Her eyes brimmed with tears, she looked as if her heart was breaking and she was trying not to feel it.
A woman who had come to work with me was on skype, but we could see each other clearly, it was almost like being in person, even though she was across the Atlantic Ocean.
She had discovered her long-term partner had been paying for porn sites on the internet, going to places to buy sexual experience, and ran up debt feeding what seemed like an addiction to casual or sexual encounters with people he didn’t know.
She found out because of a pocket-dial. One of those weird times where the cell phone accidentally gets tapped, makes the call, and a voicemail is recorded.
She heard a long, strange 4 minute voicemail that sounded completely bizarre, and she had questions.
The questions led to more questions, realizing her partner was lying.
We’ve all had moments when it seems like someone isn’t telling the truth, or they’re telling the partial truth, or something doesn’t add up.
It’s sooooo easy to begin the barrage of thinking when betrayal, panic, fear arises.
You really believe something’s awful, and you’re terrified.
I remember having the same kind of experience myself.
I was trying to reach a man I was interested in by phone. He normally was very available. Almost always picked up the phone, we’d have long conversations. We weren’t even in a relationship….but I thought it was going in that direction.
It didn’t matter if it was called a relationship or not a relationship.
The dreamy elixir of addictive thinking was present.
I need him. I want him. He adores me. He wants me. This is thrilling. This is fabulous. This is giddy. I can’t wait for the next call.
I called back two hours later. No answer. I called back before bed. No answer. I texted the next day. No answer.
Five days later, he called and told me all about his sexcapades, illegal activity, strange dark unhappy environments.
Oh.
That’s the way it is.
And then a whole other pile of thoughts fly in like a tidal wave.
What an idiot I’ve been. I can’t believe I picked that person. He’s so wrong. I don’t need him. I don’t want him. I was so mistaken. This sucks.
Crash.
The world collapses. The dream is over.
But who would any of us be if we didn’t have the beliefs in either the ecstasy or the hell of love relationships? If we didn’t think they could save us, or kill us? If we didn’t cling to others, or avoid others?
Who would we BE without the belief that relationships offer something “special” whether it’s uplifting or earth-shattering?
Kinda weird, right?
What if we really investigated the beliefs that partnerships are such a big honkin’ deal?
Immediately, I find a middle road opening as if fog is parting, and there’s a path.
It’s OK to walk the path alone, it’s OK to walk the path holding someone’s hand, it’s OK to walk the path with a few close friends, it’s OK to walk the path with a whole group arm in arm together for awhile, and then alone again.
“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.” ~ Pema Chodron
And so I began the journey with my client that day. The journey of taking a good look.
Remembering my own looking as we investigate together.
Turning everything around: I am not abandoned now, I abandoned myself in that situation, I am set free, I do not know where this is really going, things come and things go including relationships, things are torn apart, things are built up, there is movement, all is very well except in my thinking.
Could all these things be just as true, or truer?
Yes.
“There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.” ~ Tao Te Ching #46
Much love, Grace