91. Forget the meaning of dating and relationships and just relax into what is

As we’ve gotten a little older (notice I said a little!) we tend to think we’ve also gotten a lot wiser. As we date now in these mature years we have a better sense of what we want and what we can expect from people than we did when we were younger and less experienced. Unfortunately, it’s the very idea that we think we know, or should know, that often causes us the most pain in dating.

Some years ago I was friendly with a woman who was dating and falling much in love with a local dentist. Mary Ann was getting to know his children and family and saw a bright future for herself with him as her husband. He was bright, wealthy, handsome and just the right man. Then she discovered that he had also been dating other women. She was devastated. Why, she wanted to know, would this happen? Why would a man she trusted be so deceitful? She agonized over this for months. She wanted reasons. She wanted answers. She couldn’t let go of it.

But living life as it is doesn’t provide answers. We really have to learn to live in the “not knowing”, in the mystery of life as it shows up. That “why” question can be our downfall. We’ve been conditioned to think there’s got to be an answer. We think meaning would somehow bring us security. We’d have something stable to hang on to, a sense that we’re not just dangling, that we know how life works. We want all the pieces of the puzzle to fit. So we put in a lot of energy and struggle trying to find that meaning.

The reality of life, though, is that it doesn’t really have meaning except the meaning we give it. When we stop trying to find answers we may be able to relax and just see that life is what happens, and it doesn’t need to make sense to us. We can allow it to be just the way it is. It may look like chaos and we may feel bereft and beleaguered as though we’re hanging in space and not knowing what to do. When we just do the next logical thing in front of us though, the fear of insecurity is gone.

When you look you’ll see that life usually doesn’t turn out the way we expected. Many of us weren’t in the career we thought we’d be in, we didn’t expect to be single at this stage of our lives, we had more or fewer childen than we thought we’d have, and so on. As I’ve said before in these essays, life doesn’t ask for our opinion.

We think all should make sense to “us”, as though we could see from a large enough perspective. We think it should mean what we want it to mean. But think about this: We’re totally OK with life not having meaning in many ways. What meaning does music have? We don’t have to try to figure that out. What meaning is there in going dancing? Is there meaning to a mountain? Or a snow storm? Or the ebb and flow of the tides?

If everything is allowed to be just what it is, you’ll notice that its energy just moves and flows, as it will, whether we’re trying to figure it out or not.

I’m reminded of the children’s story:
Little Bo-peep has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them.
Leave them alone and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them.

The pain of an ending relationship, if seen simply as “what is”, will take care of itself when we leave it alone and stop struggling with its meaning. We can be willing to simply rest in the unknowing (leave them alone) and see that life continues to unfold its own way. The struggle (that was only mind-made in the first place) is over.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

90. Without opinions and judgments happiness in mature dating is easy

Since we were very young we’ve been programmed to think that when we get what we want we’ll be happy. Even in the face of the lie that actual living shows that belief to be, we still somehow think that’s how life works: “Get what I want and I’m happy. Don’t get what I want and I’m unhappy.” In the case of being single in these mature years we often think we need a partner or a mate to be happy.

Yes the Wise Ones throughout the centuries have told us the opposite. An ancient and revered Chinese spiritual text of the 14th century, is called the Hsin-hsin Ming, or The Mind of Absolute Trust. It’s several pages long and written in the form of short statements about how to live an awakened or enlightened life of contentment

The very first statement of this honored writing says this: “The Great Way is not difficult for those not attached to preferences.” What the author is obviously saying is that when we simply see the reality of life as it is, when we don’t think it should be “our” way instead of the way it is, we’re at ease with life.

He goes on in other parts of the text to say, “To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.” And, “When one is free from attachment, all things are as they are and there is neither coming nor going. When in harmony with the nature of things, your own fundamental nature, you will walk freely and undisturbed.”

So let’s take a look at this ancient wisdom in terms of mature dating. Can that understanding from centuries ago apply to the day-to-day disappointments, frustrations and psychological hurts of seeking a new mate at this stage of life? For me, the answer has been a definite Yes. Here’s why. Most of my life I lived with the belief that things should go my way. If they didn’t I was unhappy, sometimes in deep pain. After all, I shouldn’t have been divorced, I was a good husband and father. I shouldn’t have been widowed, I had a beautiful second marriage and I should have been able to enjoy Karen’s warmth and love into old age.

Now I’ve been single more than 11 years when I thought I’d be in a new marriage within a few years. Many friends have been divorced or widowed in those years and they’re coupled with a new mate already. What’s wrong?

Well, what I’ve now learned, after following the pointers of those Wise Ones from the past and today, is that nothing is wrong. Life simply lives itself and we as humans are part of the expression of that One Essence that shows up as everything that is. That Intelligence Energy or Supreme Power keeps the solar systems in place as well as beating my heart and breathing my lungs. It (God is a word many use) obviously knows what It’s doing, even when from our self-centered viewpoint It appears not to. Seeing that, it’s now easy for me to see that if I was supposed to have a new spouse now I would.

So, applied to senior dating here’s the bottom line. What’s supposed to happen is happening, not because it’s “supposed to” for some righteous or moral reason but “supposed to” because it IS. For you and me it’s simply a matter of seeing reality as it is, to begin to find more peace and happiness in our lives. In truth there is no “you” and “me”. Instead, there’s just a body that was brought into existence and is being lived AS an apparent individual. It’s that false notion of being a separate individual that causes us to hurt because we take the thoughts that show up for all of us, and try to make them our own. We add our opinions and judgments – judgments that argue with “what is”. The moment we argue with what already is we hurt.

Someone ended a relationship with you? That’s The Power expressing Itself that way. You haven’t found the right partner yet? That’s The Power expressing Itself that way. A tornado ripped through a neighborhood and killed 87 people? That’s The Power expressing itself that way. What else could it be? When surrendering to “what is” happens then we simply see Life as it is. And when we’re not arguing with Life and fighting reality we’re in the place of being fully present to every experience as it happens, whether it’s relishing the smell of a rose or fully devouring the delicious taste of a tender kiss.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer

89. You can wait for happiness or be happy, even without a partner

[I’ve been on another project so that’s why my articles stopped for awhile. Thanks for your patience. - Chuck]

Yesterday I was talking to a friend who’s husband had died five years. “We worked hard all our lives and we were looking forward to retirement so we could do some traveling and enjoy things together. But then he died before that time came and we never got to do it. I wish we hadn’t waited,” she said.

Waiting to really live didn’t pay off. They postponed living, always expecting the future would be better than it is now. “When we retire...” they said. But how many single people do the same thing – postpone happiness while they wait for the right mate. “When I find the right partner......then I’ll be happy.” So they wait for a happiness that can never come in the future because living is only now, in this moment. The future is always a projected Now, and the mind’s shenanigans will always make it look better than this Now.

So as we wait for that future happiness we remain miserable, lonely, always longing. There’s another way. Why not learn to look into this moment and its joys, to be grateful and happy for this moment, the only moment you’re living anyway? Why argue with this moment by thinking it’s not good enough and some future will be better? Why not, instead, accept this moment and be happy now? Chances are good you’d be a lot more attractive person to a potential mate if you were happy now instead of always having some part of you tied up with the longing and the aching for that perfect Mr. or Ms. Right.

I’ve said for a long time that having another partner would be frosting on the cake. But I have to be my own cake. When you’re the cake instead of looking for someone else to be the cake for you, you’re free. Free from the longing. Free from needing someone, which leads to clinging and jealousy, the very behavior that’ll push a potential mate away. Living now is simply being present to life as it is.

Waiting is another way to say you’ve stopped living. You’re not enjoying the moment, just going through the motions while that nagging negativity runs in the background, coloring every aspect of your life. We don’t seem to notice that any “future” we dreamed of – that now has come and gone – never made life better for more than a very short time.

Take a look at your whole life. Look at all the things in the past that you thought were going to make you happy – getting a new car, house, husband, or getting the kids out of the house, getting rid of a mate, dating that right guy or gal. Did any of those things bring you lasting happiness? “No,” you say, “but give me another few months and they will, this time.”

Meantime, what you’re doing is called existing. It’s not living. That existing has no passion, no flair, no zest, no presence to it. You’re going through the motions of life but not really living. And you know it. You don’t have to look very deep inside to say, “Yes, my life is just a dull sameness. No matter what activity I’m involved with there’s always that undercurrent of nagging unhappiness and misery.” There’s no freshness in that, no taste of joy, it’s just existing, in a constant state of unhappiness and misery. Not a piercing pain, just a dull sense of unease that can be so subtle you even mask it from yourself.

It’s easy to know when you’re living only for the future. How? You can feel it. It’s that gnawing feeling of loneliness, sadness, despair, even mild or sometimes major panic: “This isn’t good enough. This isn’t the way I’d planned it. Life isn’t going the way I wanted. I have to work harder, be better, figure out more ways to be attractive? Then, I’ll find the right person and then I’ll be happy!”

What about being happy now? What about noticing all the things you have to be grateful for now, and living in that? What about just living in this moment, being fully present to what is? Is it really true that a new partner would make life better? Can you know that for sure? Reality is that it’s just not meant to be for you right now. You know that because it’s the way it is. Deal with reality and not your “little me” desires and fantasies and you may notice that life is good already.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer