Yesterday the Year of Inquiry group looked at a thought that is so repetitive within the human psyche, it’s rather stunning:
That person does not appreciate me.
How do you know?
There are so many ways we know….where to begin?!!
I see them hugging someone else, not me. I hear about them eating lunch with another friend, they’ve never invited me before. I overhear them talking about how brilliant someone is, and they’ve never said anything like this about me. I see them kissing someone else, and I thought we were in an exclusive romance.
I watch them leaning towards someone from across the room, and I think they don’t appear that interested when talking to me. They don’t call me back. They don’t ask my opinion. They say “no” to me. They don’t give me money. They stare at their screen, instead of me. They engage in addiction, even though I asked them to stop. I don’t get a raise.They don’t clean up. They don’t touch me. They don’t say they love me. They never reply to my emails.
I could go on and on with what I’ve thought or heard from others, or seen in the movies.
People get so disturbed by the evidence of non-appreciation.
It’s almost overwhelming, and infinite.
But let’s look a little closer at this belief, this feeling of not being appreciated.
I once was getting to know a man. He was a friend and a romantic interest.
We talked like friends. Many hours on the phone for several months.
One day he told me about his plans to go to a summer festival where he would stay in a cabin with old friends, some acquaintances. He lived very far away from me, and I was neither invited nor would I have been able to attend–it had not crossed my mind as something I even wanted to do, honestly.
I had been on the phone with him during his drive into the mountains of somewhere in sunny California, on his way to the festival.
As usual for this early, fun, get-to-know-you stage of the relationship, we were laughing and flirting and telling stories about ourselves. He described the landscape.
He said “I’m about to go into territory where I think there’s no cell service, so if I don’t……”
Cut.
Silence.
LOL.
I looked forward to the likely call we would have on Monday, when he got back home and back into cell zone.
Little did I know…..
“I have something to tell you about the weekend….it’s crazy!” he said like a friend who’s excited to tell some weird and interesting, and awesome news.
“I had sex with someone, and I don’t even know her name! Isn’t that so funny and wild?!?”
(Tires screeching in my head…..followed by a huge gigantic CRASH sound).
Pause. Pause. I was catching my breath, holding it.
I uttered a weak “oh, ha ha, yeah…..crazy.”
He then launched into the story of the noticing this woman, the meeting, the connection, and the path to actual sex and how that all unfolded.
Like a girlfriend telling me about her liaison with a man for the first time, in a way she might have felt as liberating and wild, and new, and fun.
But my stomach was sick.
“Ooops, I gotta go!” I hung up the phone, reeling.
Fortunately, I knew exactly what to do.
The Work.
I had asked for my world, as far as relationships went, to be turned upside down. My old stodgy stories from, oh probably the year 1705 (and a few centuries earlier) were so full of pain and stress, and ownership, and false expectations, and lack of clarity, power, or love….
….that on the heels of divorce, I knew I wanted these stories to dissolve.
I knew they weren’t true as ideas, but obviously not in my heart and body.
They provided only suffering, and they came from some weird history that no longer made any sense (or maybe never did).
I called all my friends who could facilitate the Work, and asked them for appointments for that entire Monday and Tuesday. I called in sick to my job. Because my mind WAS sick.
I believed that man, as a new interesting friend of MINE, should want to be sexual with me and only me.
How ridiculous.
Now, stay with me here. Because this does not mean I am not interested deeply in monogamy and care and attention of a primary relationship. I’m in one now, like that. So far, I love a whole lot about the current relationship I appear to be in, and it feels wonderful and easy and very kind.
But who would I be without that thought that when someone doesn’t want this, they’re not appreciating ME?
Without the belief that it means I am being rejected as they want what they want?
At first, all I could do was to see and imagine how I would be, in that very situation, without the belief.
I couldn’t really feel it.
I could imagine a different person, like the lady next door, who didn’t care about this guy and all the dreamy ideas of being together (sigh) and how SHE might feel.
She wouldn’t be feeling like she lost something, or recognized something awful. She wouldn’t feel rejected, disappointed, unworthy, alone.
As I contemplated my work, and felt the dagger punch in my stomach subside….
….I began to use my mind and my imagination for ease, for wondering
Rather than self-torture.
Who would I be without the belief that his behavior means anything about my behavior? Without the thought this means I am unappreciated?
Wow.
Wow.
Isn’t this what I actually asked for?
Isn’t this what I wanted…..to feel freedom to come and go as I pleased and want everyone else to do the same?
Don’t I want this in every kind of relationship, not just romantic love or sexual relationships?
Clients, family, children, parents, neighbors…..can I be in deep connection with them, no matter what they do or don’t do?
Wouldn’t I want everyone to follow their heart’s desire?
I mean….they have to appreciate ME….really?
I suddenly realized it wasn’t true.
At all.
Wow. The relaxation I felt at not needing to be appreciated, at not needing to be accepted, invited, wanted, hired, cared about…..
….even though it feels tentative at times, don’t get me wrong (and then I do The Work, or ask for what I really want like a hug or a conversation).
I could see in that experience that what was truer, honestly truer, was that he should NOT appreciate me, when he’s busy appreciating someone else.
I should appreciate myself, always.
I should appreciate HIM (I did and still do, he taught me to let go and then ask for what I truly, deeply wanted and cared about at that time).
That experience led me to fading out on all those long-distance conversations that lasted hours….
….and come back to myself, in the present, without any thoughts about what would happen in the future.
Appreciation right now.
It’s worth giving up a dream for. In a very, very good way.
“If I had a prayer, it would be ‘God, spare me from seeking love, approval, or appreciation. Amen’. ” ~ Byron Katie