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

237. Do you feel bad because your neck tells the truth about your age?

One of the reasons some people are leery about dating in these mature or senior years is the very fact that they are mature; they’re older. It turns out, according to the experts, that age has as much or more to do with attitude as it does with years. That’s probably not news to you. I’ve met a number of people 55 and beyond who seem to “think” old. They joke about senior moments and say they can’t do this or that any more “at my age.”

I read this morning about a popular book by Nora Ephron titled, I Feel Bad About My Neck. She writes humorously, “Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth. You have to cut open a redwood tree to see how old it is, but you wouldn't have to if it had a neck.” She’s right; our necks seem to indicate our age often more than our faces do.

But carrying “old age” ideas into life and mature dating probably isn’t going to make your dating very much fun or successful. Instead of being excited about all the things you could do with a date or partner you may be thinking of all your limitations. You even approach your first meeting with this new guy or gal thinking about your aging body and telling yourself you have to try to be perky. But one expert says, "Don't get bogged down in all the hype about aging. Once you start thinking about it, it can drive you mad. There's nothing you can do; the clock is going to tick away."

It’s also important to get over your stereotypes or mental images about aging. You may have picked up ideas that aging means life loses its happiness. But are those stories you’ve told yourself true? When you start believing stressful thoughts you’ll feel the discomfort and suffering. You know then that it’s time to question those beliefs. If you’re suffering from worry, sadness or desperation those self-created hurts can be undone by simply investigating what’s true.

The article I read this morning reported on a couple – he’s 79 and she’s 80 – who took a week-long backpacking trip alone in the wilderness last year. He had taken up mountain climbing after he retired and has climbed Mount Whitney, Kilimanjaro and hiked to the Mount Everest base camp. Does that fit your stereotype of older folks?

Living happily and peacefully, I’ve realized, is always living in reality, not our stories about reality. Reality is the way things are. Change will happen. That’s life. It’s not bad unless we think it’s bad. Yet why worry about something that may never happen, like being debilitated? When we simply live in the moment we can trust that as changes in our bodies take place we can deal with them sanely and without stress when the time comes. We simply see and enjoy life as it is, however that is. How do you know you’re not supposed to be as vigorous and vibrant as you once were? You’re not. Nothing to fight or resist. You’re left to just do what you do and be happy without a story. Everything you need to deal with any event will be there when you need it.

The clear message is to question your beliefs and see what’s true. Is it true you shouldn’t be slowing down or getting a neck that shows your age if that’s what’s happening? Obviously not. Would you start a war with reality by fighting a battle reality will always win because it’s just what is?

As you put yourself out there in dating you can be sure you’ll be a much more attractive date and potential partner if you’re happily seeing the beauty of life as it really is instead of falling prey to your beliefs about how it should be or terrifying yourself about how it might be in the future.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

236. Hiding hurt feelings is dishonest and a recipe for failure

You’ve lived long enough by this age to have had the experience – probably with a spouse – of resentments and angers building up over time. You’re probably nodding your head “yes” as you read this. But have you ever thought what it really means that hurt feelings build up? To have something build up it has to accumulate over time doesn’t it? Ah, and there’s a huge problem. We let things build up.

In other words, we’re dishonest in our relationships. We don’t tell our partner when something bothers us. Why? Because we want something we’re afraid we won’t get if we tell what’s true for us. Yes, I know, that sounds harsh doesn’t it? We don’t like to think of ourselves as manipulators who want something. But question it for a moment and what other conclusion could you reach? Even if you say I don’t tell what’s bothering me because I don’t want to hurt my partner, that’s not quite true. We don’t want to see someone else hurt because that hurts us. So we’re still back to wanting something, subtle as it may seem. We don’t want to hurt seeing them hurt.

In the end, though, stifling our real feelings never works anyway does it? Our partner is eventually hurt anyway, usually a lot more than if we had dealt with feelings as they arose. We know that from experience. Feelings pile up and eventually there’s a volcanic eruption. And your partner says, “What the heck just happened?” She doesn’t see that your eruption has almost nothing to do with the current issue and everything to do with resentments from the past that she couldn’t deal with because she didn’t know about them.

Since it’s pretty easy to recognize that piled up hurts don’t help. And since we can also see we let those feelings pile up because we want something or we’re afraid of losing something, what’s the solution? The solution goes back to what sages have been saying for eons: question life and see what’s true.

Ask yourself, what am I afraid of losing or not getting? Do I think there will be a big blowup? Am I afraid of my partner’s anger or hurt feelings? Then ask yourself if believing those thoughts and covering over your hurt emotions has ever worked. If not, maybe you’ll start to see that you’ve been fooling yourself. The old way of hiding feelings is just a recipe for disaster. And that can be the death of a relationship when resentments are so big you can’t feel any love for your partner any more. Then you can say, “Was the hiding and dishonesty worth it?”

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

235. Give up control and see what a fun adventure mature dating can be

Have you ever noticed how much most of us try to control life? That idea is so habitually pervasive that we don’t even notice it. Yet when we’re trying to control and can’t succeed it leaves us with an ongoing stress and uneasiness that serves as the background for all our waking moments. We carry that disappointing grayness with us everywhere.

Here are just a few examples of how we try to control situations pertaining to dating:
o We work hard to say the right thing or look the right way so our new date will approve of us. (We’re trying to control what they approve of.)
o With anger or withdrawal we try to make our partner live the way we want them to live and be who we want them to be.
o We lie and spread on compliments we don’t believe so we can get something from our partner.
o We fail to say no when that would be honest so we can gain the favor of our partner.
o Our partner ends our connection and we feel sad and hurt because we can’t make life be the way we want it to be.
o We use jealousy as a tool to try to control who our partner allows into her life.

In these ways and countless others we make ourselves miserable by trying to control life, without realizing that life is living us and we have no more control than a flower has over when it opens or a tree controls when leaves bud in the spring.

If this doesn’t make sense question just the ordinary everyday happenings in life and things might look different for you. How much control did you have over the weather today, or the instant you fell asleep last night, or the moment of your birth or your height, eye color or hair thickness? Did you control when you last got sick or the last thought you had? If control really worked wouldn’t we have pretty much everything the way we want it by this age in our lives?

Life has been as it is for centuries before we got here and will probably continue for centuries after we’re gone – all without any control by us. Don’t you think we’ve come on the scene pretty late to exercise any control over how life decides to be? Since we, as humans, are another expression of life just being itself maybe we could just notice that, and watch instead of trying to control. If you try this you’ll be amazed at how simple life is and how happy you’ll be while dating at this age of your life. The stress, anxiety, worry, disappointment and despair can all be gone. If they show up again they’re just the perfect signal to remind you that you’re trying to control life again.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer

234. She was devastated when he ended their romance, now the tables are turned

Life is much easier, I’ve found, when we take it as it is. Instead – and you could almost say this is a hallmark of most mature dating – we’re nearly always looking for what isn’t. “I need a man,” or “I need a woman in my life,” we think. Instead of dating because it’s just the natural thing to do we tend to think we need something that someone else can give us.

But do we really know what we need? Can we relax and enjoy life when we’re always striving and seeking? It’s like rushing for a plane to get somewhere. Once we arrive we can stop rushing. But in dating we’re often rushing constantly. The stress is always in the back of our minds: “My life won’t be happy until I have a partner.” It’s a thought that comes from somewhere and we latch onto it and believe it. Where did that thought come from? Where does it go when we’re not thinking it? It’s so transient how can it be real? Yet we usually treat our thoughts as almost sacred. We believe them totally, and we hurt as a result.

I know a woman in her mid-60s who fell madly in love with a man about five years ago. He ended the relationship some months later and she was devastated. Later they maintained some contact and became friends. Recently they’ve gotten together a few times and it’s clear to her that he really wants to resume their romance, and even wants now to marry her. But she’s not so sure. When before she thought her happiness was ended forever because he was gone from her life, she’s now seeing that he may not be the right guy at all. She realizes now that her earlier belief that life was over for her wasn't accurate at all.

Can we really know what’s best for us? That life force that brought us into being and keeps us alive is actually doing the living that we call “my” life. We’re being lived. Yet we think, somehow, that we know what’s best for “my” life instead of trusting that maybe things are exactly as they’re meant to be.

What do we really know about this life force? What do we know about how our futures should look? When you think about it, isn’t it awfully stressful to always be living with an eye toward how life could be if only we had that perfect partner? What’s that feel like? How would it feel if we simply relaxed, dated, enjoyed the adventure, and watched as life played itself out? Whichever way we view life, the actual events are going to be just as they are anyway. Maybe it makes sense to just love things as they are and stop the stress of trying to control what we can never control. Life is. That’s it.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer