I'm Doing It For Me, and Us

“Be lamps unto yourselves. Be refuges to yourselves. Take yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone besides yourselves.” The Buddha

I did something really, really scary yesterday. Scary, because I did it to save myself, at the risk of losing my person -- the person I didn't know I was looking for, whom I found in a moment of whimsy, and whom I have come to love in ways that I didn't know were possible. My person.

I asked for breathing room, space to examine why this thing that is supposed to uplift and bring joy to my life seems to be the wellspring of so much suffering.

And I am suffering, there's no doubt about it.

But what I need the space to examine is how I am causing my own suffering. And make no mistake, I'm well aware that I am causing my own suffering.

What is at the root of it? There are so many thoughts and fears that arise for me, in both the big-picture sense of it (we are not together), and the quotidian matters (you are doing something else and not talking to me!), that it started to feel as if every phone call, our only source of communication became nothing more than a litany of my complaints and agony. And under that was the knowledge that my suffering was causing him to suffer. He wanted to "make it all better." And he couldn't.

He can't. This is a common affliction of people who are conditioned to be "fixers." They want to wave a magic wand, or say an incantation, and everyone around them will be better. But that's a subject for a different time.

I'm trying to go back to my earliest training and sit down, quiet my mind, and simply examine the processes by which I am creating my own suffering.

Who is the separate "I" that I have created who suffers?

In what ways have I abandoned myself?

Is it possible to be my own mother, and embrace the frightened child within me, and hold her close, loving the parts of me that I label "desirable" (i.e. Funny, caring, loving, generous) as well as the parts that I label "undesirable" (i.e. Angry, jealous, resentful, petty)? A loving parent recognizes these things in her child and still loves her unconditionally.

I have felt those angry, jealous, resentful, petty feelings, and instead of taking care of that little girl, I have hated her and tried to push her away, as she has spilled her anger and jealousy and resentment out into the world, and especially in her relationship. I need to take this time to hold her very closely, as a protective mother might. Not to nurture those negative emotions, or play up those fears, or tell her she's right, but to make her feel safe, and loved.

I was asked the question, "Are you going to respect this relationship?"

I heard fear in that question, fear that's justified by another person's conditioning. If one's experience has only been to be with people who don't "respect the relationship," I understand that fear. And while a puzzled part of me wants to quirk my eyebrow and say, "Ummmm, hi, have we met? I'm Aileen, and I don't cheat," I have to respect where that fear is coming from for him.

So all I can do is answer the question honestly: I am not doing this in order to seek better accommodation elsewhere, and especially not in the arms of another. I am not looking outward in order to find validation or revenge or whatever his past girlfriends may have done. (For all I know, that may have been their last-ditch effort, their hair-on-fire emergency, to get his attention, but that's just speculation on my part.) This time is about sitting down and being quiet and examining myself.

He also said, "You better come back," and the heartbreak in his voice about killed me. There was no way for me to explain to him that this is not about taking myself away from him. It's not, even though it feels that way, because I'm embarking on a period of self-exploration right now.  And this is so important to me, because it's not only to save my life, but to save the life of our relationship.  I mean, seriously? If I was hating myself every single day, literally couldn't look at myself in the mirror some days, how much fun could it have been to be in a relationship with that person?

This is one of those "leap of faith moments" you hear about. And it's terrifying, because I don't know what I'll find off the side of that cliff.  Another tiger at the bottom of the cliff and a couple of mice gnawing at my vine?  I may do whatever work I need to do in the next week or so, and go back and find that Dood has done some soul-searching of his own, and found himself feeling, "This is bullshit, and I don't need this, and you know what? I'm done. See ya."  He may very well look at the last month and say, "I am escaping by the skin of my teeth."  This is a risk that I had to take, however, because when I woke up on Sunday morning, rolled over, and started crying, the next thought that went through my head was, like a bottomed-out alcoholic, "I can't live like this anymore."  I need to eat the strawberry.

I'm grateful to have this practice, and I'm grateful that the last ten years of practice have made me aware enough to recognize all of these things.  And to realize that sometimes you have to go back to "beginner's mind," and simply sit down with what's going on.

It's hard for Dood to see that I've not taken myself away from him. 

And all I can tell him is:  I'm right here, baby.  And I'm not going anywhere.