Crazymakers. We’ve seen them in sitcoms, and if you’ve dated one, you know how passionate it can be, dating a narcissist. There’s a rush of aliveness, like hanging on the wing of an airplane with a parachute on your back. The maelstrom of emotions brings the thought “wow, this is so intense, I guess it’s love“.

For those who have any existential malaise or some sense of internal lack, the intensity is a powerful allure. That rush feels alive. That’s what the first few months of dating a narcissist felt like.

First off, unlike most posts out there, I don’t view the word narcissist with a negative vibe. They are human beings. A narcissist will have swaths of internal pain, incredibly unstable emotions, and ways of managing those emotions that can hurt and destabilise others. It’s the only way they know, and without acting like that they’d likely fall apart. I’m for balanced compassion, not blame. But as anyone knows, dating one can turn into a train wreck.

Those “How to Recognize a Narcissist” posts out there?

If you’ve been on Facebook at all this last decade you’ve likely seen posts about recognizing a narcissist. There’s this Psychology Today one. And this, where it’s not as obvious as you think. Or this. They’re all great and insightful – after you’ve already broken up. They’re useful in recognizing one subtype – the narcissist who is also a dumb-ass psychopath. Most people would usually stay away from those anyway.

The average narcissist is a very hurt but well-meaning person who doesn’t want to be completely self-centered and really tries not to be. They will also read these articles and complain about how they’ve been hurt from narcissists they’ve dated themselves. That is often true. It’s simply that their past trauma prevents them from seeing their own behavior clearly.

My story

I started dating Narcissa (not her real name) about half a year ago. I felt a spark, and so did she. I was in a loving, open relationship already which wasn’t perfect, but still had an incredible amount of love and caring in the dynamic – the most I’d ever known. I introduced Narcissa to my long-time partner and tried to be honest and caring to both of them.

Part of why I’ve been attracted to polyamory has been growth. Different parts of me come out with different people, and I’m always curious about making relationships healthier. Narcissa was great at pointing out any codependency with my partner, ostensibly with our best interests at heart. At first, I was glad for a third pair of eyes. She wasn’t wrong; there was “emotional violence” in my existing relationship, referring to tone of voice or subtle unintentional threats based on control for safety. We both have our own attachment disorders, which I wrote about last year.

Getting insights about my faults and my partner’s flaws did help with our growth, but a narcissist is incapable of admitting their own faults. This led to a cycle of covert blame and projection. In an increasingly uneasy sea of control dynamics and flying judgments, I began to act out in ways that I wouldn’t have normally. Narcissists project their unhealed parts onto you, their most despised and unconscious beliefs about themselves – because they simply can’t take responsibility for them.

Of course, I have my unhealed parts too. Some of them were clearly asking to be looked at.

Looking back now, I can see many narcissistic characteristics in her: intense preoccupation with looks, clothing, and a haughty mannerism (somatic narcissism). Cerebral narcissism was there too, guiding conversations back to her areas of expertise while speaking with the confidence of a professor. Making grandiose gestures to me – always with strings attached.

Ironically, she was an expert at the theory of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), but when her own emotions were too much to handle, her nonverbal communication exploded. There was a huge cognitive dissonance between the reasonable-sounding words from her mouth, and her tone and body language, which conveyed threat, distrust and a need for control.

These patterns, of course, only revealed themselves over months. That’s why those articles were useless.

Reproducing Patterns – Don’t We All?

My mother was narcissistic, so a part of me is still used to taking care of that kind of ego. Sometimes I joke about what dating is like for me: “Ok, let’s get real. You show me your DSM labels and I’ll show you mine. Oh, Narcissism? Like my mom? That’s HOT!”

That usually gets a laugh because it’s true. Sad – but true.

Growing up with a narcissistic parent made that rush of adrenaline normalized. My survival depended on managing her needs, not mine. If her needs weren’t met, she could suddenly cut off or threaten her connection to me. As Alice Miller described beautifully in “The Drama of the Gifted Child”, I used my sensitivity and intelligence to play parent to my parent, and so learned to ignore my needs, desires, honest thoughts, and emotions.

But because those childhood habits are ingrained in the emotional (limbic) brain, many of them are preconscious. When those survival instincts get fired up with a similar person, it all comes back at once. There’s that rush of adrenaline. And more than that, familiarity. Familiarity always feels good in a way, even if it feels bad at the same time. I remember telling Narcissa it felt like home with her. It took me a while to understand that this it wasn’t a good thing.

That rush of “love” with a narcissist

For those who haven’t jumped out of a plane (I did it for my 30th birthday), it’s a huge rush of adrenaline. Before you jump, you have to walk out on the wings of a Cessna, then drop your legs and hang on to the struts before letting go, looking down 3500 feet. Part of your instincts are telling you that you could die – but it is so alive. All messages are on overdrive, filling the body with chemicals, so it creates a huge “rush” feeling. That rush can be addictive, just like amphetamines or cocaine.

The shadow side of the adrenaline override is that other more cognitive brain functions don’t work as well. You can react, but it’s impossible to step back and see things clearly.

Isn’t that what obsessive love feels like?

The phrase “wow, this is so intense, I guess it’s love” says something too. In psychology, it’s called the Two Factor Theory of Emotion, or in this case, misattribution of arousal. In a famous experiment, a moderately attractive girl asked a questionnaire and gave her number for any further questions to random group of men, both in a normal place and in a dangerous place – in this case, on the wobbling Capilano Suspension Bridge looking down hundreds of feet. Those on the bridge who already had their adrenaline circuit activated were significantly more likely to think there was a “connection” and call her back than those in a neutral environment.

If someone gives you the jibbies, it’s love, right? Well, it’s easy to think it is, even if it isn’t. Our brains are trained to.

Our brain is a neural network. That means it doesn’t work like an algorithm. When intense stimulation arises, especially on multiple fronts, we operate on gut instincts – often simply from the loudest input. The cognitive mind comes in afterwards to give a label to the response – which may be completely wrong, such as using the word “love”.

So what to do that would create real change? I can’t change my past. I can’t immediately change my body’s response. I’m not enlightened; I don’t yet have a fully-developed sense of self, and so can get into codependent or appeasing dynamics, because I like to help people. A checklist of narcissistic traits won’t help; you don’t see them all in a person on the first date. So what’s left?

That’s where body (somatic) awareness comes in.

Somatic Smarts

I’ve been into mindfulness (especially in India, as I wrote) and somatic awareness for many years. So as this relationship unfolded, I was curious about what my body was telling me. I began to notice different messages:

• A “walking on eggshells” feeling that this was a person who could erupt or cut off quickly. This was both unsafe and a rush.
• A “recognition” quality of a familiar dynamic. Because of my past, I knew her body signs, and so I was good at pleasing her and showing her affection. It feels good to do this.
• A “pressure” to feel, show, and think certain ways. Because of fairly instantaneous body reactions from her, my body learned quickly what states led to her “fight” response and what to a form of connection.
• Over time, a tiredness. A recognition of how much emotional effort it took to do the above.

These are not things I could have learned from a Psychology Today article. It has taken me years of tracking body states with emotions and relationship dynamics, and taking the time to sit with each one of them. Practice made me able to separate the inputs, and more importantly, to recognize when the “rush” was so strong that subtler messages were certain to be discarded.

Again, that “rush” was linked to not feeling safe. My body couldn’t truly relax – even though there was something comfortable in the familiarity. It took time to trust that I needed that feeling of safety. I deserved it. Why is it so hard to know this?

The Body Never Lies – Listen to It.

These days, we are bombarded by more manipulative messages than we can count consciously. Social media sites are deliberately constructed to manipulate users to spend as much time online through little dopamine rewards, and then we are trained to choose short-term rewards over long-term benefit. Charismatic leaders can sway millions towards pseudoscience, online outrage, or voting against their interests. I know I’m fairly educated and discerning, but I also know how easy it could be for me to be manipulated into making choices not in my best interests. This doesn’t mean I’m defective – it means I’m human. I’m a social animal, and we’re built to be influenced by other humans in a multitude of subconscious manners.

That’s why you can read up all you like about characteristics of a narcissist, and the only help that will give you is your mind giving you a logical reason after the fact about why the whole thing blew up like a mine placed in a manure pile. The trick is recognizing the dynamic of a relationship as it is happening. And that comes from the body.

My body was saying simple things, which I ignored: I feel unsafe. I’m being treated like an enemy, or just a resource to be used. You don’t trust me. You aren’t curious about me.

At the beginning these messages were mixed – and confused – with the excitement of attraction. Now I’ve learned to step back, give my body time and space to process, and recognize that “rush” includes the real message that this dynamic isn’t safe – or respectful.

Which means that now I can say “oh, I recognize this. No.”

Listening to my body’s “No”

The relationship didn’t build up to a huge explosion. I just started listening to my body saying “no”. No to managing her emotional turmoil in a 30-minute phone call before bed every single night.  No to one sided listening.  I asked her to acknowledge her body language and distrust, so there wasn’t a cognitive dissonance. No to the assumption that intensity was love.

She pushed back and continued her demands until one night, something seemed to break. I saw in her eyes she was in overwhelm – deep feelings of helplessness and trauma. Suddenly it wasn’t a power struggle any more, but two human beings talking to each other, both with pain, both not knowing what to do. I relaxed more, hoping we could connect from a more honest and vulnerable place. Perhaps she could be honest about what she was defending inside.

But it was too much for her – she broke it off the next day, and her attitude towards me spun a full 180 degrees, switching dramatically from a “love” to someone to be deathly afraid of. Whatever I’d triggered in her, she absolutely could not face. Whatever we’d built did not include trust to go there, under any circumstances.

Coming back to center

In some ways the experience was humiliating for me, feeling how controlled I could be by eruptive reactions, and how I still haven’t developed a grounded, stable core sense of self. But humbling as it was, it unearthed some truths that needed to be acknowledged. In my relationship with my partner, we avidly saw past codependency and emotional violence, coming from the desire to control the other instead of accept. We were both mature enough and growth-centered to want to see how our dynamic could improve.

There was hurt. Hurt is a hard thing to move beyond, because it is an assault on safety and trust. Both of us were able to allow that to be there – in our bodies – and still have a connection. Connection is about honesty, both with one’s self and others, and trust and bonding builds (and rebuilds) from that. As I’ve written before, real bonding is different from commitment – it builds from an in the moment trust that nothing is suppressed or controlled.

And it has. We’re travelling in India now, discovering a different kind of trust. It helps that there’s space and time here. Both of us are doing plenty of somatic meditations – connecting to ourselves more fully and then approaching each other from that. This has created a sense of possibility, allowing change of habits that drew me into pleasing a narcissist.

Everyone can be narcissistic at times – I have a saying that enough stress turns anyone into a narcissist, so it’s no wonder we see those behaviours frequently in this over-stressed world.  But being present in my body, learning its subtle messages, has both made me less stressful and less drawn in by crazymakers. It’s also opened me up to what real connection is.  It’s connection that doesn’t have that “rush” – but still feels alive.  An aliveness coming from relaxation and openness.

And deep connection, as Johann Hari’s latest book “Lost Connections” describes, is what we all live for. And need.

The post What I learned from dating a narcissist: the body never lies. appeared first on Loving Awareness.

Intense feelings can literally be an intense pain in your gut. They’re hard to sit through on your own, and they’re often a cause of conflict and stress with others.  And even when they’re not intense, they can often be socially inappropriate, leading people to lie either verbally or with our body language.  So it’s easy to think of them as problems, pushing them away and trying to be ‘rational’.

But pushing them away causes even more buildup and problems.  And in the aftermath of #metoo, with the public acknowledgement of decades of hurt and resentment laying there for many, it is vitally important we find ways to actually work with the quagmire of built up feelings. This means going beyond venting and online shaming – many groups perhaps have a deep need for their own version of Truth and Reconciliation. This by necessity means working with what’s going on, deep in our brains and bodies, in a way that promotes actual transformation and doesn’t see them in a negative light.

We are not Spocks

Feelings are the foundation of human experiences.  No matter how ‘logical’ you think you are, when you make a choice, it’s because something about it feels good or bad.   Neuroscientists know that feelings are a requirement for choice – when you block feelings, you are actually unable to make choices.⁽¹⁾One patient, Eliott, after removing part of his frontal lobe, kept all of his intelligence but was unable to feel emotions in making decisions – and as a result, he was incapable of making decisions. Source: The Decisive Moment: How the Brain Makes Up Its Mind by Jonah Lehrer (2009) So repression can seriously affect your choice making.  But in this rushed world, who actually has time to completely feel emotions?  Most of the time we ignore them until they’re screaming at us, affecting our lives until we wonder why we made that stupid decision or got in an abusive relationship.  But feelings can become good friends – no matter what they are.  It’s vitality important that they do.

Fuck the “Fuck Your Feelings” motto

Mark Manson wrote “Fuck your feelings”, saying that feelings shouldn’t be what you live your life by, that it’s up to you to control the meaning of them and your actions.  And there’s some truth to that – living an impulsive, unexamined life can be a path to addiction and misery.  Buddha’s Four Noble Truths say that those impulses of craving and aversion are the source of suffering in our lives.

But unlike Mark Manson⁽²⁾I’m not totally against Mark Manson’s philosophy, so long as it’s used to achieve short term goals. It’s more that fucking your feelings for a long time can get your life fucked, Buddha taught that the path to a life without suffering about completely welcoming what’s there, especially feelings.  Learning to feel completely, without imposing meaning or judgement.  Removing the dams blocking our internal rivers of thoughts and emotions and letting them flow naturally in the lush landscape of our bodies and community.

When this happens, feelings of connection and well-being seem to come naturally.  But all too often this doesn’t happen, with tragic results.

When feelings aren’t welcomed

I knew a woman, Claire (not her real name), who threw herself into mountain climbing and found a home with the local community, which was small enough that everyone knew each other.  She then went on a date with a guy in the community, things happened, she said no… and she was raped.  Claire was devastated: full of hurt, distrust and rage at being violated.

Hurt, distrust, and rage are uncomfortable emotions.  But they’re also right.  They are important to feel.  They’re also important to feel with someone – in the presence of someone trusted, who can be attuned, who can feel with you.  That’s what support – and compassion – is.

She, of course was in shock.  Rape victims usually are.  At first, she likely didn’t even know all she was feeling or what she needed and the jumble was visible.  But when she tried to tell others what happened and what she was experiencing, people got uncomfortable – women and men alike.  I don’t think they didn’t believe her.  They just didn’t want to feel those painful feelings – including their own about the effect on the small community.  So her friends just tried to change the subject, to avoid the emotions, which added to the quagmire in her gut, feeling dismissed, invalidated, and alone.  Claire was covertly (but unintentionally) ostracised and the guy continued to be a part of the community.  I think many wanted to support her. They just didn’t have the capacity to feel those intense, painful emotions along with her, and accept the upheaval this would cause amongst them, and so pushed the topic (and her) away.

That’s what happens when we create years of habits of pushing feelings away.  It doesn’t just hurt them.  It hurts our ability to respond appropriately to friends, to give support.

When I saw her years later, she was still affected by these events.  Her eyes showed distrust of men, and a good deal of resentment at life.  Resentment is the natural emotion when you have to disown strong emotions.

I can’t help but wonder what her life would have been like had she had at least one person to weather the storm with, who didn’t just believe her intellectually from afar, but welcomed her even more because of what she was going through.  Because that kind of support makes both people alive.

A deep look at feelings

Ok, let’s get down to semantics for clarity.

Feelings, by definition, are the bare physiological experience in a moment.  This is not an emotion, which is a reaction to something, which in turn we label for communication and understanding.  For instance, if we’re suddenly filled with adrenaline, our body tenses for action, the brain orients outward looking for threat, we might use the word “fear” to label the experience.  But what’s important is the bare experience, and allowing our body to do what’s natural – likely to run away.

Conversely, if we perceive something we know we can handle, the brain might re-orientate, puff up the body and call the experience “anger”.  Both of those words are not the experience themselves.

The problem is when we label an emotion and then stop feeling in the moment.  We lose track of the actual sensations, the present-moment aliveness.  Then the label sticks and it’s part of our identity – we say  “I’m frightened”.  Then it’s a problem to solve, because “I” don’t want to be frightened.  We try to do stuff to make ourselves better, which is usually oriented towards stopping the bare sensations.  And we get caught in the trap of suffering Buddha spoke so profoundly about.

There’s not a problem with intense reactions if they are aren’t “problems” in that way. Once I was rollerblading at high speed through a paved forest path and came across a bear and her cubs smack on the path.  Fuck I was scared.  But I managed to stop a few feet away from the cubs and the momma bear didn’t bat an eye.  My experience wasn’t conceptualised – I was terrified, reacted, and then the feeling moved on.  Nothing stuck.  I learned what Thich Naht Hahn called having “no aftertaste” of an event. I didn’t blame the bear for being there, blame forest management, or let it lessen my desire to glide through a forest in the future. It just flowed and became part of my experience.

Why is this important with others?  Because it’s at this level we form connections with others where mutual support is a natural thing that occurs without effort.  The spiritual teacher Adyashanti once pointed out that if you communicate raw experiences, conflict can never happen, because your experience is always your own.  No one can argue with you.  Conflict happens over interpretations and reasons.  Someone may disagree with why you are frightened, especially if it implies fault, but being simply visible about living in fear is more likely to evoke empathy and compassion.  We come together and even form deeper bonds when we simply share experiences, as they are.

So more about what feelings are, and are not:

Feelings are not stories

All too often when we try to communicate to someone what we’re feeling, we tell a story.  That person did this to me and I reacted, and then this happened and man they hurt me.  The events of the story are usually a mix of fact and implied causation and fault⁽³⁾Non-Violent Communication emphases learning to stick to undebatable facts and a list of non-blaming feelings to avoid conflict. Some feelings may be conveyed, but are often more in the space in between your words, the non-verbal signals, or the metaphors.  If you deliver the story in a dry, detached way, others have little idea of your bare experience in the present moment. It may even sound like you’re over it already.

A story can be an entry point into feelings. When first speaking about a painful experience, as in #metoo, we may want to hesitantly test the waters. Is my audience going to judge me or shame me based on the facts alone? Is it safe to be vulnerable with you? Once you’ve heard my story, are you open to seeing my feelings and how I’m affected now?

But simply telling your story doesn’t mean you’re necessarily feeling the feelings associated with it.

Feelings are not words

When you say “I feel angry”, you know what you mean.  But feelings are like a painting.  They’re colored by life experiences, your family’s use of the word, and all the techniques of breathing (and not breathing) you’ve learned so far.  If you ask 10 people to feel anger, they are going to have 10 different experiences.  Thinking you’ve communicated feeling by a word is like thinking you’ve conveyed the beauty of the Mona Lisa with a 1000 word essay.  It can’t be done.

Some feelings don’t have words – yet

When we’re still processing an intense experience, all too often we don’t even know what we’re feeling.  It’s a raw experience, still unprocessed.  The linear brain is great at making up labels and explanations (which are almost always wrong or incomplete) but not at feeling things out, letting your body speak.  It’s unfortunately that socially there can be so much pressure to find words instead of just being where you are.

Feelings are *always* right

Last week, I indulged some addictive tendencies (video games) in retrospect because there was something I didn’t know how to feel.  I tried, but it all felt so uncomfortable and nothing flowed, so I went back to the game as a temporary pleasure – though like any addiction, it made me feel worse in the long run.  My partner was there, so I asked “can we sit together and breathe?”  And we did, with full attention on each other.  And given that attention, support and compassion, more awareness of my body came, I let myself move and show things on my face.  Eventually tears came – and last of all, I could put words to it.  Words often come last.

It is so important to give space and time for those wordless states.  Our body doesn’t want to be interrupted in its processing.  And attention, without trying to find words, is often the best thing.

Which brings me to the next point.

Feeling is a collaborative act

You’ve probably experienced being with a person in a group where you know in your body some uncomfortable emotion (e.g., anger) will not be accepted – so you don’t feel it.  It is pushed out of  your conscious awareness, because we are incredibly social and interdependent creatures.

On the other hand, there are times I’ve come in the presence of a friend, settled down, and then found emotions I hadn’t been feeling for the whole day.

There are some emotions that are impossible for a person to feel alone.  Sometimes it’s too much to bear, a literal weight in our gut.  It’s at those times we need support to feel with us.  Someone to give space, to breathe with, who is able to give attunement while not getting overwhelmed themselves.  Compassion.

I hope Claire finds that.

In the age of #MeToo

I’ve honestly been trying to back away from the outrage across social media, but one thing is clear from it: there is an incredible amount of hurt out there.  There are the victims of rape and sexual assault, but on the other hand there are all the men who are victims of childhoods where their tender emotions were dismissed and mocked, who have been compensating their whole lives.  There are intense feelings on all sides.  And so many people want to be heard and validated.

This is when it’s important to act from a place that feelings are always right.  Feeling incredibly hurt and distrustful is right.  Feeling suspicious and afraid is right – and remember there are men living lives like that too.  What we need are to feel and get support being exactly where we are.

Let’s be clear: the call out culture makes sure no one feels safe enough to be that vulnerable, to be visible with what’s there in the present moment – or even be in a state to offer real support.  We also need to let go of any idea that healing involves state justice – the courtroom process is incredibly traumatic for victims.  As Judith Levine writes, “The more we entrust the state to mete out justice for sexual infractions, including harassment, the more we collude in the manner in which it administers “justice.”  We know how violent that is.  It affects us all.  Every online spectacle in some way acts in a little voice that you too could be next.

I’m not here to condemn anyone for online violence such as shaming.  That in its own way would be perpetuating violence.  What I want is to encourage healing, reconciliation, the ability for everyone to feel safe being where they are, feeling what’s going on.  That’s getting to the truth of what’s going on in a moment and finding connections from there.  I want to encourage these mini “Truth and Reconciliation” meetings around the world, starting from where are are.

Going Full Circle

Reconciliation and building trust requires the basic understanding that feelings are always right.  Sometimes that’s distrust and rage.  Sometime’s it’s a congealed mix of sensations, a maelstrom of contradictory signals. Sometimes it’s a strange joy at being heard, unexplained and mystical, like getting out of a cave and seeing starlight after being underground for hours.  These are raw experiences, part of being beautifully human.

It’s funny how so many of us really want to know that fundamentally, deep down, we’re good.  And that can only come in each moment.  Knowing that whatever is going on now is good.  It’s right – wherever we are.

To give a personal example, in the last year, there were some breaks of trust with my partner because the polyamory situation that developed was not what she desired.  There was covert violence (e.g., emotional violence in NVC terms) on both sides – not intentionally, but as human reactions to stress (the rest of her life was chaotic too) and feeling pushed.  We might have broken up – distrust was heavy. However, after some time and communication, both of us were able to just be in that state of distrust with each other, without blame.  It was a raw experience with many subtleties I can’t describe in words.  Once that started, other states came to the surface – and those moments of simply being ourselves with all that shit were, in retrospect, moments of love.  When we relaxed into the sense that our feelings were right, the other’s feeling was right, then there was the sense that we were right – and good.  And we still loved each other.  A different kind of trust started to grow.

It’s funny how so many of us really want to know that fundamentally, deep down, we’re good.  And that can only come in each moment.  Knowing that whatever is going on now is good.  Our experience is right – wherever we are.  And when we communicate in our words, in our tone, in our body language, and in our eyes to another person that we see their experience and it is right, that is a moment of connection – and perhaps the beginning of a true reconciliation.

I hope it’s clear this kind of experience can’t happen on the internet (though it can be used to share invitations or inspirations) – or even in crowded, rushed circumstances.  It takes creating a safe container – physically, emotionally and mentally.  A place to be.  Those containers are important, and I hope you take time to create and maintain your own, whatever it looks like.

And I hope you send messages to those you care about: your feelings are always right.  For you.

 

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This is my second week based in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.  I’m writing this in my home-stay overlooking a rice field, slightly sweating in shorts and a t-shirt while it’s a cold and damp winter back home in Canada.  Thousands upon thousands of westerners come here for the “tropical paradise”, yoga classes, and spiritual teachers, hoping to provoke a meaningful life change.

Quite frankly, I’ve found this “paradise” depressing.  The capitalism and endless shops and services are convenient, but a huge chasm in terms of seeing the Balinese way of life.  And the capitalistic mentality infests yoga in a big way.

Yoga is a huge business here – most of the people I’ve met staying here are doing a yoga teacher training.  And it is a true business – centres maximising profit by having large classes, layers of marketing,  clothing lines, continually selling you not just on a particular technique, but a lifestyle, an experience, a way of being.  An identity.  In the class I attended a couple days ago, the teacher was a walking advertisement for yoga – young, beautiful, graceful, with a voice that belonged in a Club Med advertisement.  In other words, the tone and pacing were very controlled and slow, saccharine sweet, conveying “trust me” in all the overtones – but I had no idea who she was as a person.  She was a yoga performance artist.

If authenticity has any value – and it is part of what is “sold” – there is a major contradiction here.  In her voice, the subtler levels of communication were not at all about listening to one’s own body, which involves developing awareness of the whole of the mind/body system, including inner voices for autonomy and one’s own pacing.   It was about creating dependence.   As I looked around me at the 20 or so other yogis (all female), noticing how they breathed, the anxiety in their eyes, a deep unsettling realisation occurred to me.  I was looking mostly at yoga addicts.  In a cult-like atmosphere.

As far as addictions go, this is likely a far healthier one than heroin.  But I want to call it what it is: when you’re dependant on the yoga “vibe”, the blissed out smiles, trained to an automatic following of everything a teacher says, it’s an addiction, a cult-like dependence.  And like with any addiction, there is a cost.

What is Yoga, really?

This isn’t a dig against yoga in itself.  Yoga is a deep spiritual tradition dating back thousands of years, but much of it has been co-opted by our materialist culture.  From my trips to India I’ve understood Hatha Yoga, with its poses and asanas, was traditionally used as a vehicle to aid meditation, not as an end in itself.  According to Pantajali’s Yoga Sutra, postures are just one part of the journey – it describes 8 limbs, including basic morality and right, non-materialist living. ⁽¹⁾Other branches of Yoga include Jnana (spiritual knowledge, honing the mind – not just learning a bunch of sanskrit), Bhakti (service with the understanding of equality and oneness) and Raja (developing wholeness and union through meditation and transcending dualism).  Yoga is traditionally said to mean “union”, but a full expanding of Sanskrit meaning includes “to strand the ties of the mind together, and “to attain what was previously unattainable”.  It involves acting in such a way that all our attention (not just our spiritual part) is directed to the present activity.⁽²⁾Desikachar, “The Heart of Yoga”

The yoga teacher of Krishnamurthi, TKV Desikachar, taught that yoga was meant to be taught one on one, guru to disciple, because only then could instruction about deepening your relationship to your individual body be meaningful.  I took a workshop with one of his students, Oda Lindner, where every movement was slow, designed to focus not on the end result but on the process of motion itself, being present in every slow muscle movement.  It was this that I found incredibly helpful, a step towards a true union with my body.

Modern Yoga and Spiritual Materialism

Mathew Remski wrote recently that yoga can provoke a move towards a “deeper materialism”.  As I understand it, this materialism goes beyond having things, but treating one’s own body as a thing.  The body is a puppet, doing what ‘you’ want – but always trying to conform to the image of yoga postures, putting forward the best image of who one wants to be.  He says “The signs of spiritual virtue in modern global yoga have been inseparable from the visual demonstration of posture, the (usually orientalized) aesthetics of equanimity, and how both of these communicate (a usually ableist) transcendence.”

Ablist, sexy yoga – what does it actually convey?

In other words, it is a performance.  But as an actor, I look at it as a bad performance.  When you see an actor is trying so hard to be the character, force an emotion and body posture that isn’t coming from an authentic place, you call it bad acting.  Why do we not call this bad form of yoga what it is?  

There are indeed well-paid actors like Tom Cruise who act in this manner and are believable in limited roles – simply because there are many people who live their life like this.⁽³⁾From the clips in “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief”, it looks like Tom Cruise is paying a heavy internal price. In my recent yoga class, I didn’t notice any extra anxiety or mixed signals in the teacher, so she was believable as an performance – but again, not as a human being.  No signs of personal emotion, likes and dislikes or personal boundaries were evident.  It make me wonder, if this is her “yoga persona”, what is she really like as a person?

That barrier of a “public persona”, always putting forth one’s best face, can over time create much anxiety and stress.  There is a constant battle with an internal censor, often at a pre-conscious level.   It was possibly a factor in what lead to Buddhist teacher Michael Stone’s accidental overdose of fentanyl. It certainly was a major factor in my own burnout from the corporate world.  But when authenticity is sold in the package of wellness, this is an inherent contradiction and source of stress.

Meditation Marketing

In the world of meditation, I can see a similar trend.  Meditation has its own form of marketing, a vision of a peaceful world, and so people gravitate towards teachers who seem to emanate bliss and calm.  Yet I have not met a meditation teacher yet up close in North America who did not have a public persona, that “split” in the personality.  (This wasn’t so on my previous trip to India, though they were in the small minority).   I don’t mean this as an attack on teachers: I believe it is natural to teach what you most want to learn.  But if what is being taught is to be with what is, in the present moment, then teaching as a performance communicates one shouldn’t be present.  And that disservice to the teaching needs to be made evident.

Think of it: when there is an “ideal self” to show as a teacher then if anxiety, doubt, resentment or other “negative” emotions arise, it will be in some way suppressed or sublimated.  Yet something is shown in the present moment when this occurs, which is often heard by students at an unconscious, limbic system level.  We know when we’re being told surreptitiously to be numb, to suppress emotions and impulses.  It’s part and parcel of our education system, close to two decades of learning to be a “good student” instead of just learning by one’s own intrinsic curiosity.  Often what is not shown speaks volumes.   There is a huge difference, for instance, between a dynamic, vibrant silence with a free and expressive face, and a blank, static version of equanimity.  There is also a difference between a calm but generic advertising voice advocating bliss by yoga and a satisfied, full voice expressing the personal satisfaction gained by the practice.  The quality of a voice communicates so much.  Students will pick up on the difference at some level.

It is unfortunate that sometimes this turns into more of a cult dynamic, where the conscious mind of the student battles mostly unconscious body perceptions and the resulting doubt.  The doubt is taken to be an enemy, a sign that the student isn’t good enough, and so must dedicate themselves with more veracity.  But then again, it is rare that active exploration of subtle, covert messages are encouraged.

There is one western teacher I still love listening to who does seem to show where she’s at: Pema Chodron.  I’ve watched her and listened to her countless hours over the years, and I don’t see or hear the tightness or blankness that I’ve associated with many teachers.  She talks about anxiety like an old friend, and the continuity of the subtleties of her body and voice have helped me greatly in understanding being present.  She never intended to be famous, and it shows – she has a gentle laugh about it.

Authenticity is the real teacher

It’s helpful to understand to understand performance as the antithesis of mindfulness and being with what is.  At a basic level, mindfulness is about loving attention – not just to a part of one’s self, the “spiritual” part, but to all parts.  It’s the parts exiled from our public mask that need that kind attention the most.  And they can only come to the surface to receive that compassionate awareness when the need for performance is dropped.  Authenticity is itself the teacher.

Likewise, so much of what’s in our psyche shows up in our bodies.  There are movements and exploration that embody loving awareness of the physical, enhance proprioception, and lessen the divide of “possessing” a body instead of simply being with a body as a mode of awareness.  In every moment, the body is speaking its intelligence, which is often where emotional intelligence comes from – the gut.  Training one’s body to become a follower of some external yoga authority – joining the yoga ‘cult’ – lessens that awareness.  The body is in itself a great teacher, and one ignores it at one’s peril.

So when you go to a yoga class, or any spiritual teaching, ask yourself in the moment:  does this teacher help me be a whole self, undivided?  Even if the movement is small but definite, that is a teacher worth listening to.  If not, give yourself permission to leave before the class ends and treat yourself to what the core of your body wants to do.  That movement of self-care will help you move towards union.

 

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In one of my last posts about bonding, I briefly mentioned Attachment Theory, which is one way of looking at patterns in how people form deep and lasting connections.  I’ve heard growing talk about it from non-psychologist friends, often wondering why their relationships don’t last.  Like it or not, the attachment styles established in childhood deeply affect how we connect now in every type of relationships, from friendships to romance.   If there, how can we work through deep insecurity to find intimacy and lasting bonds?

Attachment Disorder Background

Since the 60’s, psychologists have observed in both children and adults different means of forming attachments: one healthy (secure) and three unhealthy (avoidant, ambivalent and disorganized).  There are  slightly different dynamics and names for child attachment and attachment in adults.  From past surveys, approximately 50% of people have a secure attachment style.   This means that close to half of the people you’ve encountered will have huge bumps along the road to forming a true bond.   It isn’t impossible – but it does mean there are challenges, anxieties and hurts that will come up along the way.

Essentially, non-secure attachment styles arise because there was no reliable connection with a primary caregiver, which is necessary for learning bonding and emotional regulation.  This makes a strong connection itself create anxiety.   I’ve paraphrased and simplified the 3 different adult insecure types as:

1. The Clinger (anxious-preoccupied): These people have strong experiential memories of there never having unconditional support in connections, so will constantly be asking for reassurance and closeness out of anxiety instead of a relaxed desire for deeper connection.  
2. The Distancer (dismissive-avoidant):  These people had parents who were there but were not attuned or responsive, and so do not know what intimate support is.  Real intimacy can bring up out of control feelings.  They can avoid closeness in order to manage their own arousal level and emotions.  They nevertheless can appear to have high esteem.
3. The Mixed Signaler (fearful-avoidant).  Associated with abusive childhoods, this person likely came from a home where closeness and support was associated with hurt and fear, where the only support were the abusers.  Without self-awareness, they will at times give signals that they want both closeness and want to run screaming, sometimes simultaneously. They need attachment and fear it at the same time.  This can be very confusing to those close to them.

First, let me point out that these are rough generalities, not labels set in stone.   Even those with secure tendencies have no guarantee of having loving, safe, lasting connections, especially if someone has led an unquestioned life.  We are living in a society which has poor models of what makes a relationship ‘work’, and unrealistic expectations abound, from work to intimate relationships.  As I’ve written, real bonding is not the same as commitment, especially in our overstressed world.

These are often drawn in this graph, with two axis of avoidance (as a coping mechanism) and of anxiety (out of not trusting bonding):

I like this illustration because it makes it clear there is a range within each label.   Far too often psychological labels, especially those in the DSM, are used to put someone in a box.  The axes also give clues to how to work with the behaviors.

Even those with secure tendencies shouldn’t rest on their laurels.  If you’re in the secure quadrant, that means you mostly feel that close connections are dependable and supporting.   It’s a base.  However, families have their own taboos.  For instance, one partner I had grew up in a secure, loving family, but like many Canadian homes, no one was comfortable with anger being expressed.  This created an atmosphere where any spontaneous eruption of anger created waves of anxiety which in turn led to distancing. Thus, when honest anger showed its face she could display strong avoidant tendencies just for that issue – “I’m leaving.  Let me know when you’re calm”.  Similarly, there can be ranges of attachment behavior one person has for different sexes and kinds of connections.

Back to the insecure styles, each of these tendencies arises because a childhood need wasn’t met and adaptive strategies were created to cover up hurts and buried emotions.  They can therefore be looked at as a fairly common kind of childhood trauma.  Remember that neglect can be just as much of a cause of trauma as abuse!  I don’t mean to imply this means there’s anything wrong with anyone – just that heavy emotions are to be expected, so caution is warranted.

Most posts about this topic usually end here, because they’re written by a therapist who is in part trying to gain business.   But deep attachments aren’t just about how a relationship looks like, they’re about the deep interdependency that comes with mutual support.  How emotions are processed is fundamentally intertwined.

Emotional Regulation

Growing up, one of the absolute necessities of life is caring attunement. When overwhelmed, we needed someone to calm and soothe us. When we were under-stimulated, we need someone safe to play with or to coax us to explore and learn.  We needed someone to validate our emotions and to provide a connection that was solid through the full range of human experience, including all of anger, sadness, pain and joy.  These experiences train our brains with habits that help us do all of this to ourselves as adults, and to provide the esteem to connect with others without covering up our inner experiences  This is all called emotional regulation.  We largely don’t think about it because it happens unconsciously, but it affects us all profoundly.  It governs how we react after a long stressful day: do we grab a drink, talk to a friend, or isolate in front of the TV?

Emotions play a huge role in decision making.  The renowned neuroscientist  Antonio Damasio observed patients with brain damage in the part of the brain related to processing emotions and found them incapable of making even the most minor decision.  Small wonder they affect all the subtle actions in forming a connection.

This is important this because it’s impossible to separate attachment and intimacy with how we govern emotions. Let’s face it, intimacy is scary. Ideally in a close relationship we can let go of protections, masks and controls without giving away our own autonomy or self of self.   We are then touched, moved and even transformed like a chemical reaction. We never know how that will turn out; when protections are dropped, we might feel mystically alive and loved, but on the other hand, something may trigger hurt and overwhelm in a moment’s notice. You can’t control it – if you could, it wouldn’t be real intimacy.  And letting emotions be just what they are is a major part of intimacy.

I like to say feeling emotions is a collaborative act. Have you ever noticed that around reserved, unemotional people it’s much harder to let emotions simply flow without restraint?  A deep attachment is one where you feel safe feeling absolutely everything with your partner.

Attachments cannot be separated from emotional regulation. They are the essence of support – a part of which is feeling together.  We let some of another’s emotions inside us and vice versa.  Support helps us process stress, make sense of our emotions and gives a sense of purpose in our lives.

If you don’t have a secure attachment style, chances are you don’t have much experiential trust that this kind of support is available. So how to build that trust when you don’t know how it works?

Working with what’s there

I’ll make a confession to you – if there’s one phrase that I loathe being told, it’s “fake it till you make it”. ⁽¹⁾The other phrase I loathe is “maybe you should see someone”.  In other words – you have a problem and now get out of my face.  I’d rather someone say the latter directly.  Far too many people try to live their lives by this.  We’re regularly told ‘good’ characteristics, such as the habits of successful people and then we think we should imitate them.  This usually means suppressing emotions that lead to ‘bad’ behaviors, which in turn actually reinforces our maladaptive ways of dealing with emotions.

The primary building block of deep, long lasting, supportive bonds is intimacy.  There’s no faking that.  Intimacy requires the ability to connect with whatever is there in the moment. It includes intimacy with one’s own self.  Even with an insecure attachment style, there can still be intimacy – it just may not look ‘normal’.  

I myself come from a fearful avoidant attachment style – the most ‘fucked up’ of them all.   My mother was borderline personality with a counselling degree and never noticed or respected boundaries of any kind – physical, sexual, emotional.  I grew up both desperately lonely and experiencing closeness as painful.   Yet I am over three years into a wonderful and fulfilling relationship that is the most secure and fulfilling that either of us have ever known.  Relationship patterns don’t define the future.  What does create a loving future is regular connection just as we are – intimacy.

What Makes Intimacy

Intimacy is something hard to define, because what each person considers intimacy varies greatly.  From my experience, there is a strong correlation with attachment style.

I remember listening to a friend (call her Mary) about her on again/off again relationship with a shy, uncomfortable but well meaning guy (Doug).  It was clearly a chaser/distancer dynamic, where Mary would go through cycles of insecurity in the relationship, pressure him to talk about it and his emotions, which Doug might try for a bit before feeling overwhelmed and then withdrawing.  At times, she would pursue more firmly which usually led to him completely cutting off.  Then he would miss her and rekindle the connection.  This cycle repeated for months and months.

It’s easy to pick sides here or to give advice (even DTMFA), but first let’s look at what was going on under the surface.  I could hear Mary’s distress in having to ask him to have one of those ‘talks’.  She was feeling tremendously insecure and wanting that to change.  One common behavior inside an anxious-preoccupied dynamic is to reach out compulsively (or show distress) and imply it’s your partner’s responsibility to make it better – making them emotionally responsible for you.  This came from being overwhelmed with the emotion and not knowing how to process it herself. 

For those of you familiar with Non Violent Communication, one of the hallmarks of it is the removal of pressure, including all reward and punishment implications.  In other words, the desire for truth and honesty is clearly stated.

On her partner’s side (who I never met, but I can project from my own past experiences) he likely felt the emotional pressure, did not have the trust or experience in finding words that were honest about what he was feeling at that moment (a part of being avoidant, having less practice), and so did what he thought she wanted for a while before the emotions built up, the dam burst and he did the only thing he knew to regulate his own emotions – run.  She didn’t know what he was feeling throughout the exchange.

This is a prime example on why closeness is not the same as intimacy.  You can force someone to be close to you (which can be a form of violence!) but you can never force intimacy.  Intimacy can grow at its own pace, but you can only plant the seeds.

While Mary in her own mind was trying to get intimacy, and even using that word with him, she was pushing for it on completely her own terms.  She was defining what intimacy was – sitting down for one of those Relationship Talks.  She didn’t listen to what he wanted, or what intimacy looked and felt like to him.  

Admittedly, someone with an anxious-avoidant style doesn’t often overtly ask for intimacy, but when it happens it’s because of a conscious choice.  There will always be the desire to run, but intimacy in one particular moment can look like “the door is open, I can go at any time – but I’m choosing to connect, at least for now”.  It can be through email, rather than in person, where the ability to connect words with emotions is perhaps a little stronger.  It always comes from a place of agency and choice.  Cornering the avoidant type backfires all the time.

How would that look like between both of them?  As always, it’s a dance of the moment.  Real intimacy doesn’t come from making rules, but is about letting go of control of what it looks like.  Creativity and flexibility are extremely helpful – it’s all about going with the flow of what’s here now.

Differing Relationship Styles

As I’ve mentioned, I’m in an alternative style (non-monogamous) relationship.  We’ve been seeing each other for over 3 years now and love each other dearly.  We don’t live together.  Yet there is intimacy, commitment and bonding.

I wrote a little about my journey connecting with her in a past post, which in retrospect is very connected to navigating intimacy with my fearful avoidant style.  In summary, it worked because I tried to be honest and visible with everything that was going on, including all the distrust and fear that was present in my system while being clear I was ok with that being there.  I was self-aware enough to not demand of her the management of my emotions, saying that I simply wanted her seeing them and being connected through it all.  It helped that we lived apart and I could always escape if too much was exploding inside.  Rather than being disturbed by my state, she was actually more curious and grateful that I was courageous enough to reveal my depths without the usual drama associated with such emotions.  She calls me the healthiest really fucked up person she’s ever known. She had to let go of many expectations of what a relationship should look like, but has consistently said how much I’ve expanded her worldview, appreciation and compassion for others.  She was married for a decade which was stable but stagnated over time.  As she says, with me it’s never boring.  And I’m continually amazed how appreciative she is when I am very visible with my non-secure emotions.  It’s the trust that we can both be completely visible with every emotion that being human entails that has turned insecure emotions into security.  In other words, it’s about the connection, not what it looks like on the outside.

This is why I always believe the structure of a relationship should adapt itself to the people involved, not the other way around.  I find it wonderful that there’s much more open discussion about relationship forms now.  Suppression is an enemy of intimacy, and one major source of suppression is the attempt to conform to relationship roles.  These can be based on gender, but also ideas on what love and romance is, what fidelity is, or even what it is to be a ‘good person’ when close to someone.  In intimacy, we need to know we are good, and it should never be dependent on what emotions or desires are present.  In everyone there are emotions that culturally aren’t considered ‘loving’.  And yet people love each other wonderfully with them there.

For some, this can look like Solo Polyamory – an emphasis on autonomy without predefined rules, but with listening and respect.  For others, it can mean a more traditional structure with regular time for expressing crazy emotions in a safe way.  Some people don’t want as much raw intimacy as I like – and this is fine, but make sure expectations are set clearly without pressure.

So instead of faking it, be real and honest.  Focus on the connection rather than what it looks like.  How can you be more you?  If you’re avoidant, how can you include the desire to flee in the connection?  How can you include shyness in closeness?   If you’re preoccupied, how can you be visible with any raw insecurity without pressuring?  We all have insecurities.  If you’re in the secure style, use that as a base rather than a prison.  We all grow closer by testing the limits of our vulnerabilities, as that is what builds trust.

While there is a correlation between long lasting connections and a secure attachment style, it is far from a definite thing.  Those with secure pasts have relationships blow up and those with an insecure style can discover a long term sense of family they didn’t know could exist.  In fact, in this world where there are very few portrayals of realistic healthy relationships in the media, sometimes it’s an advantage to be forced to question everything.  You come out with a greater sense of self – and therefore more depth for others to connect to.  There’s a style out there for every attachment!

The post Detaching from attachment styles appeared first on Loving Awareness.

For the last two months, I’ve been in India on a sort of meditative retreat.  I say “sort of” because it’s not a true retreat – I am dealing with all the chaos of India, roads, and people – and much of the meditation is informal, unlike almost all retreats in the West.

It’s a funny thing how people get into meditation.  We read articles about the wonderful brain states it can coax forth, even inner peace.  People get sold into the lifestyle – mindfulness is promoted even in the corporate world now.  According to promotional writings, regular meditation can bring incredible benefits, including physical health, creativity, relaxation, energy, confidence, and a sense of oneness.  So we strive for that.

But meditation is not about doing something.  It’s not about getting anywhere or getting results.  Trying to do meditation, to get somewhere else, is in my opinion a mental masturbation.  A mindfuck.  That’s one thing I’ve had plenty of in my life.  Not any more.

The Holy Mountain of Arunachala

Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India.   An incredibly holy place in India.  The city buttresses a mountain, Arunachala, which is said to be a physical incarnation of Shiva, the god of fire and transformation.  On every full moon, literally hundreds of thousands of people circuit the mountain barefoot, blocking all the roads, creating lines of cars and buses miles long.  It’s quite a sight.  It’s also associated with Ramana Maharshi, one of the most revered Indian saints of the 20th century, who lived a simple life of meditation, never traveling or proselytizing, but affecting people with his silence and presence to a profound degree.  His tradition was advaita vedanta, which a Hindu tradition of non-dualism, somewhat analogous to the Buddhist concept of anatta, or no-self.  

In the advaita vedanta tradition, there is no formal meditation technique.  There’s suggestions, such as simply looking for who this “I” is.  Who am I?  What is this thing called myself?  The “I” that was behind what I called “me” from a child to an adult.   This is not a technique or an intellectual curiosity, but a quest to loosen identification and even the idea that there is an “I”.  The theory is that if we look clearly, with a passion and without any preconceptions or control, it is possible to drop all the filters and identities we have and experience being pure awareness.  Pure awareness, consciousness before labels and comparison, is the meditative state.

In the Ramana Maharshi ashram, there are several halls, including a formal meditation hall, but it is completely unstructured.  If you just feel like normal meditation, you can sit there. If you’re a little too restless or fidgety, you can meditate in the large new hall, where chanting and singing occurs. If you need motion, you can do a walking meditation (pradakshina) around the lingam and shrine. If you need privacy, there’s usually a free chair somewhere in the underused museum or head off up the mountain on a trail. There’s a library for inspiration, which is delightfully well stocked for a spiritual retreat center.  Aside from the many wonderful Advaita Vedanta teachers such as Ramana Maharshi , Nisagardatta Maharaj and Ramesh Balsekar, it includes a good Buddhist library, books from other religions, plus a decent library of fiction – even Harry Potter.  Even the library has no dictates about where your mind should go.  

There is no one that rings a bell to start or end meditation.  You meditate when you want and stop when you want.  There are no posture police.  Some people are in strict zen postures while others slouch against the wall, letting their legs fall flat to the floor.  While there is a great sense of sacredness in the ashram, with hundreds or thousands of pilgrims visiting each day, there is no forced silence.  Peacock cries and monkey fights add to the ambiance, as do the regular chanting of the Vedas, a sanskrit text thousands of years old.   Even the barefoot walk to the indian-style toilets, across a dusty expanse that women sweep over and over throughout the day, past the cows in their goshala shelter, is meditative in its own way.

It’s a sacred place with no control.  There’s no message of how to be spiritual, how to get to this magical thing called inner peace and enlightenment.  There are books to read if you wanted, but no one trying to be a guru. No one’s pushing you to study the teachings. There are no meditation classes and no formal instruction – who would presume to teach in Ramana Maharshi’s place?  The message is “it’s already in you”, not as a theory but as a trust.  Everyone is welcome at the ashram who is seriously interested in this path of Self-enquiry.

Conforming to the formal retreat

I’ve been in 10 day Buddhist retreats before as well as many Shambhala weekend retreats.  There were set schedules, strict silence, teachers lecturing to a passive crowd, and a definitive technique of  meditation to practice.  In this format I felt an unspoken peer pressure to be a good spiritual student – or at least appear the good student.   In other words, even if I wasn’t actually in a meditative state, I wanted to look like a good meditator.   

But because this involved conformity, I also resisted, rebelling internally – in retrospect because I was suppressing parts of myself to sit for those long hours.  Don’t we all learn in school growing up to suppress to keep still and silent in those uncomfortable chairs? Then the backlash came: resentments, feeling guilty about not wanting to meditate, demonising my ‘resistance’, counting the seconds to the end of the session, and watching and controlling every breath and facial muscle to make sure it was “mindful” and didn’t betray my turbulent state.  Forget that impromptu dance break my body wanted!   At question time, my voice had the proper mindful, submissive tones, even if inwardly there was frustration and feeling something was rotten in the state of Denmark.

Buddhist retreats vary greatly in character, of course, but those qualities were there in varying degree for all the ones I’ve attended.  There is an unspoken rule of speaking and moving in a slow, dignified, controlled manner, no matter what is felt inside.  Some courageous souls do speak out, and I have learned to do this myself, but it is difficult to go against the grain.   (FYI, the strictest was Goenka’s 10 day Vippassana course, which I would in general not recommend to any but those who feel they absolutely need to be trapped in a prison setting to meditate – here is a good idea of what to expect, which includes a day by day synopsis.)

Meditation without a goal

In this “retreat” I’ve had eight weeks of no control.  I sit when I want and where I want. I eat and drink when I want and what I want.  I can climb the mountain, get blessed by holy men at the top, and even go to the occasional social Western party.  Unlike past retreats, there’s no steam cooker of emotions building from suppression, so I don’t want to get drunk and go crazy to blow off steam.  I can not meditate for a day and no one would notice, not even me.  The meditation blends with regular life.  After eight weeks, there is little sense of trying to get anywhere.  There’s no accomplishment, nor is there a sense of disappointment.  Time passes.  After I meditate for three hours, which once would have been a source of pride, there’s more of an internal shrug. This is just what’s happening.

Discipline

The idea of discipline has changed in me.  Growing up in the west I associated discipline with strictness, keeping an internal whip applied to my brain making sure I follow the path.  If I’m serious about the practice, I should get up and sit for an hour each day no matter how I’m feeling, right?  But this created my internal rebellion, and even a dissociative split in my psyche.  The “spiritual” part of me was on the cushion while the rest of me zoned out and flew away.

The etymological root of discipline comes from the latin discere, which means “to learn”.  The word disciple comes from the same root.  I’ve had to relearn that proper discipline is simply what supports learning.  It supports true learning and intelligence – not the rote memorization and obedience that are enforced in most schools.  Especially when it comes to self-awareness, learning about one’s true nature absolutely requires releasing habits of internal control.  How can you know yourself if you’re constantly restricting your thoughts and emotions?

The state of meditation is not a technique.  If it were it could be taught in our schools as a formula and we all would be enlightened.  There are schools that try to do this for adults – and they’re generally called cults.

I’ve had glimpses of what that meditative state is.  It’s called different things in different traditions.  The Self, or Atman, in the Hindu tradition.  Buddha nature.  Basic Goodness in Shambhala.  Essentially, it’s a state of pure awareness, where there is no “I”.  There is just breathing.  Shit happens.  There is no “I” to give a fuck about life’s frustrations, but there is still a sense of fullness, curiosity and caring.  There’s a great sense of play.  And irreverence.  If you are awareness and oneness, respect and disrespect are simply two sides of the same oneness.

If it’s effort, you’re not meditating

Let me repeat that again: The meditative state is not work.  It took me 20 years to start to get that one. The essence of meditation is relaxation.  Like most westerners, I had no clue what that is, thinking relaxing was something you had to work at.  I sent repeated “RELAX!” messages to my body, which of course didn’t work.  I thought enlightenment was something you desperately strived for.  But the concepts of detachment and equanimity are really just synonyms for relaxation.  Letting things happen without any control. Not the pina colada on a Mexican beach kind of relaxation, but the relaxation that comes from the deep experience that things are actually just perfect as they are, so you might as well let go.  And yes, “perfect” includes a lot of uncomfortable emotions at times.

I know that if I think I’m meditating, I’m not.  Because part of meditation is that “no self”, or a state of flow where things just happen.  There’s no longer an “I am breathing” – there’s just breathing.  Breathing happens.  There may be tensions in the body, but they are just there and it’s not my job to fix it.  Thoughts may happen and it’s not even my job to bring my attention back to the breath, for then there would be a “me”, an effort, and a right or wrong way to do things.  But there is a letting go of trying, and that in itself creates a greater awareness, an inclusiveness.  

Krishnamurthi once described meditation as a state of choiceless awareness.  You’re not choosing what to focus on – you simply allow.  In other words, there’s just consciousness without effort to be conscious of anything.  You aren’t trying to focus on the breath, for that would mean removing attention from thoughts or other sources, which would be a choice.  There’s no “me” doing the observing, for if there is anything outside what you’re observing, there’s effort, focus, and conflict, trying to conform to a particular way of doing things.  

Ramana Maharshi often suggested following awareness back to the “I”.  If thoughts arise, who is doing the thinking?  What is this “I”?  Where is it?  Essentially, one might eventually see it is not there, that what is there is groundless awareness.  In Advaita Vedanta this can be called the Self, or Atman.  In Buddhism it can be No-Self, or anatta.  They sound opposites but are the same.  Pema Chodron regularly talks about a fundamental state of groundlessness.

When I get back, I’m going to do my best to let go of formality.   No more meditation timers where I’m competing against myself.  Less group meditation where I am affected by that peer pressure not to move, ignoring my body.  Most of my meditation at home will be leaning on the floor against a wall. Some will be more ‘formal’, and I will notice how much not trying I can bring to that time.  Mostly I’ll see if I can be in silence and let that happen.

“I am”… a meditator?  

I now find it strange how most western Buddhist teachers focus on technique so often at the beginning.  Later on in the path, both in Theravada and Vajrayana traditions, there’s more focus on being pure awareness.  It’s there – but that’s often after years and investing in an identity as a meditator.  Now for many people, being a meditator, having that as your identity, is cool.  Mindfulness is promoted by corporate wellness coaches, major magazines and psychologists.  Years ago I remember throwing about my meditation background on dates – hey babe, I’m a meditator, I’m a good catch!  It was akin to displaying a trophy to others for having the smallest ego.  Silly.

Enlightenment? AIIIIGGH!!!

In India I’ve come to understand that the ego, or identity, is simply that which resists.  All these concepts of who I am, created every moment and reinforced in almost all social interactions, are about what I resist.  I can think of myself as a psychologically-balanced, intelligent, humorous, caring person – but that identity might partly arise because I don’t want to welcome parts of me that are in pain and could potentially lash out, causing hurt.  Conversely, sometimes I might think of myself as traumatized and fucked up, but that identity could be a resistance to the desire to conform, pretending to be some other person in order to have support and connection.  Any identification – positive or negative – has resistance to something as pretty central to it.  

If you want to see this in action, just start acting grumpy around law-of-attraction, power-of-positive-thinking types.  Resistance rears its head immediately.

I find it helpful thinking of ego as “that which resists” because with that concept, any attempt to destroy an “unspiritual” part of me is laughable. It’s obviously part of ego.  I’d be resisting something.  I’m human – through a day, I might feel all of gratitude, rage, terror, curiosity, dislike, and great empathy.  The meditative state is not to resist any single experience, to simply let it flow. 

Part of being human, especially in a modern society,  is also about being programmed.  We’re shaped by our childhood, by our culture, and we operate automatically for the most part.  Science confirms this.  Here’s an exercise: after a full day, just try looking back and see how many decisions you consciously chose without the force of habit.  We think we choose, but in reality we don’t.  But it is possible to laugh about it, to let things happen, to disidentify and relax.  This in itself can change things and let the body and brain’s innate intelligence come forth.  But that’s not the point.  The point is just to let things happen, to be in that flow state.

As they say, Shit Happens.  That’s it, that’s the meditative state.  It’s not giving a fuck, in the most positive, enlightened way possible.

How much of this attitude will continue when I get back?  I don’t know. The pace of life is so much faster back home.  Most interactions have an element of stress in them.   But I’m writing this to remind myself that I don’t need to defend against it.  Just let it flow.

I think everyone needs reminders like this.

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“He’s just afraid to commit“

How many times have you heard that kind of proclamation over your lifetime?  If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard it hundreds of times, and believed it for at least the first hundred.   I’ve also heard much about the “hook up culture” and with so many options, some people never want to have any commitment,  such as written in the blog post “This is How We Date Now”.

I’ve committed in a relationship (to monogamy and time) many times, most of the time because it just felt like ‘this is just how it’s done”.   This has been labelled the relationship escalator, where you unthinkingly take what you think is the natural next step.  I had little idea at the time of what makes a real, supportive, long lasting connection that involved deep intimacy, and so I just followed what I thought was the model that led to it (commitment), at least until I felt something wasn’t working.  Then I would often blame myself, thinking I was doing something wrong, trying to behave ‘better’ and trying to work with my emotions and act in a loving manner.  Needless to say, that didn’t work, and resentment inevitably built because of all the suppression I ended up doing.  

Looking back, I didn’t really know or specify what I was committing to.  It usually worked out to: monogamy, spending my free time with my partner as a high priority, not acting (or feeling) other attractions, planning a future with them, vulnerability, unconditional trust, always valuing their thoughts and impulses, and behaving like they fulfilled all my needs.

Some of those commitments, of course were completely out of my control.  No one has complete control over what they feel.  Trust can be built, but committing to vulnerability no matter what is more of a set up to hurt – and possibly abuse.   Planning a future sounds great, but it only works out great if there is a common purpose agreed on and a continually developing connection.  And like I wrote describing how my current relationship developed, sometimes intimacy is developed by being honest about ‘negative’ things such as distrust and what we don’t appreciate, at least in a confessional, non-accusatory manner.  We’re human and we share the full human experience in a relationship.

What commitment often strives for – and paradoxically masks when forced – is the desire for that deep, uncompromising interconnection that we wouldn’t want to cut away.  When we have a real family, it lasts through thick and thin.  It doesn’t matter when there are highs or lows, appreciation or angers, pain or joy – there’s an inner knowingness that the connection is solid.  I call this bonding.   

Commitment vs. Bonding

Humans are naturally bonding animals.  We live in a social network and require it.  Left in complete isolation with nothing to form relationships to, as some prisoners are subjected to, humans can go insane.  Stable connections are absolutely necessary for our emotional regulation and well-being.  We bond to family, to friends, to pets, and even at times (sad, I know!) to our computers and cell phones.  It’s an organic process that can’t be rushed, because inside our brains it is a bottom-up process.  Our conscious, logical mind doesn’t say “hey, it’s time to commit to my mother” when we’re growing up.  It’s a fundamental process that is pre-conscious and instinctive.  Our adult needs for attachments aren’t precisely the same as a child’s, but they’re still there and almost as important.

Bonding is that slow, unrushed process of building trust and getting attached, so that person becomes not just a part of your life, but a part of your being.  It is there or it isn’t; you can’t consciously decide it.  Forcing it blocks it or makes it slower.  When you have a strong bond, you know it.  Your body relaxes in their presence, no matter what is going on.  You feel more and are more yourself, not less, because it’s a dynamic of trust and space, not a kind of relationship agreement with subtle rewards and punishments.  If they stop being in your life, you grieve profusely.  They are a part of you and you are a part of them.

Trying to commit before a solid bond exist is often a recipe for disaster.  It creates a fantasy bond instead of a real one.  I’ve done this a couple of times, mostly because I had no idea what a real bond was.  Our movies don’t know it and my family didn’t give any healthy examples.  I thought I was afraid to commit and thought that I should dive into it instead of running away.  Needless to say, this involved some lying to myself and hurt feelings when I couldn’t pretend anymore.

From Attachment Theory in psychology we know that there are many people in this society that are also in this boat, who didn’t have a reliable supportive bond in childhood.  Even those that did often had conditions attached, such as to “behave” and not get too angry.  Families make their own rules of taboo topics and emotions to keep stability, and this impacts our ability to make bonds, because a deep bond includes every bit of one’s self.  When we hide parts of ourselves away, we also say to the other “if you bring out that part of you, I may not stick around”.  Feelings cannot be felt selectively – it’s all or nothing.  Similarly, when you love and bond and wish it to be deep, it has to be all-inclusive.

How do I recognize a bond or one growing?

A healthy bond helps all involved.  It is the antithesis of a power relationship, where good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior is punished.  In fact, reward and punishment dynamics are one sign of an unhealthy connection, because they are a sign of pervasive distrust.  Bonding is all about trust.

So here are some qualities I’ve learned to watch for.

• Relaxation and Comfort.  This is again, a bottom-up relaxation, where it’s your body itself communicating that being near your partner makes the world safer.  Sitting around doing nothing with your partner feels comfortable.
• Freedom of Impulses: I’m using “impulses” as a generalized term for expression and action.  In other words, you feel free to allow any impulse of speech to just come out without controlling it much first.  Suddenly jumping into weird interpretive dance moves might be strange, but fine.  Expressing raw anger is also safe, because it’s not like shooting ammo.  There’s consideration and curiosity.  In other words, there’s a sense of play in the relationship.  Relaxation naturally flows into curiosity, exploration and expression.
• Feeling more, not less: Being alive – fully alive and brimming with vitality – requires a good connection with the body and all its signals.  This is where emotional intelligence comes from.  A healthy bond creates more resources to be comfortable with a more varied emotional life, with greater tolerance of overall arousal in the body/mind system.  This can mean greater ease in dealing with the results of external challenges, such as entrepreneurship, but it can also mean the stability to look into unresolved past issues or traumas.  Thus a bond doesn’t always mean feeling good, but it does mean heading in an overall good direction.  This is particularly applicable to those with insecure styles of attachment.
• A Stronger Core Sense of Self:   A good bond will always help you over time become more you.  Not the you that you think you ‘should’ be, but someone living authentically, with your inner world and outer persona in harmony.  This arises because when there is trust, freedom, and connection, a sense of spiritual curiosity arises too, akin to Maslow’s concept of self-actualization. There is no limit to the discoveries of who your partner is or who you are.  When there’s mutual curiosity in exploring the connection and a willingness to go together into anxieties and past influences, self awareness is the result.  
• Play:  Ok, this really is saying “free impulses” again.  But it’s so damn important it’s worth mentioning again.  If you can’t have playful interactions on a regular basis, then something likely doesn’t feel safe.   Play is part of how we learn, how we connect, and what makes us happy.  The particulars of what play looks like is different for everyone, but it damn well better be there if you want a happy, intimate, stable relationship that lets you grow together.  

It shouldn’t be surprising that all these signs are also signs of a healthy child.  After all, if you can never act like a child within a relationship, you’re watching yourself all the time.  What fun is that?  

Cultivating qualities like the above I’ve always found grows incrementally, in little steps.  It’s also paired with the freedom to be honest about not being there yet.  After three years, I’m far from living the above ideals all the time.  I might say “My body isn’t yet totally relaxed around you” or “I’m cautious about showing pain around you now”.  Pain and anger are often tough to develop trust and listening around, which for me is  the sense that neither venting nor taking it personally will occur on either side.  I might suggest going to an Improv class together if there’s not enough silliness.  But the open discussions in a non-blaming way around what qualities are not present is of absolute importance in developing free communication.    How can you completely relax in someone’s arms if you can’t trust them to listen when you tell them to piss off with a gentle smile?

Wait for bonding before committing

Sometimes bonding takes time.  Years – especially in our stressed society with little unplanned meetings and play.  Mistakes need to be made and repaired.  There can be a great deal of social pressure to make commitments before a real bond is formed.  Even the introducing someone to a boyfriend or girlfriend has certain commitments implied.  It takes courage to be honest about wanting to be sure and admitting what the actual bond is like instead of pretending a Hollywood story.

But commitment isn’t always the big “C” Commitment.  There are many small commitments that can build trust, respect, and set the stage for real bonding to grow.  Gentle honesty about all emotions can be a good one.  Consciously not trying to pressure the other into any decision, and apologizing if it happens unconsciously, can be another.  These kind of commitments can be soft, not hard.  In other words, they’re a statement of intention and not an excuse to jump into distrust, incrimination and feelings of betrayal when someone doesn’t live up to the ideal.   Little commitments grow into bigger ones as the foundation of trust they’ve built becomes solid. 

Here are some of the commitments I’ve made with my partner:

• I will be open with you about everything in my life that affects you significantly, while maintaining some healthy privacy.
• I will do my best to never repress anything in myself to smooth things over or tell white lies to you.  
  [Note:  this includes not repressing honestly felt attraction to others or when feel frustration or distrust]
• If one of us notices that some habits could be arising from fear (e.g., the terror of losing the other), we’ll bring it up instead of starting any walking-on-eggshell behavior.  Regular time speaking in a meditative, unrushed fashion helps.
• I will always try to consider what the effect of my actions will be on you and have that affect, but not control, my decision.  
• If I notice habits of interaction growing between us, like a rut that could remove spice in our relationship, I will do something strange to shake things up a bit while doing my best to be kind.    
• I will actively be curious about you, listen to verbal and non-verbal signals, and try and give space for you to be more you.  But I will also be clear when I’m unable to do that in a moment.  Nothing should be forced.
• I will make sure there is a good amount of quality, unrushed time with you each week, while making sure I’m also getting enough alone time.  I want to spend time with you because I want to spend time with you, not because it’s a habit or an obligation.

This list grew over time, with introspection, and with little overt pressure from either side.  Bonding and trust grew incrementally, not magically, and took years.    Little commitments like these are more support for a real bond and a recognition of the bond that has grown.  The bond has grown precisely because I have been honest and not repressed any major part of myself to fit in the relationship, even the parts of myself that hate being tied down.  I would not have had this level of bonding without the freedom to explore that most standard commitments imply.  

No relationship ever looks the same, but I believe for everyone that trust and bonding is built over time, organically, and every time it is forced it starts to die in that moment.  The human spirit is ever desirous of deep connections, but also loathes cages of any kind.  Too often we think to have a deep connection we need the cage, and thus our society’s version of early commitment was born.   It takes a trust in human nature, including one’s own, to go beyond this.  The desire for freedom, expressing truth, and non-suppression is not anathema to a long soul connection, it is fuel for it.   For how can you bond deeply with another without bringing every last bit of your soul, even the parts that fly free?

The post Before you commit – bond appeared first on Loving Awareness.

So starts a popular blog post here giving relationship advice.  Why would you want to be with someone who isn’t enraptured by you?  And why would you choose to be with someone you don’t think is the best person ever?  If someone is good enough for you, you should feel a “Fuck YES!” feeling.  And they should feel likewise about you.

Such posts are very popular on the web because they are simple, easily understood, and can be a temporary boost to the esteem for both those not in a relationship because they are holding out for Mr. Right and those with low esteem in a relationship that is going nowhere, perhaps prompting them to end it.

I’m all for a boost in esteem, but one thing I am absolutely not for is all-or-nothing thinking.  You know the Bush-like thinking – you’re either for me or against me.  You’re either perfect or you’re out of here.  There’s no discernment, nor is there the introspection of what makes someone feel like a good match.

How often are your emotions completely and wholeheartedly unanimous before really getting to know someone?   It doesn’t happen, unless you’re extremely unusually healthy and in complete inner harmony – or you’re in denial.   Denial is far more common than completely healthy childhoods.  We don’t want to wait any longer, so we decide this person is THE ONE and shove any contrary thought to the pit of our stomach.  Where it says until the first big disappointment.

Getting to know someone, whether as close friends or lovers, is a gradual process of building trust, testing the waters with ever increasing vulnerability and emotional risk, then seeing the result.  Is this personal worth your trust and investment?   There are many areas of trust to build:  Keeping one’s word.  Sensitivity.  Listening skills.  Adaptability.  Empathy.  Humor.  Sex.  Reactivity.  Can they give space?   Is there ever a price to pay for doing something you need?   Do they need you to be a certain person for them or do they really want to find out who you are?

Too often, relationships start because both parties feel “good”, which we translate to meaning love.  We don’t understand the reasons why – and for good reason.  It’s not a rational, logical process.  One wonderful Jungian book “The Eden Project” calls it a search for The Magical Other.  We think we’ve found someone who completes us, while trying to not see that we may feel good for non-healthy reasons, such as familiar family dynamics or someone who helps us avoid uncomfortable parts of ourselves.  Part of the journey is to realize that the Magical Other, which might later turn into the Enemy Other, is actually just representing a part of ourself we haven’t welcomed yet.  But I digress.  There is another option to wanting to find the perfect person and place them on a pedestal until they fall off.

Intimacy is not a blind commitment.   Bonding to another human being is not a Romeo and Juliet moment, realizing at first glance you want to spend the rest of your life together or die.

For most of us in this overstressed, f*cked up society, we have plenty of childhood issues, among them:   Lack of reliable connection.  Attachment issues.  Difficulty trusting.   Barriers to intimacy.  Anxieties.  Hurts.   Limited ways of expressing emotions, and feeling we can’t be connected to others through some emotions.

Most of have parts of ourselves that we think “why would anyone want to connect to THIS?”   And so we launch ourselves into relationships where the other doesn’t immediately see those parts – at least until the honeymoon period is over

All those are negative emotions which would mean you wouldn’t feel “Fuck yes!”.   You’d feel at best hesitation, a feeling of “what am I getting into here?”.   But that is what vulnerability involves.    And you can’t have long term bonding without vulnerability.

My Own Story

Let’s take myself as an example.  I came from an extremely distant family with no reliable connection and support available.  My father and brother have Asperger’s syndrome, while my mother had Borderline Personality.  I’m the “normal” one.  No one in my family really knew how to have friends or even to give empathy.  As a result, you could say I had attachment issues, among others.  (I have C-PTSD from my childhood)   This doesn’t mean I didn’t want deep and intimate connections – it simply meant there were a lot of emotions to go through before real bonding occurred.

I have never, ever in my life felt a true “Fuck Yes!”.  The people I’ve previously gotten involved with were often people that I felt something strong, and thought “hey, this is intense – it must be love”.  I wanted love and longed for deeper connections, so I would fool myself.   I would then think I needed to commit and dive into the relationship to get some sort of secure commitment back.  In other words, I would act like I felt “Fuck Yes”, partly because I wished I would feel that, partly out of fear of abandonment or being rejected, but also because that was what was expected. The people I got involved with were usually those that could withdraw from connection suddenly if something felt bad, which I was highly attuned to.  When they didn’t feel “Fuck Yes!”, they were out of there, at least for the evening, so I felt after time I was walking on eggshells trying to have a reliable connection.  I took in a message from them: I will not connect with you unless act like the Mr Perfect I want.

This is obviously not love, but with an oversimplified, all-or-nothing thought process this was what I created.  So I changed how I approached relationships.

Building a Healthy Relationship

With Kirsten, my wonderful partner now, I tried to bring everything I felt.  I brought my doubts and fears and allowed them to be visible.  I let myself be tentative instead of pushing fears aside and diving in.  I brought that I liked her and distrusted her at the same time – because in my family, there was always an agenda for being warm.  For months, I would ask her “what do you want?” with suspicion at her warmness.   We wouldn’t actually fall asleep together and I would never sleep over at her place.  She would learn later that this was because I get panic attacks in someone else’s bed, but of course initially she took it a little personally.  She distanced a little and learned to let go of expectations regarding me.   I was seeing another person at the same time, so that added to the feeling of instability given where we were at.   In some ways, she was ready for the relationship to end at any moment, but was also willing to see where it led.

Despite the negative emotions I had, there were of course also other signals that I liked her a lot and was letting her in; she wasn’t sticking with me because of any lack of self esteem.  I would communicate as best as I could what was going on with me, what PTSD was, and what I thought I needed.  I add “I thought” in there because like most people, I don’t think I really knew what was needed, because I’d never received it.

Yet the relationship grew.  Kirsten once said that every time she really let go of an expectation regarding me, I responded positively and we grew closer.  I didn’t fit the norm of relationships, but really wanted to be in a close, connected relationship.  So when there was room for more of me to be welcomed, I stepped forward.  I wasn’t trying to be her Mr. Right, but I was being more me when close to her, and she found she could be more herself as well.  We weren’t trying to be anything for each other.

I know most people don’t have PTSD, but I haven’t met anyone who has had an idyllic childhood.  Given the lack of family connectedness, stress levels, overwork, and confusion of discipline with love, some form of attachment or anxiety issue is the norm rather than an exception.  So while my experience may be more extreme than most, I think it serves an example.  Rather than saying “I will hold out for someone perfect”, we started out by being imperfect and finding in a gradual, struggling pace a way to connect through that.

We all know what the honeymoon period is.  It’s the months that you are able to stay in the zone of not being able to show your imperfections.  Inevitably that collapses – and it’s rare to find two people in a relationship that are coming down from that high truly want to see the others (and their own) imperfections.  We didn’t have a honeymoon period.  The first 5 months were a real struggle, constantly wondering if it would end.  Would the other person truly want to be with me as I am?  The transition happened when I had an emotional meltdown, bawling for close to an hour straight, where for the first time she saw me in a raw state how I had never received unconditional support in my life, and so saw more the visceral source of my suspicions and distrust.  Is this really unusual for men in this world, where you’re always supposed to have it together and you’re rewarded for achievement and success?

We’ve been together 18 months now and this is by far the best relationship I’ve been in.  I love her more than I thought possible – and my idea of what love is has changed along the way.  It’s not a feeling, but a dynamic deep seated curiosity about the other.  We want each other to be themselves, so are automatically giving space and asking questions, doing weird and quirky things to bring it out.  No matter what she’s feeling, even if it were rage at me, I would unflinchingly want to hear it.  Part of that is the trust we’ve built, because we know there’s nothing in each other that wants to hurt the other.

We also are committed to not taking emotional responsibility for each other.  It’s not either of our jobs to make another feel better.  We will be connected to each other no matter what either of us is feeling, and bad days are not failure, so they are no big deal.  We both want to learn to be more ourselves – and there’s nothing better than seeing the Self reflected in another’s clear eyes to seeing this.

I am so, so, SO grateful for her for sticking with me when I struggled with showing more of myself.  We would never have developed the bond we did if I refrained from showing my hesitation about getting close – or my hurt emotions during the times when she was showing warmth without a hidden agenda.

So the idea of a “Fuck Yes!” rule to me is internet trash at best.  No psychologist would ever buy into something so oversimplified.   True intimacy is scary – you have to risk a lot to get there.  You have to gradually bare yourself, including all the self-protections we have, and learn to embrace our own contradictions, our own desires and fears at the same time.  We’re taught to distance ourselves when things feel bad.  We avoid pain.  But my story is an example of what happens when two people decide against the love illusion, against the waiting for Mr or Mrs Perfect and just say let’s connect as we are.  And the result?  This is the first time in my life that I’ve felt I want to grow old with someone.  The relationship feels built on foundations where we can grow and change and by doing that, get closer instead of further apart.

PS.  Before I posted this, I showed it to her and her response was “well, actually I was feeling a Fuck Yes about you throughout all those first few months”.  Go figure.  Maybe she should see someone about that.

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