Love and Learning, a bit of a rewrite

Love and Learning

And back to love.

Love, without which life is really not living.

And love, where we run into the “minor problem” (joke, this is HUGE) that we still have buttons and our mate still has buttons, and unless we have everything locked into place, we are going to disturb them and they are going to disturb us. Which is to say: if we are zombie/ robots, we might have an “orderly” life that avoids all problems. But how dull, eh?

So let’s play a couple of variations that could make a HUGE difference in the “problem” of people being different.

Which, when you think about it, is a chance for people to REALLY learn to love, because loving a copy of yourself is pretty weak. (To say nothing of most people basically hating themselves, which makes loving a carbon copy weak.)

This game is really up to you to invent, and here are a couple of great starts:

Love and Learning Game #1:

1. The standard lie: Allow yourself to experience this way of seeing one of your conflicts with your mate and/ or anyone.
   1) “It’s all their problem.”
   2) “If they’d just change, everything would be alright/ okay/ better/ fixed.”
     You know the drill. This is the bullshit we always fall for. 
2. Hang out here. Stand or sit in the “their fault” chair or place. Experience how much pain you feel. Actually let your body cramp in and your breathing clamp down and grit your teeth and tighten fists, or whatever your body/ emotions feel like in this state.
   
3. The uncommon shift: “What can I do to help this situation?”

Yes. This is hell/ hard/ uncommon.

And, do it anyway. Think of just ONE thing you can do to help the situation.

Step to another spot or sit in another chair. Imagine doing that thing. Feel in your body and heart and soul how you feel different if YOU do something new.

Feel and shape your body.

D. LEARNING IS NOTICING THE DIFFERENCE

Go back and forth between the “your fault” chair or spot and what you feel in body and soul and emotion there, and the “I can do at least one thing different” chair or spot.

Keep noticing the difference.

E. ACTION. If you are feeling brave, go do the thing.

See, feel, notice, learn from what happens when YOU do something difference instead of waiting around for the other person to “shape up.”

This may sound like Ann Landers.

So what?

The goal isn’t to get you/ me/ anyone to wake up to the obvious: we are part of the problem. Though that’s a nice “side effect.”

The goal is learning: these are very, very different ways of looking at the world.

See, feel and know that so they are available to you. The more honest we can get with how painful it is for US to be in the “you’re the one to blame” chair or spot, the more we have a chance of living a free and loving life.

This is what we want, right?

Happiness vs unhappiness.

Power vs powerlessness.

Learning vs stuck-ness

Good. Play this game any time you are unhappy.

Huh?

PLAY THIS GAME ANY TIME YOU ARE UNHAPPY.

And now, let’s do kind of the same thing again:

Love and Learning Game #2:

1. This gets even more brutal. But it’s the way we operate. In stance A, take the belief that you aren’t getting something you want. You aren’t being appreciated, or loved, or something. Take the role of victim.

Again, have a chair or a spot that is the “poor me” spot. Really get into feeling this in your body.

2. Now, think about what you really want for BOTH of you. Let’s call this the “we goal.”
   Go to another spot or chair. Feel the difference when you are clear on a “we goal.”

The “we goal” is what you want for both of you.

C. Go back and forth between, poor me and what you want for poor of you. Different thinking, different heart, different spot, different feeling and sensations in your notice.

Notice, notice, notice.

Learn, learn, learn.

So, in one stance: “You are too busy to spend time with me.” Feel all the poor me bullshit in this.

Vs. the “we goal”: I’d love to have quality time together, relaxed and enjoying each other’s company. Feel the truth and love and possibilities in this one.

This is beginning to wake up to what love is: wanting the best for the other person. 

If you are in love with, or in relationship with another person, you want this. The “we goal” is the heart’s honest wish for the both of you to be connected and caring and loving and happy.

All people have goals to that effect.

Maybe not consciously. But they are down there.

Think of how powerful Dicken’s Christmas Tale is over and over and over and Scrooge wakes up to the self in him who cares and loves.

Hmmm. Might be a good idea to get some “we goals” together, eh? Somewhat like wedding vows.

We can be miserable in the “me, me, me” world.

The world of the baby: I want what I want when I want it. Which is now.

Or we can wake up and wish the best for both of us. All of us.

Love can be a bigger world.

“We goals” are one way to that bigger goal.

Try it out for awhile and see what happens.

the importance of love, 33

We wake up
one day
or part of one day
or
Right Now

and realize:
I am
I am alive, whatever that "alive" is

and it feels so good
we want to share it
with someone
hug someone
laugh with smile with joke with dance with prance with
hop skip and jump
or
just walk

or even better: lolligag
with another, backs on the grass,
or butts on the stream bank
watching the water
watching the clouds

glad to be alive
together

and there are problems to be solved
money to be made
conflicts to be resolved
pains to be understand and transformed

there is a world to be healed
and waters to be restored
and oceans and indigenous plants and people to
be "saved"

and still
you and a loved one
walk dance hug loving
lolligaging,
talking the truth,
but the slow real truth about you,
not the "you need to fix this" pseudo-truth about them

just you and the friend
in love

that's a nice part
of a nice
day

wishing these for you,
many parts
in
many days

Love is Easy, except it often feels like "losing"

You are having this argument
"thing,"
you and your sweetie are,

and it's the damndest thing:
they think they are right and you are wrong,
and you think you are right and they are wrong

Sometimes, one of you will cave in,
or be argued under,
or start to cry,
and then maybe the battle will cease,

but
who was the one in you that wanted to be Right?

This is an enlightenment question.

Really.
What part of you was so sure that you had been "wronged,"
or that the other person was "wrong,"
or that you were the Victim,
or that whatever went down SHOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED

 Which is to say,
what part of you wants to be the one
that says how
reality should be?

Which is to say,
who runs this show, anyway?

......
You may be following me.

You may not.

Don't worry.
Think back to a time when you were SURE the other person
was wrong.

Find the part of you that is so sure.

Where does this part live?

What is it made up of?

What does it live for?

What is it all about?

And then think about/ and remember the miracle:
you are alive.

Now.

And experience that,
without any part to describe it,
or catalog it,
or talk about it,
or explain it.

Just experience your aliveness
in this moment.

That's you.

And see,
honestly,
does that you,
want to be right?

This isn't theory.
This is practice.

Love is enlightenment when the tests
come up.
When the hurdles arise.

Leap over.,

See who is leaping,
and what you are like,
when free that way.

And it's not a long way off.


It is, of course, right here now.

Good.

Day One: Relationship Enlightenment 108

This is day one of a twenty one day book:
Twenty One Days to Relationship Heaven.

It will be, as much as anything else, a manual of how to use
relationship "issues"
as a springboard for Enlightenment.

Sometimes it will be written in straight go-ahead sentences.

And sometimes,
not.

Here's the exercise/ game/ action/ meditation/ contemplation for the first day.

Sit down with a person with whom you wish to create greater love.

If you are divorced or have had a rocky separation, or even an "easy" separation, do this an imaginary other person, unless they will come join you on one or all of the twenty one days.

But do each day's game.

Here's today's:

Either sit across from each other, or sit across from an imaginary X.

Take turns saying this while looking into each others' eyes, or imagining looking into the eyes of the X.

"I am alive.

You are alive.

I am going to die someday.

You are going to die someday.

I love, honor and cherish you."

Pause between each phrase.

And if you have a complaint, or are angry at the one you are doing this with, so be it: say the words, "I love, honor and cherish you."

Even if you are going to get a divorce tomorrow, say the words.

Even if you got a divorce and they treated you horribly and you are bitter and wounded (which you won't be at the end of the 21 days), say the words. Whisper the words, but say them out loud, while looking into the other person's eyes, whether real eyes, or imaginary ones.

And, if you want to have a good relationship, and you are in a new one, after doing this "in the real world" with your present partner, do this in imaginary back and forth with your X. Even if the X was years ago.

And, if you are doing with with an imaginary X, have them say the words to you too:

"I am alive.

You are alive.

I am going to die someday.

You are going to die someday.

I love, honor and cherish you."

Imagine them looking into your eyes and saying this.

And for everyone, real person or imaginary:
go back and forth with this at least three times.

And it's fair, fine and maybe even recommended to do it one more time today,
just before you go to bed, or while in bed, before you go to sleep.

Or something else.

Good.