Tag: co-dependent no more

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I Need Him To Feel OK

A very stressful belief, held by many at various moments on the planet, is the concept “I need that person to feel OK.”

Boy howdy, that’s a juicy, sometimes wildly painful belief.

Our Tuesday YOI (Year of Inquiry) Group examined this thought together this morning.

Wow, awesome.

There is your friend, your mom, your dad, your boyfriend, your wife, your child, your client…..and they are depressed, weeping, lying in a hospital bed, in turmoil over a loss, they are worried, angry, nervous, upset, they just got emotionally hurt.

There’s an urge to rush in, assist.

It really does seem like it would be better if that person felt OK, felt good, felt content, felt open.

Questioning this belief does not mean you are cruel, cold, or uncaring.

In fact, without this belief, you may find that you are more genuinely caring than you ever realized…but let’s take a look.

First, are you positive that you need that person to feel good, better, different than they feel in order for you to be happy?

Can you absolutely know that it’s true that if he, she, it, they felt OK you’d be better off?

The fear that enters the body and mind when a loved one gets hurt, let’s say pretty badly, can be infused with this belief.

Maybe their feelings are hurt, maybe their body is hurt…this is noticing the anxiety, panic, anger, and your own hurt that becomes present, sometimes almost simultaneously, when you learn that this person you love is hurt.

So how do you react when you believe that thought, that this situation would be better if they were OK?
When I believe this thought, I am going to find out what will resolve their “hurt” and stay on the job until I find the answer. I call them. I think about them. I read books about their condition and nod. I rush in.
I come to the rescue.
I think thoughts like “he really needs to….” or “she should get help from….”
In the past, I had a great friend who had a major huge mega-watt amount of anxiety. His story, or my story, was that he had a rough life.
How did I react when I believed that I needed him to feel OK?
First, I tried to rescue.
Then, I ditched him. I believed I couldn’t take it anymore. I quit!
But who would you be without the belief that this person needs to be OK? That they are NOT OK, even with whatever is going on?
“My beloved sister is dying of cancer now, and she is in the very painful last stages of agony. Watching my sister’s husband watch his wife in such dreadful pain would be agonizing, if not for the enlightened mind, the questioned awake-to-love mind….
 
…..Oh, how I love her, and how opposite of helpless I am. I am the power of love, and there is nothing more powerful than that as I find myself sobbing with her. Who would think that love is that grateful, that deep, that overwhelming, and tear-filled! As I sob, the joy within, the joy that is born out of my love, blind in its clarity, runs deeper than any sadness could ever begin to, and it is allowed to live at its depth, a state that fear is too shallow to explore and must always fall short in its emotion to express.” ~ Byron Katie
Without the belief that other people need to be OK in order for me to be happy…
…I am free to love, express, breathe, connect, be honest, authentic, caring, overwhelmed, untethered, real, genuine….and stay or go.
I turn the thought around that I need him to be OK, I need her to be OK.
I don’t actually need that. I am living this life over here, in this body, apparently.
I can see advantages, even, to that person not being OK as I look at them:
  • they are encountering their own fear and growing stronger through it
  • they are capable of getting through this
  • they are learning about life
  • they are freer
  • they are experiencing something profound
  • they are changing
  • they are dying (or some part of them is dying) and therefore on their way to a new dimension, new life…
And while that person is not OK, I can turn that whole entire list around to myself and find the incredible gift in that person appearing as they appear in my life:
  • I am encountering my own fear and growing stronger through it
  • I am capable of getting through this (their pain, my pain)
  • I am learning about life
  • I am freer
  • I am experiencing something profound
  • I am changing
  • I am dying (my stories or otherwise) and therefore on my way to a new dimension
“The ego creates stories to convince you that you cannot be at peace NOW, you cannot be fully yourself NOW.” ~ Eckhart Tolle  
How might you be when you are with those sweet, amazing, suffering people if you knew they were actually OK?
Much Love, Grace
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How Shocking! He’s Not Attracted To Me!

Wow, I got so many notes and emails from people responding to my Grace Note yesterday on Fearing Desire. WONDERFUL comments!

One of the most interesting things I have noticed, in all the teleclasses I teach but ESPECIALLY in the Sexuality class, is people noticing at some point in the process of inquiring into their thinking is that this is about so much more than sex.

This work is about feeling fear when someone does something, or asks for something, or wants something, or says they need something, especially from YOU…whether that looks like physical contact or not.

This work is about feeling the stress that flows through you when someone says they are attracted to you, or when you are attracted to them…or perhaps when they DON’T like you and they don’t want anything from you.

Human connection and communication, relationships, asking for what you want, responding to others when they ask for what they want…this dynamic shows up in almost every relationship.

It is far beyond the experience of sexuality, but the arena of sexuality is so wonderful, so filled with mood, emotion, arousal, disappointment, pleasure, demand, intrigue, hope…that it is one of the most powerful exchanges to study.

We get to find out what we really, really think we want. We get to see what the moment is like, what we are believing when we are disturbed or uncomfortable.

As Byron Katie suggests, we are looking here at the stressful thoughts, not the relaxing, peaceful ones. Those loving ones we may as well keep. They are kind and gentle.

The tougher, nervy ones go like this:

  • If I move towards that person, I could get hurt
  • If that person moves towards me, I need to run away
  • If I like that person, I will hurt someone else
  • If that person likes me, they are wrong/confused/pushy
  • I have to do something with this feeling of attraction
  • That person (those people) are out of control with their feelings
  • I must get satisfied!
  • When that person does THAT, says THAT, moves that way…it’s freaky
  • I need to be liked, I need people to think I’m attractive

We assume things constantly, with a tiny gesture, with a facial expression. We wonder what it means. We stay quiet and don’t ask, because it’s frightening to think of speaking up. Or we may be boisterous and loud, but still full of assumptions that may not be spot on. We keep secrets.

This expression within sexuality can contain what is uncomfortable in human interaction, and what we’re most afraid of. It’s about how we perceive desire, wanting, emptiness, dischord, anxiety.

When my mind used to be so full of all these kinds of thoughts about what that other person might mean, what I should or shouldn’t be doing or feeling, and believing that what I want, say, or think could be bad…it was paralyzing.

I discovered that I could take one single situation that involved physical touch, attraction, or affection, and see a whole box full of stressful ideas from that one single moment.

Once a man I was on a date with said to me after spending a whole day together, having a great time talking (I thought) “you know, you really aren’t my type.”

It was like a knife went through my gut. I had to control myself from crying (must not show that I’m affected by his words–an additional stressful thought of course).

Oh the agony that one human man on the planet didn’t think I was his type!!!

Now, while I look at that moment as somewhat surprising…..I can say DANG, that was direct and blunt! That was awesome! No guessing where I stood, that’s for sure.

It was an amazing moment in not taking something personally. Although…heh heh. I took it sooooo personally (remember the knife) there was not even a half-second before my reaction.

Boy, the seething viciousness of my own mind later was incredible. All because of someone saying they were not attracted to me.

But I did The Work. I investigated what the heck was happening in that moment, for me. I dove into that terrible blistering moment like my life depended on it.

I turned that thought around…”he should have said that, he should not be attracted to me (if he’s not, I mean…duh), he should tell me the truth straight up, he should not pull any punches, I do not need flattery, I am not rejected, I am still attractive—to myself and to other men”.

I realized that all of those were just as true. I realized all the importance and power I gave those words from his mouth.

I even realized he didn’t necessarily mean them to be hurtful to me! He knew I could handle it!

“Who would you be in people’s presence without, for example, the story that anyone should care about you, ever? You would be love itself. When you believe the myth that people should care, you’re too needy to care about people or about yourself. The experience of love can’t come from anyone else; it can come only from inside you.”~Byron Katie

Every time there is a jolt in me that puts up a shield, or something inside that starts to gather rocks, I know I’ve got attack-mode engaged. Not really that useful or fun.

Who would I be without my story that this whole sexuality business is a sensitive topic, that we have to be careful and delicate, that it’s weird, or private, or personal….or really all that important? What if I gave up moving towards, moving away, and just noticed?

I’d start a teleclass on the topic.

“Ego is the movement of the mind toward objects of perception in the form of grasping, and away from objects in the form of aversion. This fundamentally is all the ego is.”~Adyashanti

The Our Wonderful Sexuality starts on Tuesday 1/22. Join us if you’d like to look at love, attraction, anger, first kiss, your longest-term relationship….and question what happened.

Love, Grace

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They Can Do It Themselves—You Don’t Need To Help

I love how anything we tell a story about, anything difficult, painful or annoying… contains information about the story-teller.

We often LOVE looking with child-like innocence at the projection, the story, not at the one doing the projecting…..

Imagine being at a theater show for children, and notice how they believe everything told in the story. Even if it’s obvious to us as adults that a person in a bear costume is a human, not a bear, the kids think it’s a bear.

But we adults also envision what is being said and we think “it’s true!” We can be the same way in a movie, with tears streaming down our cheeks at a moving moment, even though we know the whole thing is made up.

When we start slowing the mind down and looking more closely at our thinking, we start to see in our own stories how it’s all about us, our own beliefs and attitudes, what we get drawn to, how we look at things, what we’ve scooped up and bought; hook, line and sinker.

We start to see that every single time we tell a story, there are holes in it where we can’t be 100% absolutely sure that our version of the story is the WHOLE TRUTH. The way we see money, family members, food, our bodies, neighbors, co-workers, colleagues….all have to do with clusters of thought that we’re thinking might be true, past experiences, gossip, what the people around us also believed.

If we question our own thinking enough, with open examination, and realize how subjective all stories are, then when we start to hear other peoples’ stories we can start to think “Man, that person should do The Work, they should question their thinking, they would be happier if they didn’t believe so resolutely that they’ve been a victim!”

Someone says “I don’t have enough money” or “I don’t have enough time” or “I don’t know enough” and they are sad, anxious or depressed….they talk about the terrible things that could happen since they don’t have enough.

Another person says “I hate political conservatives” or “this world needs to change” or “my boss is so annoying” or “the 1% are ruining the economy” and we get a sense of this person who is doing the talking…and we start to have some thoughts, you may have noticed.

Once we have started to question our own stories, we begin to see how that person over there who is suffering and telling their story is probably not seeing a whole, complete picture. They are believing painful thoughts and concepts.

You may be easily able to think about someone you know right now who is telling a tough, difficult, hurtful story to themselves. Notice what you are thinking about them:

  • they should stop taking their situation so seriously
  • they should stop complaining
  • they need nurturing, therapy, counseling, support
  • they should to The Work
  • they are too entrenched in their own story to find peace
  • they need to relax

The thing is, these are also judgments and stories ABOUT THOSE OTHER SUFFERING PEOPLE.

Doh!

I love how Byron Katie says, if you think someone else needs to do The Work, then YOU need to do The Work.

If I think my neighbor or my clients or my family members are in a terrible situation, that they can’t get out of it, that their story is horrendous and they really DO need intervention, some major miracle, or a labotomy….then I need to go back into my own story and question it.

“What really matters is always available to everyone. Nothing comes ahead of its time, and nothing has ever happened that didn’t need to happen. Bringing inquiry to people is my job. After that, there’s nothing to offer. I know that ultimately people don’t need my help. I go through the world helping people, it appears, and I’m only selfishly helping myself. When you say Help Me, I understand that. I’ve been there. but even if I could give you freedom, I wouldn’t do it. I love you too much for that. I leave your freedom to you. That’s the gift.”~ Byron Katie

Everyone is enough, everyone has all they need to find their way, to transform their stories. We may not know when or how, but everyone is on the perfect path. There they are, believing their thoughts, in our presence, so that we can question our OWN thinking.

“When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised. If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy. The Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say ‘Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!'”~Tao te Ching #17

Those people close to you who are suffering….they need to know they can do it all by themselves. They are trustworthy.

I do not need to say the right and perfect thing, to plead, argue, talk, recount, explain. All I need to do is govern myself well, do my own work.

I heard the word “co-dependent” growing up, since it was popular then. Now I understand how not to be. Trust that person to take care of their own life….because they can.

Love, Grace