He left me.
She left me.
They left me.
The suffering as a result of this belief is enormous.
People holding this thought in their experience of a relationship feel devastated, sometimes suicidal….and then on top of the dark feelings of abandonment, they criticize themselves for being losers and caring so much.
But let’s take a look at this thought, that can seem like a fact to some who think of it as true-true-true, and question it with The Work.
That person left you…Is it true?
Yes! They packed up their stuff and walked out the door. I don’t see them in this house anymore. Gone. It’s been 7 hours and 13 days since you took your love away.
Or fifteen years.
After we think “is is true?” instead of pausing with our answer, we might have images of that person blossoming before us, wondering about them, replaying the scenes that were so torturous in the past. We might explain to a listener all about the entire story of what happened. We might see them driving away on their motorcycle while running down the street behind them, and they never looked back.
People share with me the details of what’s happening in the lives of their “ex” partners. Marrying again. Non-communicative. Or maybe occasionally pinging them on facebook with an update.
But first, can I just answer that question…is it true they left?
Yes. Didn’t I just say how many days and hours it’s been?
Can you absolutely know it’s true they left?
Because I couldn’t know it was absolutely for-all-time true.
They were in my head daily, sometimes hourly. Every time I went past that one coffee house, I thought of them. Every time I heard that song, I felt melancholy.
There was a physical leaving, but not in any way was there an emotional or mental “leaving”. And I would also imagine getting back together in the future, which was always possible, right? I couldn’t know it was absolutely fundamentally true that this person left me forever.
Plus, and this is critically important to note, they didn’t die, they didn’t vanish off the face of the earth, and there were so many conversations and connections and bumps and difficulties between us, can you really know for absolute certain that person left YOU, like it was all about YOU?
No. I personally can’t at all. They had their own stuff going on that made a move important in their life. But if you answer “yes, it’s absolutely true” that’s perfectly OK and not the wrong answer.
How do you react when you think the thought “that person left me”?
Gut-wrenching sadness, or furious rage. They were wrong, wrong, wrong. I treated my daily life like a burden to “get through” and the new people I met like people to be suspicious of. I didn’t go out much.
So who would you be without your belief that you were left? Like, it was personal?
This is not airy fairy sweet gooey positive thinking fake sugar.
This is real use of the creative brilliance of mind and it’s imagination. The mind forgot the other side in this duality of every coin having an opposite. It focused on fear, lack, hurt, pain, and zero possibilities of a happy future.
Thank you mind for trying to keep me safe and sound, and unhurt. But you’re a bit limited, my friend, you say to your mind.
Because without the belief someone left me….I’m suddenly looking around my environment, my day, my quiet house….and noticing the peace of silence.
I’m aware of all the moments when I was supposedly “married” that I spent going to work alone, driving my own personal car all by myself, at the grocery store by myself, talking to a friend on the phone, sweeping the floor in my living room with children playing around me, thinking in my own head.
Did someone “leave” me at all those moments?
Yes, there was no body in the room sometimes. And it wouldn’t have occurred to me to be upset if my husband went to the garage to work on a project. In fact, I’d be a bit of a nut case if I started thinking “he’s leaving me” every time he called out “goodbye!” as he went to work in the morning.
Yikes.
All that meaning we place on relationships and what he or she is supposed to be doing that equals “I am loved” and all the meaning placed on a relationship that means “I am secure” or “I am NOT secure.”
When there are never any guarantees, ever. Someone could die, so could you (everyone will).
Leaving is the way of it, in fact.
Coming together, leaving, coming together, leaving. Nothing written on a piece of paper says anything firm and final about this leaving or staying. Marriage. Divorce. Break-ups. Falling in Love. Commitment. Separation.
Without the belief I am left, I simply notice the tide goes in and out. And I don’t get very upset about it.
Without the belief that I was left, I begin to see benefits for it going the way it’s going.
Let’s go there. The ultimate turnaround. Life dishing up something FOR me, not something happening that hurts me.
How could this be just as true, or truer?
For me, I noticed how much I loved the quiet. I could read anything I wanted all day long on the weekend. It was like a miracle to have nothing on my schedule. I meditated for hours. I walked through my neighborhood with Deva Premal playing over and over on my headphones. I noticed houses I had never seen before. I found little trails I hadn’t noticed. I came across a wild plum tree in nobody’s yard underneath the power lines, loaded with plums, and came back the next day with a bag.
I thought about relationships during that “I-was-left” time. I noticed how many exceptionally crazy beliefs I had about them that were considered normal in society. Here’s what “this” means. Here’s what “that” means.
I saw I couldn’t know.
I started hanging out with friends I had known since high school, but hadn’t really seen or spent time with in fifteen years. I signed up for a Qigong class. I started being curious about things I hadn’t pursued. I explored dance classes, and found one I loved.
Turning the thought around every way:
- I left him
- I left myself
- He did not leave me
Can you find examples of how these are true? Spend time on each one, finding three examples for every turnaround.
I left him internally during our life together a thousand trillion times when I looked over at him and thought critically he wasn’t good enough, he didn’t do the lawn mowing right, he bought the wrong thing at the store, he wasn’t giving me enough affection, he worried too much about money.
I left myself by thinking I wasn’t a good companion, like I needed someone else around to make me happy. I didn’t appreciate my own mind, my thoughts, my desires. I suppressed myself. I didn’t share the truth. I felt inadequate. I ripped myself to shreds internally. I didn’t feel worthy of love. When we first met, I still obsessed about food a lot. I pushed myself really hard. I felt bad about my own abilities with money, before he ever joined in on the money show. I had images come to mind about my difficult, lonely future. I feared myself worthy of being left.
He didn’t leave me. Nope. In the mind constantly. Wondering what he was up to. Worrying about myself in the future, all alone. Feeling unforgiving. Like this his actions and behaviors are all about me, when they really have nothing to do with me. I got some of the photos, the kitchen ware, the couch, his old car, a new little gorgeous cottage just for me to live in. I receive texts, messages about the kids, emails, and we spend holidays together.
Ha Ha.
The advantages to this being “left” thing continue to enter my life, even after many years. There are far more advantages than disadvantages.
And even all of these supposed advantages and disadvantages…
….who knows if they are even true.
The most important thing is, the pair of glasses I am wearing about the whole thing is that it was one of the most powerful, life-changing, incredible experiences and wake-up calls of my life. Almost on equal footing to attending Byron Katie’s School for The Work.
I mean it.
I orbited into an entirely different paradigm. It wasn’t instant. My mind hung on very tight. I wanted to punish. I rotated back into severe doubt. But then I’d rotate with self-inquiry into brilliant trust. It was a roller coaster ride.
Very, very exciting.
Who would you be without your story?
You can do this. All it takes is answering some powerful questions slowly and honestly. You can do this.
A Community of the Spirit
There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi
Much love,
Grace
P.S. Two events happening soon, that support your inquiry:
1) Being With Byron Katie (just stopped by the house which is getting a facelift for ten days….can’t wait to spend 4 days there starting July 8th)
2) Sliding Scale pay what you can. Summer Camp For The Mind begins July 5 – August 18.