Tag: bad relationships

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The Dreadful Mistake You May Be Making About Your Enemy

Quite some time ago, I had a very dear friend who surprised me by something she did.

In a bad way.

Like a scene from a great Shakespeare tragedy, she misunderstood something about me and assumed the worst and decided the best way to handle it was to never speak to me again, without explanation or confrontation, and then get vicious.

She shouldn’t think I’m a dishonest person.

Is that true?

Yes! Yes! I am totally honest! She is WRONG about me! She got some kind of twisted, unclear information and…

Wait.

Answer the question.

Can you absolutely know that it’s true that someone shouldn’t think poorly of you? Really?

No. People are allowed to think what they think. I have no idea why this unusual and strange situation appeared. It did.

How do you react when you believe that someone has the wrong idea about you? Or a completely distorted, maybe disturbed view of you?

I want to fix it! This is where the phrase comes from “I must clear my good name!”

I mean….people die in the movies clearing OTHER peoples’ good names, so I definitely need to prove mine. Right?

Inside, with this thought, is a feeling of deep sadness. Puzzled. Thinking “what did I do to make such a weird idea come out of her? Maybe I should have done it differently!”

Defensive, confused.

The urge to be thought well of, especially when someone appears to be saying things that aren’t even true, is strong. I feel separate from that other person, who seems to have gone a little nuts, or isn’t seeing things “right”.

Sigh.

Now the grand question….who would you be without the belief that someone shouldn’t think you are dishonest (or whatever you think they are thinking)?

As you hold that dear person’s face in your mind and heart, even if they’ve said terrible and mean things about you…who would you be right now if you couldn’t even have the thought that it’s a problem?

It’s not denial I’m talking about. It’s relaxing, in the presence of something that appears to be an attack.

Stepping to the side.

Laying down your defensive arms.

“So when you find yourself in a dark place where you’ve been countless, countless times, you can think maybe it’s time to get a little golden spade and dig myself out of this place.” ~ Pema Chodron

As Pema Chodron’s teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, said to her when she said she felt angry, depressed, and unhappy one day:

“You find yourself lying on the bottom of the ocean with your face in the sand, and even though all the sand is going up your nose and into your mouth and your eyes and ears, you stand up and you begin walking again. Then the next wave comes and knocks you down. The waves just keep coming, but each time you get knocked down, you stand up and keep walking. After a while, you’ll find that the waves appear to be getting smaller.”

Without the belief that someone should think better of me than they do, I notice the waves feel smaller.

In fact, I notice that in this room, in this moment as I remember my friend, there aren’t any waves.

I can think of her with great appreciation for how much fun we used to have, our long and thorough conversations, the sweet connection we had for about four years.

Turning the thought around: “she should think I’m dishonest.”

How is that good for me, for the world, that she thinks what she thinks?

Well, partly because of her assumptions, I retraced my steps and found I had done everything perfectly, by the book (and I didn’t even know it!) when it came to my career.

I have more free time, not getting together with her. I don’t like to spend money on restaurant food very much, or be around people who drink a lot of alcohol, so that’s eliminated.

And dishonest? I’ve withheld how I truly feel a thousand times to others, I’ve pretended I was sick to get out of doing something, I’ve made myself out to be less fearful than I really am.

I shouldn’t think she’s a dishonest person.

Oh. Wow.

She’s doing the best she can. Everyone is. I don’t know what’s going on over there, with her.

My perception of her is actually inside ME. It’s ME that’s got a trigger of sadness and upset at being thought poorly of….I haven’t talked with her in ages.

“You will be surprised to find that in most situations there’s nothing to deal with except for your own fears and desires. Fear and desire make everything seem so complicated. If you don’t have fear or desire about an event, there’s really nothing to deal with. You simply allow life to unfold and interact with it in a natural and rational manner.” ~ Michael Singer

I notice that when I’m believing I know what someone else should be thinking or feeling, it’s very, very stressful.

My only project is me, and my own thoughts and feelings. And even that is not really a project.

Now that’s easier….to make an understatement.

“There is no greater misfortune than underestimating your enemy. Underestimating your enemy means thinking he is evil. Thus you destroy your three treasures (simplicity, patience and compassion) and become an enemy yourself. 

When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield.” ~ Tao Te Ching #69

That person who finds you less than wonderful?

Thank them for showing you what is needed to truly love unconditionally.

You don’t have to say it out loud, or even contact them. It’s for you.

You’ll be OK, it’s safe. You’ll be more than OK. Really.

Much love, Grace

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If You’re Going Through Hell, Keep Inquiring

I want a romantic partner!

Have you ever had that thought, or known someone close who had that thought?

It’s almost a question that has the answer “DUH, are you nuts? A gazillion trillion people want a partner…pretty much almost everyone who is single or unpartnered WANTS a partner!”

Let’s add in the thought “I want a different partner than the one I have.”

Between the two beliefs, there’s hardly anyone left over!

(OK, not really).

But many people who are single hardly question that a romantic mate would make them happier.

Many people who are in partnerships think about improving them, changing them, or getting out of them.

They look at their world and find proof that having or changing a partner is a fabulous plan.

They’ve been immersed in the idea, perhaps, since they were born, from the people all around them.

I’ve had lots of clients who believed they needed, wanted, craved or longed for romance, who are sure it does not exist in their current circumstances.

They are sure that if they were in a great couple agreement, they would have security, comfort, financial stability, pleasure, connection, and love.

Really?

Even though it may seem true, that society, your family, your friends say its true….it is still worth questioning, if it causes you stress.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” ~ Mark Twain

I was working with a woman who was positive it was true that partnership is better than being on your own.

She was alone, unpartnered…and therefore having an unhappy, unsatisfying life.

I asked her questions about what she meant when she said “partner”. Like, what is a GOOD partner? Because that’s the one you want, right?

A BAD partner won’t do. No, no, no.

You may even have some good examples of BAD partners. Those are OUT.

How do you think she reacted in her daily life when she believed she wanted a partner, and good men were hard to come by?

How does a person react when they believe they have to be careful who they pick, because they might get hurt, it might be a hassle?

Sad, disappointed, discouraged, angry, listless, flipping between “trying” to meet people and giving up altogether.

And my own company, or what is here now, just isn’t that great. Not good enough. Not fun enough, secure enough, comforting enough.

But who would you be without the thought that first, you need a partner, and second, that its rare to find a good one, a long shot?

Without the thought that a good partner is unusual, or that I even need one….I’m suddenly aware of all the energy spent on pining over the missing partner.

I’m here now.

It’s weird, actually, because that thought has been so ingrained. It’s like I don’t even know WHAT to think or do.

Things are unknown, open, mysterious.

For me, when I deeply questioned the thought that I needed one person in my life to feel happy…..some kind of clutching, grabby thing stopped on the inside.

My empty, quiet, silent little cottage felt magical, inviting. No one there. Sweet!

And then, activity took place, without my mind getting involved.

I went out into the world ready to have a ball. I stayed home doing my favorite thing: (in my case, reading). I went out dancing. I went off to meditation retreat. I bought tickets to my favorite concert.

I went out to dinner for the first time in my life, on purpose, all by myself to one of my favorite restaurants. It was weird, but intriguing.

I wrote down my stressful thoughts while sitting at the elegant table, all by myself. I did have some.

I noticed how fabulous it was to pick whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it.

Without the thought that I ever needed a partner I felt so content. Not missing out on anything. I could find whatever I enjoyed without “partnership”.

I began to notice that without any need for someone in my life, tons of men were everywhere and so many of them were adorable!

They weren’t rare at all.

It was a great a big, wide, fat question: who would I be without the thought that I needed? Anyone?

Without the thought that I needed, or wanted, or was separated from the whole Universe?

“When I die to the need for people, then I’m right in the desert. In the beginning it feels awful, it feels lonely, but if you can take if for awhile, you’ll suddenly discover that it isn’t lonely at all. It is solitude, it is aloneness, and the desert begins to flower. Then at last you’ll know what love is, what God is, what reality is………I was afraid to say this, but I talked to God, and I told Him that I don’t need Him. My initial reaction was this is so contrary to everything that I’ve been brought up with….Sometimes you have to get rid of God in order to find God.” ~ Anthony DeMello

I say, let yourself question the old, solid thoughts that feel like foundations of happiness, such as needing partners, or needing the one you have to change.

You may find such freedom on the other side….if you keep going.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” ~ Winston Churchill

Keep inquiring, it’s worth it.

Love, Grace

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The Rules For Best Relationships – Are They True?

Over the weekend in a workshop of absolutely delightful people who came to do The Work together for an afternoon, a question came up that I’ve been asked before:

What if I want to keep my belief? What if I like my belief?

I like how Byron Katie suggests that you don’t need to question beliefs that you love, that you enjoy, that bring you happiness.

They’re working for you, so leave them alone, right?

(And they’ll all probably fall away eventually).

The Work doesn’t even have a step that asks you to drop a belief…..all it asks you is to identify the belief you’ve got when you’re upset, and then examine whether or not its really true for you, and what it might be like without it.

It takes great sleuthing, though, to understand the protests that the mind will make about giving up a belief.

These protests, fears, worries about giving up beliefs can rise up clearly when you are asked that famous fourth question in the process of The Work:

Who would you be without that thought?

Who would you be if you couldn’t even think that thought in that situation you’re in that you find troubling?

If your answer is: I would be lost, unhappy, enraged, terrified, lonely, confused….or any number of stressful feelings…

….then you may have found a goldmine for investigating your idea of how the world should look, and where you are against Reality.

For example.

When my former husband had left and I was sitting in my little cottage all alone, desperately missing my old life and my children (who were with him) I wrote down the thought: it is best when people get married if they stay together their entire lives.

I grew up with this belief. I learned it from everyone around me.

It seemed obviously true. I had hardly questioned this thought.

I still believed it, in that moment sitting on my couch full of such sadness that my vision of marriage was broken into bits.

With the thought, I cried, I raved and ranted. I went from panic, to fury, to grief.

It felt like my world was coming to an end. I was not going to have the happy ending I had imagined in marriage, where two people are by each other’s side, both with gray hair and wrinkled skin.

But I knew that while I held that vision of the “best” case scenario in my head, then when things did NOT appear as this scenario…I was frightened.

I wasn’t even sure what I was actually frightened of, oddly enough. I just felt terrified, abandoned, wrong, unlucky and miserable.

As I sat with the vision, I realized that the list of rules about “good” relationships was quite long.

And relationships like this list were very rare.

And very conditional. As in NOT unconditional.

The conditions being, it had to be this way, or else THUMBS DOWN.

  • Both people should want to stay with each other until death
  • Both people should be attracted to each other exclusively forever
  • Both people should not be attracted to anyone else
  • Both people should share the same dreams of the future
  • Both people should care for each other in times of lack of health, lack of money, loss, or distress
  • Both people should support and love the other one’s family of origin, friends, community
  • Both people should think, care about and consider the other in everything they do.

This may be a lovely picture of truth for some relationships.

The problem is, when it doesn’t go this way, but you think they should.

There I was, all alone, and feeling great pain. I knew to do The Work.

Is it true, I asked myself, that people should stay together their entire lives when they become committed to eachother? Is it true that this is the BEST way?

Yikes, no idea.

It appears that many people do not have this “ideal” long-term stay-together experience.

In fact, most people do not, come to think of it.

Oh.

What’s the reality?

It appears that a whole lot of the time it’s people coming and going in relationship, changing partners, not remaining together for life, unexpected things happening, goodbyes, hellos, mystery.

So, no, it is not true that marriage, or commitment, and remaining together is The Best Way.

And who would I be without the thought that The List (of Good Relationships Are) is the best way?

I would be open to all ways being interesting, loving, beautiful.

In that moment on my couch, I would notice right there in that present situation that the silence was magical, that I wanted more time to myself and now I had it.

When I turned around the thought to look at the opposite, it was “This way is the best way for a relationship to go, for me.”

I could find out why my relationship life did NOT match the one on that old list.

I could find out why it was better for me, for other people, and for the world that my life did not look like the one on that list, when it came to relationships.

Today, I have more confidence, independence, esteem for my ability to understand and earn money, more passion, adventure, willingness to try new things, more friends, more love for myself, more freedom than I ever, ever once had.

These amazing qualities came out of the fire of burning in a relationship ending.

Now, I am willing to enter into fire….that’s the difference in my life.

I see the way the phoenix can rise up.

“If you are a friend of God, fire is your water. You should wish to have a hundred thousand sets of moth wings, so you could burn them away, one set a night. The moth sees light and goes into fire. You should see fire and go toward light…” ~ Rumi

Anyone can do this.

You can dissolve what you believe are the rules of Good Relationships, and you may feel uncomfortable, ungrounded, like you are entering unknown territory.

But you will get used to it.

Freedom is so sweet, you will see the value of questioning your thoughts about relationships that hurt.

You can keep the good ones, if they are working for you, and keep doing The Work.

“It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.” ~ Nisargadatta

If you’re ready to take a deeper look with the support of a group, then the 8 week teleclass Turning Relationship Hell To Heaven starts Sept 13 on Thursday mornings 8 – 9:30 am. Join us! Click here to read about it or register.

Love, Grace

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The Goodness That Came From That Trouble

Relationships that are rocky, difficult, or troubling can last long after the actual relationship is over.

The memory of that worrisome person can bring up fresh feelings of confusion, analysis, heartache….all of the sudden maybe, when you’re walking to the store.

You may not have seen or talked with that person in five, ten, or twenty years….but BOOM, you’re thinking of them and you immediately feel puzzled, or unhappy.

Most of us have had at least a few painful relationships in our lives…the ones where connecting with that other person seemed (or still seems) to result in stress, sadness, anger, fear, dishonesty, angst.

Maybe there are very difficult memories of violence, sharp words, yelling, lying, addiction, or betrayal.

Sometimes there may be memories or images that are very positive, thrilling, or joyful with another person….and then sadness because that relationship no longer exists.

Any of these memories can appear to offer you pain, if you believe your thinking without questioning any of your stressful thoughts.

This week, a client I was facilitating was remembering her former marriage with longing.

Another client was remembering her former marriage with rage.

Both of these kind women said “I wish I had never met that man”.

Ouch.

Time to inquire.

“I would be better if I had never known that person”.

Is that true? Are you sure that if you had the option, you would delete and erase all memory and contact of that person…forever?

Are you sure that your life would be better NOW without having ever known that person, even the person who seemed to do great damage, the person who was scary or abusive?

Are you sure that your life would be better if you hadn’t had those wonderful, amazing, exciting times in the past (that seem to no longer exist NOW)?

Who would you be without the thought that you would truly be better off if you had never known them?

Wait.

You mean…it’s good that I had that relationship and then it ended? You mean Iwouldn’t be better off now without that person having been in my life?

But I couldn’t possibly admit that my life might actually be better BECAUSE I had that relationship, and that it lasted just the right amount of time, and that it went the way it did for good reasons.

Is that what you’re suggesting?

Because that relationship was TERRIBLE. It was fraught with darkness, criticism, worry, and deep pain.

Are you sure?

What if you turned that belief around and considered the opposite: I am better off now because I knew that person.

This isn’t about saying that the relationship didn’t hurt, wasn’t destructive, or wasn’t completely whacked.

But it is spending some time acknowledging what you received from that experience with that person, with compassion.

Could it be possible that you are better off now because of your contact with that human being?

Both people I worked with found genuine examples of how they were positively affected by the past relationship they remembered with fear or sadness.

I look at my own past relationships that seemed fraught with ups and down, obsessive thinking, or nervousness and worry…

….I can find how I am more relaxed now, more able to handle people with those traits, more able to love without needing anything from others.

Every relationship has been like going to School. The School of my life. The School of the way I think and see the world.

The stressful relationships have been the ones that have taught me the greatest lessons, in many ways.

They are the relationships that made me change course in my ship as it sailed across the ocean.

“The person who turns inner violence around, the person who finds peace inside and lives it, is the one who teaches what true peace is. We are waiting for just one teacher. You’re the one.” ~ Byron Katie

Your invitation in this life is to make peace with what is, with every person you’ve ever known and encountered.

Even those tough cookies.

It doesn’t mean you ever have to contact them, or see them, or live with them, or talk with them again.

“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge…..Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

All you need to do is notice the advantages, the goodness in the NOW, because of having known those difficult people you’ve known. Then see what happens.

It’s not scary as you think.

Love, Grace