Heartbreak / Turnaround/ Freedom
We were supposedly in love, and the main thing we did was argue and fight.
We’ll call her Sally Ann, and I’d met her seven years earlier, when I was building a fence in her landlord’s backyard. We met in Berkeley, fell in love, visualized a paradise cottage in the country, and found one on the outskirts of Sonoma the town, in Sonoma the country, in California the state.
Heaven for awhile.
We made our own paradise garden. We ate outside almost every meal we were together.
We raised tomatoes and herbs to sell at the farmer’s market.
And…
We fought.
And we fought. And we fought.
Here’s a simple couples metric: if F, as in fighting, is more often than F, as in lovemaking, you are in trouble.
We were in trouble. And then Sally Ann solved that. She ran off with Joe. With whom F vs F was just wonderful, thank you.
And how did I take this: at first extremely poorly.
Did I find refuge in the present? No.
Did I soar on the wings of liberation and non-attachment? No.
I did the usual.
Heartbreak.
Bitterness.
Feeling the victim, betrayed, sad, depressed, worried, angry at Joe and Sally Ann.
And angry at myself.
The obvious evidence: my side of the arguing had been not so wonderful.
And so….
Heartbreak.
Victimhood.
Poor me.
Hating the “bad” other person.
Hating the “bad/ failure” me.
Hating life.
All that.
You’ve felt it, sometime?
You are feeling it still now? If so, I’m sorry.
Suffering sucks.
And a lot of divorces and breakups are swamped in these shitty feelings, and a lot of people still carry them around.
Not pretty.
Not happy.
Suffering.
Suffering.
Suffering.
Which sucks. If a relationship done right can be one of the most wonderful, blissful and quickest paths toward spiritual advancement, the opposite is something most of us have suffered: a relationship gone wrong can be the depths of hell on Earth.
And….
And there are ways out of it. I’ll offer one way, starting right now, with the breakthrough I discovered way back in 1999.
The discovery was to do the “turn around.”
The Turn Around, the turn around, the turn around.
This “turn around” is a subset of something called “the work of Byron Katie.”
Who is Byron Katie? Very short version: She’s a woman who came to enlightenment via the path of alcoholism, obesity, chain smoking, yelling at her family and deep depression. She wasn’t trying for enlightenment. She was hating her life and hating her suffering and wanted it to end.
And it did. Her suffering ended. Not her life, A brand new amazingly real and useful life began.
How?
She “woke up” one day, in 1986, in a halfway house in the dusty backwater desert town of Barstow, California. She was laying on the floor because she felt unworthy of a bed. A cockroach walked across her leg. All her suffering vanished when she “woke up” to the world just as it was, the world without ANY of her judgments about the world. No judgments meant no suffering.
She was free.
Life was mainly laughter and delight.
Occasionally an old thought would cause her delight to tumble, which hurt. And, when she looked out at normal humanity, she saw everyone outside of her continuing to suffering from their own thoughts beliefs and judgments.
So, she invented a method to “undo” the thoughts / beliefs/ judgments that are at the root of almost all suffering.
Which is to say, Byron Katie discovered a path out of all emotional suffering. Big claim. It is. One of my offerings beyond this talk is a three hour intensive to release all the resentments and unforgiven places in your life.
It’s expensive.
It’s a money back guarantee.
It’s entirely of the “work” of Byron Katie, which is work, but the kind of “work” where three hours can equal a couple of years of therapy. And you can do it for free, on your own at http://thework.com.
And right now, you don’t need the website or any intensive because I’m going to show you how I got out of the hell of heartbreak and blame and victimhood and Sally Ann hatred and myself hatred.
So, there I was, with Sally Ann off having a great F to F ratio with Joe, and poor bitter me all alone.
Time to do the work. The work of Byron Katie.
I’d met Byron Katie a number of times in Marin, an easy drive from Sonoma, and had been suffering so deeply, I was all in to try her method. You know those periods: you are finally so fed up with suffering that you are actually ready to do something besides the same old stuff that hasn’t worked before.
So… I dove into the work of Byron Katie. Every day. More than one time a day.
One part of her method, her “work,” had a spectacular liberation for me in the suffering I was creating inside myself and blaming on Sally Ann and her running off with Joe.
This is the “turn around” part of the Byron Katie work.
It’s bizarrely simple:
You take your judgment, and you write it down:
“You are mean.”
And you reverse it. “I am mean.”
“You are inconsiderate.”
Turn around… “I am inconsiderate.”
Maybe not full time, but the one we feel is the enemy isn’t full time bad either.
The other way the turn around works is in “should” judgments we love to hound the world with.
Like this…
“So and so should listen to be more.”
And you reverse the sentence: “I should listen to so and so more.”
“So and so should appreciate me more.”
Turns around…. “I should appreciate so and so more.”
Beliefs that we have been torturing ourselves with for years are highly fertile fields for the turn around:
“My father shouldn’t have criticized me so much.”
And even if he started it, even if he was “worse,” the turn around has tons of wisdom, “I shouldn’t have criticized my father so much for criticizing me.” More on this later, as a way out of years and years of feeling bad about my wonderful and imperfect dad.
Now, though, I’m going to show you how I rescued myself from my suffering with Sally Ann, and then show you how you can begin to transform your own life with this “turn around.”
With Sally Ann, I had one of the great breakthroughs of my life.
And this breakthrough came by turning around this belief, that when I believed it was wracking my heart and soul apart. The belief was one of those should ones:
“Sally Ann should love me more.”
The turn around seemed true enough at an intellectual level: “I should love Sally Ann more.”
I kind of nodded my head, yes, yes,
And then, for some reason I let this sink down, and a heart-rooted lightening bolt went off.
I had loved Sally Ann. A lot.
Part of me still did.
And when I went to that part, the whole world opened.
Loving her meant being happy she was with Joe.
Why?
She wanted to be with Joe.
Why?
Joe made her happy.
Loving her more meant waking up to this reality: I loved that she was happy.
Loving her meant being happy that she was living the life she wanted to live.
Loving her meant being honestly and heart fully happy for her that she was free of our fighting.
Loving her meant: loving her.
This set me free.
This opened my heart.
This allowed me to beam with happiness when I thought about her and Joe. I could be happy for her even when I saw her and Joe happily wandering the small town together.
This was freedom.
This was love.
This was, in a strange way, enlightenment.
And….. could you sweet audience, use something like this to transform your life?
Yes.
And will I show you a way to do this?
Yes.
Life on Earth can be at its most painful when love goes awry.
Life on Earth can be at its most heavenly when love returns to being real love. This I want for you: More heaven. Less hell.
To help with this I’ll be offering Love Challenges, and Lust Challenges and Enlightenment Challenges. Take them or not. If you do, bless you, your life may transform in the wonderful ways that your heart really wants.
As Einstein said: “Show me someone who has never made a mistake and I will show you someone who has never learned anything.”
So, now it’s time for the First Challenge of the book.
The First LOVE Challenge: Awakened Love as the Turn Around
Here’s your love challenge. Your chance to learn from my mistake. We’ll take what I did the liberate myself from the pain I was causing myself via Sally Ann’s departure. And expand it to create a chance for your love to heal, deepen and expand.
It’s a little brutal, but it works. And after the initial annoyance of realizing the mess of our own hearts, it can bring a great sense of humor.
And relief.
And freedom.
And….love.
Here’s the exercise….
TURN AROUND CHALLENGE, PART ONE:
Write down a “should” or “shouldn’t” statement about your mate. No mate? Write one about your ex-mate, or a parent.
Make it short.
“So and so should love me more.”
“So and so shouldn’t interrupt.”
“So and so should listen better.”
“So and so shouldn’t be so angry.”
Look at the judgment.
Feel the burn.
Feel how “wronged” you are.
Now, stand up, wiggle a bit and then sit down and write the turn around.
Three times.
Let’s take a “should” we all love and I’ll model it with Carol, the “should” of “You should listen to me more.” We can always fall into demanding that our loved ones listen better.
Step one: I write it down.
“Carol should listen to me better.”
Okay you…..
Write a should or a shouldn’t.
WRITE YOUR SHOULD/ SHOULDN’T JUDGMENT RIGHT HERE…..
One : First turn around.
Just switch the people.
“Carol should listen to me better.”
Switching the people:
“I should listen to Carol better.”
Ah. Let me ponder that. Let me realize the truth of that. Lots and lots of truth there. I can come up with many examples of the truth of that.
Your turn.
Switch the medicine around. Write the sentence with you as the one who needs to change. Or COULD change.
Here…. write it..
WRITE THE TURNED AROUND SENTENCE HERE.
And ponder, and even write about the truth of what happens when you switch the people around.
Stand up.
Take a deep breath.
Sit again, and now to the second part of turning around the “should.”
Two: Second turn around.
Point the finger at your inner self as a turn around.
Like this. “Carol should listen to me better.”
Turning it around to the inner me. “I should listen to me better.”
I can ponder the wisdom of that.
Your turn:
WRITE THE TURN AROUND WHERE YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SHOULD BE TREATING YOURSELF BETTER.
You should appreciate me more >>>>> I should appreciate me more.
You should respect me more >>>>> I should respect me more)
WRITE YOUR INNER VERSION HERE:
Ponder that a bit. When you’ve seen the truth of that, wiggle a bit, and then….
Three: And now the third turn around. The seeing the BIG picture turn around.
This is even “harder.”
Oh, well.
This is a book for those who want transformation.
Is that you?
If so, read and do the work.
In the third one, “should" becomes “shouldn’t” and vice-versa.
Like this.
“Carol should listen to me better.”
“Carol shouldn’t listen to me better.”
Why? Because in this turn around I’m looking for all the examples of how I’m full of shit with my complaining.
I am looking for all the ways that she DOES LISTEN TO ME, ALREADY.
REALLY?
YES.
Your turn:
WRITE THE THIRD TURN AROUND AND FIND THE WAYS THAT THE MATE OR EX-MATE DOES ALREADY DO WHAT YOU ARE COMPLAINING THEY DON’T.
Even if you can only find a little, this little bit will be hugely useful in helping to break the chains of righteousness.
Why three different turns arounds?
One, because each one is invaluable.
Two, because it’s the version I’ve seen most lately with Byron Katie helping people transform.
Three, because it fits with this old adage: One finger pointing out means three pointing back.
I was practicing presenting this with a friend I’ve only met over the phone. She’d been in the Israeli army. As part of getting along with the everyone who has to be in the Army, they give training in the old adage: “If you have one finger pointing out in accusation, there are three fingers pointing back at you.”
Do this now.
Point one finger out, with the usual hand shape. Notice the three fingers pointing back.
DO IT. POINT THE DARN FINGER OUT.
FEEL/ SEE/ NOTICE/ NEVER FORGET: THREE FINGERS POINTING BACK.
REALLY…. DO IT!!!
This is the beginning of love that can heal with truth and humor. You start to see that all their “sins” are your sin, too.
As someone humorous and wise said:
“I’m imperfect and you’re imperfect and that’s perfect.”
“I’m imperfect and you’re imperfect and that’s perfect.”
A brief review of the Sally Ann mistake with all three turn arounds:
“Sally Ann should love me more.”
One: “Sally Ann should love me more.”
Turns around to….“I should love Sally Ann more.”
I’ve already shared how this changed and liberated my life.
Two: “I should love Sally Ann more.”
Turn around to: “I should love myself more.”
Ah, cut out the middleman and stop whining for love from her. How can I love myself more?
Three: “Sally Ann should love me more.”
“Sally Ann shouldn’t love me more.” She already loved me. Just because she went off with Joe didn’t mean she didn’t love me. It meant she didn’t want to live and fight with me anymore.
In fact, she set us both free of our fighting.
She set herself free to be happy.
She set me free to learn what real love was. Real love vs clinging and complaining and “it’s all about me” love.
Which…. isn’t love.
And, it turned out, as it almost always does, she set me free to find someone better. For me.
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