Category: Unlearning

Love Doesn’t End at Possession

When relationships end, there is a natural tendency to pull apart and sever the link that is a relationship. Sometimes this is done out of hurt or spite, sometimes for self protection, and sometimes as a societal norm. This makes sense so that parties can proactively make room for whatever things they needed and did not receive. A complete severance is not always needed, but in many cases it is. This is not the topic of this blog.

I think that love is not something that is made in the relationship. It is not a “relationship-specific asset.” Love is everywhere, in all directions, and a unique and wonderful-feeling love was probably enjoyed during the relationship. The romantic love can no longer be shared when a romantic relationship ends, but the many other forms of love can endure, and quite frankly should, provided the dynamic was healthy.

With the help of our hormones, we fall in love. We don’t choose who we fall for, we just fall. And loving someone has never led to a broken heart. What can causes pain is how the love is and is not expressed or shared. This is 100% determined by loving behaviours and not love. Behaviours can cause hurt, not love.

This can be elaborated much more, but for the sake of brevity, the conflation we create between love (noun) and loving behaviours (verb) serves us poorly. Behaviours determine whether relationships should and should not continue. Love is an innocent bystander that is shot when upset stemming from behaviours provokes vengeance or ill feelings.

It is okay to love what you cannot possess. It is okay to love what you don’t even like. It is okay to love without limit, including people with whom you no longer share closeness. To honour yourself, feel the love you have and accept it. You don’t need to change your behaviour to love something in action (verb) when your love exists (noun).

What Matters

I am troubled daily about the increase in fake living, which is a divergence from what matters and is the reason why we are here. Let’s look at what doesn’t matter…

What doesn’t matter is symbolism, intentions, hopes, wishes, blessings, prayers, social media posts, desire, and anything else that either isn’t real, or worse still, isn’t real but pretends to be real.

How many wars have been fought over religious symbols? How many relationships have been wasted in hope? How many social media posts have changed the world? Proxies for living pervert our experiences because we take them as real, and we take the absence of them as real.

What matters is what is done in action. On earth. Something observable through your senses, and not just your mind. If someone is unavailable for a relationship, they take action to overcome that, and that is real. If someone wants to be with someone but has something that interferes, they prioritize the person and neglects that something, and that is real. If someone wants to build a life with someone, in life they take concrete measures to make that happen. Everything else is pretend. Make-believe. A farce that is an attempt to bamboozle another person by using excuses, stories, mysteries, and sentiment to alter the reality that exists for real.

Take some time and reperceive things for their degree of reality, and see that this is binary. If it’s not clearly real, then it’s clearly fake. Insist on being real and accepting only real things so that your life is not wasted. Trust me, this is important.

The Power of Free Will

Lots of folks talk about the influence of genetics, nurture, environment, psychological trauma, or other exogenous phenomena as being deterministic in how we act. These things are certainly persuasive and sometimes difficult to combat, but free will is a stronger power, and it’s something we all wield. The only question is what we want to do with it.

In another post I’ve mentioned how people will wake up super early for a flight to a fun destination, smile convincingly through a bad mood at a business function, or stay up to ridiculous hours when the pillow talk is mesmerizing. There are always forces that will attempt to overwhelm our decision making ability: chronic pain, massive trauma, deep insecurity, psychological panic, to name a few biggies. We can choose to laugh when all circumstances are saddening; we can choose to love during times of great loss; we can choose to hug instead of hit. This does not attempt to alter the underlying feelings or state of mind, rather it trumps internal noise with the outcome best achieved. I call this being the captain of your ship. No matter the waves, no matter the mutinous voices of the crew, you are the one in charge and must choose what is best for the vessel.

So whether you want to disregard hunger pangs to drop some weight, or need to ignore some sabotaging internal forces that are destroying a relationship, the choice is yours. It’s called free will for a reason. The captain does what’s best for the ship and will be judged by the outcome ultimately achieved. You have the power to act in any way you want, so choose wisely.

Separate the Person From the Problem

I’ve been meditating on some guidance that is given to mediators, which is to separate the person from the problem and the process. While this seems like a platitude, let’s explore.

A person comes from lots of experiences, and from those experiences develops a series of truths. I’ve discussed this in other blogs. They then adapt their behaviours to coincide with these truths, which is quite logical, however the underlying truth is usually not. It is often coming from fear, and results in some very suboptimal adaptations. These adaptations become behaviours, and behaviours are the basis of living and relating to others, and if you’re following the logic, the behaviours are suboptimal and tend to play out self-fulfilling prophecies.

When a person shows up cautious, jealous, accusatory, or whatever other choice is unloving or uncaring, they are creating a problem. We can go so far as to say they are being a problem, as the expression is real and lived by others. This is where we split hairs, but importantly so.

The choice to behave in a certain way is a choice and represents one’s free will. Yes there are actions that are not choices, but adaptations are eventually understood as choices because we have the wisdom to see their outcomes, and the power to change them.

A prudent therapeutic and relational approach is to separate the person from the problem. The individual expressing or being a problem can be detached from the problem if they so choose and are provided support. The ADKAR method has been very successful in helping people to change, however a permanent change is not necessary in all instances; often to achieve a common goal, parties need only a temporary lift past an adaptive or emotional hurdle. This approach is very much like the Pygmalion effect, where if you treat someone in a particular way, they will respond as that thing.

Am I blabbing about a revolutionary thing? No. But the cognitive shift to see people as potentially distinct from the problem they are creating helps one to support a positive outcome that exceeds the adaptive limitation expressed.

This next blog section is slightly different, as it comments on relational dynamics where a personal problem is masqueraded as a relational issue. This can be in personal or professional dynamics. If someone is framing their personal issue as a relational issue, they must be told. A problem cannot be tackled if the origin is obscure as any joint approach to correct it will be misguided. In these instances, one must disown any ‘blame’ for or involvement in the problem and guide the offender to forms of support where the problem is theirs to address. If they refuse to regard their problem as their own and consequently refuse to address it, that dynamic must shift to reflect that refusal. This shift can sustain recognition of that person’s humanity and goodness, as detached from the problem, but you yourself must recede to a place where you are not wrongly identified as a combatant, trigger, or co-cause of that person’s problem.

A person ought to be cognitively detached from their problem and seen more holistically and compassionately. This is not for the purpose of acquiescence or sacrifice, but merely to keep your head about you while you attempt to support them in their own issue from a position of wisdom and safety. There is no reason to ever act without love and care for another person. There is a prudent reason to starve a problem of your time and energy. The magic is in seeing each separately and acting accordingly.

How to be Truly Present

Every guru and motivational poster tells you how to be present and the importance of it, which seems pretty sound. What they fail to mention or notice is that you’re already in the present, you’re just not doing a very good job of engaging in your present. This is partially because in any present moment, there are infinite opportunities to engage, yet only one thing that can receive your focus at once. Mindfulness is the practice of intentionally selecting which segment of the present to engage and offer your focus. But this is all very aspirational and frankly academic because what usually impairs your present is the injection of things that are (a) not temporally relevant and/or (b) not real.

The spiritual community seems to embrace the notion that what’s past is gone, and lamenting or regretting events past is a super way to not live in the present. Similarly, noodling on future events today such that they create a response in the present is another way to squander the present. The past is meant to fade away with lessons and memories that carry forward, and the future is meant for living in the future if and when it occurs. Neither of these belong in the present. It’s very easy to worry about paying your bills of next month, being shy at that event in 2 weeks, or how you’ll score on that exam next month, but we mustn’t. We must live in a manner that is sustainable today such that future concerns and outcomes are predictably neutralized.

The meatier topic is really whether something is real. What I mean by “real” is something that is material in an experiential way and is happening or certain to happen imminently. By definition, this eliminates symbology, potential, plans, intentions, hopes, promises, gestures, posturing…until they are actioned. This includes all what-ifs and other ruminations where people are mentally exploring, but what happens in the mind is not real. Reality is what is happening, not what exists on paper, in minds, or in fantasy.

Have you noticed that every time you’re involved in a role, you fuss about the future of that role? Whether you’re an employee, a romantic partner, or a student, you are fussing about ‘what-if this ends’, ‘what if I perform poorly’, ‘what if someone does something wrong’. That’s future-oriented thought, which is a spiritual no-no that impairs your present, but more profoundly, it’s not real. There is nothing about any of these ruminations that warrants thinking time. They are all ego-generated fears that are seeking an audience of your mind with the purpose of feeling better, which you entertain at the expense of your present, despite the fact that you actually have no control over any of these things and therefore would be better served participating in them fully by being present and not a worry-wart.

The same thing applies in all situations. If you are hiking or surfing and fear some danger, your entire experience will be tainted by incessant rumination of a mind concoction that is not real. Risks are indeed real, but not until they are real in action so there is no merit worrying about them because that worry does not mitigate the risk (despite what your scaredy-pants ego wants you to believe). Your head is not where life is lived, it is lived and experienced on earth.

When you find yourself worrying, ask yourself, ‘is this part of my present, and is it real?’ Real things may seem noisy and consuming, but really ask yourself whether it is material in your life at the moment in a real way or whether it is rather coming in the form of a potential, what-if, or symbol that may some day materialize but today is just speculation or noise. When you eliminate what is not real from reality, and focus on the present without that noise, you will find yourself far better able to maintain the stillness of your internal pond.

What do I Want in a Partner?

Well…I like my partner to be tall, and have nice teeth, be well travelled….oh, and like dogs and brunch.

Partners are not chosen from catalogs or compared to lists, and if they are, they are being slotted in to your life. and/or fantasies. This means you have architected a whole fanciful existence of stuff for you, and you are trying to shoehorn some poor bugger in there. Odds of success are moderate, but the end result will be entirely dissatisfying because this is seeking a life addition and not a relationship.

Before I go on, I should mention that even more determinative than hopes and fantasies are pre-existing marriages. If someone is married when you meet them, you probably won’t hook up. However we overlook the other forms of ‘marriage’ that people have such as marriage to a city, their pet, religion, ego, neighbourhood, profession, people, self-identity, fears, etc., and are unwilling to be flexible about those things so they will certainly occupy some portion of any future relationship. If someone would not move cities when you must, or not spend a weekend in a way that doesn’t include their family, they are married and are looking for a threesome to join in that marriage.

The most important and determinative form of marriage is marriage to dysfunction. Dysfunction develops as an adaptation to circumstances. It attempts to improve a situation by building an understanding and controlling the self and environment to minimize pain and suffering. It is most often (mostly) wrong and causes far more issues outside that circumstance, but that’s another blog post. For now, know that marriage to dysfunction is like getting married in Vegas when you were blitzed. You don’t even know you are married. Well, most people in informal ‘marriages’ don’t know they are wed. But from the outset of a new relationship you negotiate in the presence of that dysfunction so it can form a polygamist trio. And often the poor sap on the other end doesn’t even know it’s happening, they just accept it as “who I am”, and fall back on blanket notions that acceptance equates to love. That isn’t true. Fighting against and divorcing dysfunction is the hallmark of a truly progressive and powerful dynamic. If your partner isn’t the person who helps you identify and extinct your adaptations, why are they called “partner”?

The most successful relationships are where two people show up exactly as who they are and act authentically to co-create a new beast called a relationship. Think 2 dots that are forming a line between them. If a line is already made and one dot is walking around wielding this big line, that poke ain’t gonna be pleasant. It’ll be more like beating that other dot with the stick until she/he relents and accepts what the relationship is without helping to shape it.

Show up as you. Be authentic and silence your ego. Give the other person space to express their free will without your demands or coercion. If you’ve shown up authentically and built something great, you have got yourself a high quality relationship whose probability of gratification is exceptional, because you both made it together as yourselves.

Relationships are most gratifying when they bring out the version of us that we enjoy most. This can only happen when both people are authentically present in the formation of the relationship, self representing, and able to be themselves without unhelpful lists and fantasies. So show up with your full life, but be open to any and all changes that feel right, including those that upend the marriages that only serve your fears and inertia.

Reflex, Reaction, Response

In decision science, a properly understood context often makes the ‘decision’ a natural consequence that requires little thought. Contextualizing, therefore, is the activity we conduct poorly. Let’s explore!

I was an avid squash player and one day I hurt my back pretty badly. What was my decision here? There is no decision to be made. If I am functionally incapable of playing, then I cannot play until I am medically cleared to safely play. Some would say I should suck it up or power through it. That would be the ego talking. It is a separate choice to relinquish your captain’s chair to your ego or not.

For clarity, I like to use the 3Rs:

Reflex – As the name implies, something that occurs immediately as a result of the situation. “Rebound” or “reflection” also work nicely and maintain the same alliterative fun, like a billiard ball bouncing off a bank (oooh, that was alliterative fun too). If you place your hand on a hot stove your reflex is to remove it. If a ball is sailing toward your face your reflex is to avoid it or brace for impact. No thought is required, a reflex is what occurs by universal determination automatically.

Reaction – Stems from a cause but unlike a reflex is a learned response. When my kid was young and barfed all over me I would adeptly sop up the puke from my child and ensure he was okay and then attended to the smelly mess on me. No emotion, no revulsion, just mechanical puke attendance. If someone random walks over and barfs on you, by contrast, this is disgusting and you will not be calm. You will totally wig out. In both cases you will react with an understanding (the baby needs to be okay and then I need to restore hygiene or, I may need to right a situation and then I need to restore hygiene). The only difference is your state of mind in an otherwise mechanical set of steps you now must complete given what transpired.

Response – The whole shebang, where something (a decision point) has come to be and you need to consider your best course of action out of several options before it is acted out. Your neighbour is parking partially in your driveway. Your partner wants to get a tattoo. You are contemplating getting a puppy. Here is where you’ve got the most latitude to exercise your free will and not just react automatically to things.

Why does this distinction matter? Many people misattribute decisions to others that are not decisions, they are reactions, or natural consequences of their actions.

“Why did you decide to fire me?” “I didn’t decide to fire you, you punched your fellow employee and cannot remain employed here.”

“Why did you decide not to admit to your ballet school?” “I didn’t decide to reject you, your lack of ballet ability determined this outcome in advance.”

“Why did you decide we can’t be in a relationship?” “When you chose to be abusive you chose to not have a relationship.”

These are reactions, not responses, in my parlance. The outcome was predictable and therefore a decision (response) was not needed nor made, reactions play out natural consequences.

Some folks intervene where reactions should flow. Instead of being in the world to find their way, sometimes parents fund their adult children in lives they have not built. Or in a bad relationship, one party absorbs a lot of unpleasantness to avoid admitting that the relationship should end. These choices distort reality and create unnatural circumstances that carry all sorts of downstream repercussions.

Distortions can take place in both reactions and responses, the latter being not so uncommon, and in fact much of society is structured to influence the decisions of others as commonplace. We cannot possibly cover how to make good decisions, but from a spiritual standpoint, being yourself is always a formula for authenticity, which ain’t too shabby as an outcome.

Shrouded Priorities

Carl Jung, one of the pioneers of modern psychology, famously said, “you are what you do, not what you say you’ll do”.

It is seemingly easy to distinguish between thought and action. Or is it? Is a gift of jewellery a thought or an action? Giving a gift is indeed an action, but the gift itself, precious metals and gems, is often intended to express something by proxy like, “I worked for many hours to buy you this gift”, or, “I know you like to look sparkly so I hunted for something special and sparkly for you”. These kinds of embedded symbolism make actions more or less understood and appreciated by the recipient and by others who may have various interpretations on the symbolism contained within. The book The Five Love Languages does a good job outlining interpretative differences of this kind. What I find lacking in this book is a sixth love language called ‘intentions’. Our minds are busy all the time and thinking nice thoughts about a person and intending good things for them does indeed seem to be a way some people express love. I think Carl Jung would agree.

Why this matters is that in any relationship, a person often thinks they are contributing beneficially when there is nothing tangible offered or received. Nice thoughts, as nice as they may be, do not translate into a feeling of love. Abstaining from diddling the secretary does not translate into a feeling of love. Absurd as it may sound to need to clarify, some people need to wake up to the fact that wanting to make someone breakfast in bed will not be received the same as serving breakfast in bed.

Our free will is a glorious gift, and it allows us to choose among tradeoffs which, IMHO, is being. I can be kind if I am charitable and I can be mean if I harm things. Both are choices and by choosing, I am deciding the person I am. The power of this cannot be understated, nor can the fact that we can change our actions like a lightswitch for most things and be something else.

We make choices in a way that illuminates our true priorities. I call them “true priorities” because people often misconnect their actions and their outcomes, and I say “illuminate” because they are apparently not so clear all the time. If I’m trying to lose weight and I pig out on chocolate cake, am I truly trying to lose weight? Some would argue yes they are trying to lose weight but are having a oopsy moment. To that I’d respond that temporary insanity for chocolate cake is almost believable, but still doesn’t account for the motivation to diverge from the stated priority. Same for an alcoholic having a drink. If your goal is to stop drinking, but you celebrate your success with a drink, there is another priority lurking in there.

Let’s take more time to examine the things people do because many of these things seem to fall under the sensibility bar. There are situations where someone can abuse or neglect their partner repeatedly and then claim they are devoted to them. Nope. There are situations where someone can have chosen something in their lives (i.e. serious addiction, retention of unhealthy dynamics, participation in serious crime) and claim they are available for a healthy relationship. Nope. Whether these incompatibilities are misunderstood or misintended, they obviate the possibility of the outcome desired through unilateral action. Devotion to your abused partner is to take decisive and unwavering steps to extinct the abusive behaviour. Availability for partnership is permanently excising the dysfunction or crime they’d otherwise be embroiled in. Choosing to retain the abuse, crime, addiction and/or dysfunction demonstrates the true priority that exists. It is whatever that act is and not what is claimed.

Remember at the end of Breaking Bad where Walter White finally admitted that his drug kingpin aspirations were for him and not for his family, where this was his original intention? Skyler (his wife) came to understand this prior and knew his intentions and consequent choices and knew he was no longer a viable partner once his true priorities were clear.

People fall prey to promises, illusions and hopes and this becomes a contract in relationships without a exercise date. I will (one day) get help for my abuse/addiction/dysfunction. I will (one day) end dysfunctional relationships with my ex, or mother. When you stress me out less I will (one day) stop acting in rage. I will (one day) not prioritize work and show you love in action. The problem with these promises are that they are false and don’t reflect the person’s true priorities in action, they are just words. Their minds may know otherwise or may be tricking them too that these priorities are just temporary when they are reality. Priorities chosen are chosen for a reason and unless the reason goes away organically, the choices will remain. Losing weight to look good in a wedding dress will almost certainly result in weight gain after the wedding because it was linked to that priority. Someone not drinking when you’ve expressed an issue with it will have the drinking behaviours expressed secretively or delayed because it is your priority and not theirs.

If someone chooses to have an unboundaried relationship with their ex, or an unconstrained addiction that puts your future in peril, or brings around an abusive person who you feel ought to be forcefully removed from your property, their intentions and promises are meaningless when their actions are contradictory and consequently put you at risk. Both parties must wise up to what priorities mean in action and not delude themselves with hopes and promises.

For those facing their own priorities:

  1. Spend the time to see reality for what it is. Life is about tradeoffs and what you choose also dictates what you are not choosing.
  2. Acknowledge your true priorities as they are actioned.
  3. Determine if you want to live differently (achieve different outcomes). Do this with honesty.
  4. Take decisive steps to live such that priorities are expressed in action with consistency as they are prioritized.

For those struggling with the priority expressed by others:

  1. Spend the time to see reality for what it is. Life is about tradeoffs and what someone chooses also dictates what they are not choosing.
  2. Acknowledge their true priorities as they are actioned. Accept that these are their true priorities.
  3. Determine if you want to live differently (achieve different outcomes) for yourself. Do this with honesty with no expectation of someone changing.
  4. Take decisive steps to live such that priorities are expressed in action with consistency as they are prioritized.

The Roots of Distress

All distress results from an unwillingness to accept reality.

Once you’ve accepted that your car has a flat tire, you need to redo your work, you’ve got a wrinkle, or that you have an injury that needs immobilization, the distress vanishes. The gap between awareness and acceptance is where the ego self-talks about your suffering, discomfort, frustration and you allow this to become your reality by becoming emotional. It’s as though the ego thinks that if reality is fought, it can be avoided.

The sooner you accept reality, the less you will experience distress.