"Love is a decision, not a feeling."
I can see that it is good to let the clock and the calendar make the decision to spend time and activity together in order to stay connected in a relationship. Mood, tiredness, busyness, impulsiveness, basic incompatibility due to being individuals with different interests- these kinds of things get in the way of the intention to spend time together.
In our case, we have a better shot at it if we plan ahead in a clear moment, and then rely on the calendar, the clock, and whatever self-discipline we can muster. How are we doing? Not very well. We need a tune-up.
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
Ready to Just Be
Back from a brief dalliance with the political. More emptying experiences.
I experienced a huge emotional outburst recently, which I have only today awakened to see as yet another emptying event. In it I spewed all of the things in my life that have made me angry for the last several years. It embarrassed the hell out of me because it was a moment of no self control. I thought it was just the result of a drug side effect, but today I have a new perspective on it.
I have been holding these things inside, trying to bargain with the devil to make them go away, trying to deny them. Everything but accept them and move on. It doesn't matter if a drug disinhibited me. The thoughts were there.
Several things have evolved as a result of this big catharsis. First, I see clearly the danger of harboring negative thoughts at all. Second, I feel ready to move on from the state of mind that created these thoughts. Third, I have been humbled by being out of control. Fourth, the thoughts cannot scare me any more, I do not have to hide from them. Fifth, I am experiencing a lightness from having "taken out the trash," and now I have more room in my mind for creative solutions to the problems I was holding onto.
I am getting ready for my four-day silent retreat. This will the first one I attend with no books, tapes, or other words of any kind. Perhaps a needle and thread for mindless handiwork,though my experience is that sleep fills most of the "free time." I feel ready for this. Ready for emptiness. Ready to just be.
I experienced a huge emotional outburst recently, which I have only today awakened to see as yet another emptying event. In it I spewed all of the things in my life that have made me angry for the last several years. It embarrassed the hell out of me because it was a moment of no self control. I thought it was just the result of a drug side effect, but today I have a new perspective on it.
I have been holding these things inside, trying to bargain with the devil to make them go away, trying to deny them. Everything but accept them and move on. It doesn't matter if a drug disinhibited me. The thoughts were there.
Several things have evolved as a result of this big catharsis. First, I see clearly the danger of harboring negative thoughts at all. Second, I feel ready to move on from the state of mind that created these thoughts. Third, I have been humbled by being out of control. Fourth, the thoughts cannot scare me any more, I do not have to hide from them. Fifth, I am experiencing a lightness from having "taken out the trash," and now I have more room in my mind for creative solutions to the problems I was holding onto.
I am getting ready for my four-day silent retreat. This will the first one I attend with no books, tapes, or other words of any kind. Perhaps a needle and thread for mindless handiwork,though my experience is that sleep fills most of the "free time." I feel ready for this. Ready for emptiness. Ready to just be.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
What to Make of This
My efforts at abandoning stories in favor of the here and now are undone tonight as I sit with sixteen family members, all with rich and diverse life stories in progress.
I am on a new page, I see. The page on which one reaps the benefit of sixty-some years of family membership. I find myself in unanimously marvelous company and realize that these are all people I have either grown up with, raised, "auntied," "grandmothered," or who have been chosen by those same people as life partners.
This is entirely too much grace to either be minimized into a sensory experience, or romanticised into a self-observing scenario. What am I to make of this?
I am on a new page, I see. The page on which one reaps the benefit of sixty-some years of family membership. I find myself in unanimously marvelous company and realize that these are all people I have either grown up with, raised, "auntied," "grandmothered," or who have been chosen by those same people as life partners.
This is entirely too much grace to either be minimized into a sensory experience, or romanticised into a self-observing scenario. What am I to make of this?
