is it true we did a terrible thing? Maybe it’s more true, when we look honestly, that at the moment of our action we were really doing the best we knew how to do. I’m not saying that intellectually, a moment later, we might not have known another way that could have been better. I’m saying that in the exact moment of the action, in our direct experience, if we could have done something we thought was better we’d have done it wouldn’t we? Don’t just pass this by. Stop for just a moment and really consider this. Didn’t we do the best we knew how at the moment? Do we really need to hold onto an idea that we did this bad thing? And if the bad thing is gone where’s the need for guilt?

Another way to look at guilt is to consider what it does. Does it help the people you feel guilty about hurting? Maybe the person you offended gets some momentary pleasure from hearing you say you feel guilty, if you say it at all. But beyond that do they profit from your guilt? Probably not. That leaves you. Do you feel any better for having this guilt? Have you felt guilt in the past and has it really motivated you to not do what you consider “bad things”? Look and you’ll probably notice it hasn’t worked. If it had why would you continue to feel guilty over and over?

A third way to examine guilt is to just see reality as it is. You did something; you took some action or said some words. Do you really know you shouldn’t have done that? Yes, society may say so, the church may say so, your mother may say so but can you really know how the Universe should be functioning, including how it should function through a person you call “me”?

Maybe the hurt you think you caused someone is the hurt they needed to feel. Do you know? Is it possible that if they feel hurt they may see life differently in a way that will improve it for them immensely. Do you really know? What we can know is that there are no mistakes in life. Life is running itself just fine without our opinion or approval, even when it looks like we should feel bad and have tremendous regret and guilt. Is it possible our little, niggly opinions, regret and guilt are just silly ideas and not really worth a damn? Maybe we should just give up guilt as a bad habit! I found that life was a lot more peaceful when I did that.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

112. Apply this to your mature dating and your “happiness” quotient may soar

A good friend of mine died of prostate cancer nearly a dozen years ago. He had been a healthy, active man with a great attitude toward life, kind and loving, a wonderful father and husband – and he died. A few years later I had dinner with his wife and we were talking about how our lives are going without our spouses. (Her husband died just two weeks after my wife died, only about 50 yards down the hall on the same floor of the same hospital, so we have a lot in common in that sense.) She said, “You know, Chuck, I just don’t understand it. I have a neighbor who’s such a grouch. He won’t even let the kids come into his yard to get their ball when they happen to hit it over the fence. And yet, here he is alive and well, and Dale is dead. I don’t understand why it has to happen that way.”

When things go bad you often hear people say something like, “Why me?” “Why did my wife leave me? Why did this relationship end when I thought it was going so well? I tried so hard.”

When my wife was diagnosed with cancer that was the question we had. We ate a healthy, balanced, nutritional diet, we both ran nearly every morning, we were hikers, and backpackers, and X-country and Alpine skiers. There had been no history of cancer in her family. But there it was: cancer. Why?

By the time she died eight years later, however, I had begun to realize that the opposite question: “Why not?” was just as relevant. Since her death I’ve learned more as I’ve dug deep into spiritual teachings and questioned who and what I am. What I’ve learned – and it’s so obvious when we really think about it -- is that the universe is really a huge mystery. All we can really say about it is that it operates as it does, and everything is allowed and possible. This apparent individual “me” is also simply the Universe expressing itself as a person, just as it does a planet or a wind storm. It’s all one divine essence.

We think we know so much, but we really know so little. For instance, science has learned a lot about how the human body works. But the experts will tell you they’re nowhere near truly understanding it. There’s so much we don’t know. We know, for instance, that electiricity works and how to harness it. But no one can really explain why it’s there. Nor can we know why the world is made of energy – atoms and swirling electrons that, when you get to the smallest element of them, are nothing but space.

To put it simply, “reality is.” Period. That’s it. That’s all we can really know. Look around. When we observe reality and stop making judgments about it we find more peace. It’s simply a matter of “what is,” is. It’s raining because it’s raining. Someone gets hit by a bus and is killed – because they do. Yet our minds continue to do what minds are supposed to do – search for an answer. The problem with that is that we start believing we need an answer. We start thinking "answer" is something real and that we should find it. But it's nothing but a thought, an illusion.

Instead, we can just watch life. Why does a cut on your finger heal, without you doing a thing about it? Why do you stub your toe on the dresser when you get up in the night, when for a thousand nights before that you didn’t? Why were you born in a country that allowed you to have the education to read this and hundreds of thousands weren’t?

By continually asking “why” we’re usually just adding confusion and pain to life. And for sure we’re missing something. We’re missing what’s happening in the moment, which is the only vital, active aliveness there is. Anything before or after the moment of now is nothing but a thought. It’s a myth. Not real. When we’re asking “why?”, the implication is that it shouldn’t be this way. We’re arguing with reality as it is, and when we do that we hurt. If you question that check your own direct experience. Do you feel peaceful and at ease when you’re judging someone or something? Or is there a subtle tension and stress?

On the other hand, we can question: Is our judgment true and real? Can we really know, in the Totality of the universe what should or shouldn’t be? A few years ago a friend in California sent me an email saying a new relationship had ended. “My heart is broken in a million pieces,” she wrote. “I don’t understand why it had to end this way? Why does it happen to me? What am I doing wrong, Chuck?” she wrote. But the reality is that relationships end. It happens all the time. All we have to do is look around us. Why does it happen to me? Why not? It happens to others. Life is a mystery and why shouldn’t it happen to us as well as others.

When you start asking, “Why not?” instead of “Why me?” you’re shifting the whole dynamic. Then you’re not arguing with reality any more; you’re just seeing it as it is. There may still be pain, yes, but not nearly as much when you’re accepting the world the way the world actually is. No need to argue with it. No reason to worry and strain about what might have changed it. The truth is, nothing could have changed it. It’s the universe acting as it does. It’s the divine showing up in form so it must be exactly the way it’s supposed to be, which means it’s perfect, even though it doesn’t look like it from our limited “me-view”.

Instead of living in all that mental chatter, turmoil and confusion of the mind we can notice that thoughts are also like all the other events of life. They come and go and there’s no reason for them. Why are they there? Why not? But notice also that those thoughts appear in the Pure Awareness that you are, just as a movie appears on a screen. We don’t notice the screen as we don’t notice the Awareness. But if we relax into the Awareness and just let thoughts come and go, without getting hooked into them, there’s just simple Being. In Being you see life with your five senses wide open, enjoying the subtlety and mystery of it all just as it is. Apply this approach to your mature dating and you may notice more ease and happiness. I did.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer