One of the hardest things about reentering professional life after several years as a professional meditator is that I am, for want of a better word, extremely psychically sympathetic.
Today the person I was working with started exhibiting obsessive-compulsive behavior. It was exhausting.
Trying to talk to others about how easily I am derailed by others' mindstates usually leads to blank stares, or worse.
But there is something to this. I'm posting this article because I want to learn more about this topic.
(My feelings and reactions have always been real; I don't need some hot new scientific discovery to verify them. But I am certainly curious as to what scientists say they know, and how that relates to what I know.)
This essay reprinted from the October 10, 2006 issue of the New York Times
Friends for Life: An Emerging Biology of Emotional Healing
By DANIEL GOLEMAN
A dear friend has been battling cancer for a decade or more. Through a grinding mix of chemotherapy, radiation and all the other necessary indignities of oncology, he has lived on, despite dire prognoses to the contrary.
My friend was the sort of college professor students remember fondly: not just inspiring in class but taking a genuine interest in them — in their studies, their progress through life, their fears and hopes. A wide circle of former students count themselves among his lifelong friends; he and his wife have always welcomed a steady stream of visitors to their home.
Though no one could ever prove it, I suspect that one of many ingredients in his longevity has been this flow of people who love him.
Research on the link between relationships and physical health has established that people with rich personal networks — who are married, have close family and friends, are active in social and religious groups — recover more quickly from disease and live longer. But now the emerging field of social neuroscience, the study of how people’s brains entrain as they interact, adds a missing piece to that data.
The most significant finding was the discovery of “mirror neurons,” a widely dispersed class of brain cells that operate like neural WiFi. Mirror neurons track the emotional flow, movement and even intentions of the person we are with, and replicate this sensed state in our own brain by stirring in our brain the same areas active in the other person.
Mirror neurons offer a neural mechanism that explains emotional contagion, the tendency of one person to catch the feelings of another, particularly if strongly expressed. This brain-to-brain link may also account for feelings of rapport, which research finds depend in part on extremely rapid synchronization of people’s posture, vocal pacing and movements as they interact. In short, these brain cells seem to allow the interpersonal orchestration of shifts in physiology.
Such coordination of emotions, cardiovascular reactions or brain states between two people has been studied in mothers with their infants, marital partners arguing and even among people in meetings. Reviewing decades of such data, Lisa M. Diamond and Lisa G. Aspinwall, psychologists at the University of Utah, offer the infelicitous term “a mutually regulating psychobiological unit” to describe the merging of two discrete physiologies into a connected circuit. To the degree that this occurs, Dr. Diamond and Dr. Aspinwall argue, emotional closeness allows the biology of one person to influence that of the other.
John T. Cacioppo, director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, makes a parallel proposal: the emotional status of our main relationships has a significant impact on our overall pattern of cardiovascular and neuroendocrine activity. This radically expands the scope of biology and neuroscience from focusing on a single body or brain to looking at the interplay between two at a time. In short, my hostility bumps up your blood pressure, your nurturing love lowers mine. Potentially, we are each other’s biological enemies or allies.
Even remotely suggesting health benefits from these interconnections will, no doubt, raise hackles in medical circles. No one can claim solid data showing a medically significant effect from the intermingling of physiologies.
At the same time, there is now no doubt that this same connectivity can offer a biologically grounded emotional solace. Physical suffering aside, a healing presence can relieve emotional suffering. A case in point is a functional magnetic resonance imaging study of women awaiting an electric shock. When the women endured their apprehension alone, activity in neural regions that incite stress hormones and anxiety was heightened. As James A. Coan reported last year in an article in Psychophysiology, when a stranger held the subject’s hand as she waited, she found little relief. When her husband held her hand, she not only felt calm, but her brain circuitry quieted, revealing the biology of emotional rescue.
But as all too many people with severe chronic diseases know, loved ones can disappear, leaving them to bear their difficulties in lonely isolation. Social rejection activates the very zones of the brain that generate, among other things, the sting of physical pain. Matthew D. Lieberman and Naomi Eisenberg of U.C.L.A. (writing in a chapter in “Social Neuroscience: People Thinking About People,” M.I.T. Press, 2005) have proposed that the brain’s pain centers may have taken on a hypersensitivity to social banishment because exclusion was a death sentence in human prehistory. They note that in many languages the words that describe a “broken heart” from rejection borrow the lexicon of physical hurt.
So when the people who care about a patient fail to show up, it may be a double blow: the pain of rejection and the deprivation of the benefits of loving contact. Sheldon Cohen, a psychologist at Carnegie-Mellon University who studies the effects of personal connections on health, emphasizes that a hospital patient’s family and friends help just by visiting, whether or not they quite know what to say.
My friend has reached that point where doctors see nothing else to try. On my last visit, he and his wife told me that he was starting hospice care.
One challenge, he told me, will be channeling the river of people who want to visit into the narrow range of hours in a week when he still has the energy to engage them.
As he said this, I felt myself tearing up, and responded: “You know, at least it’s better to have this problem. So many people go through this all alone.”
He was silent for a moment, thoughtful. Then he answered softly, “You’re right.”
Daniel Goleman is the author of “Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships.”
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
Parting
Leaving someone you know well requires the body to adjust to loss. There's no way I know to avoid this very basic grief. I don't know that I'd want to.
Reb Anderson used to caution students against sleeping together (including "just" sleeping together) on the grounds that it connects people in ways they may not be ready for. Even if you're not in the same bed, sleeping in the same room with others will put you in synch: entering into consciousness in the morning; drifting into oblivion at night; continuing to be alive in the nonexistence of deep sleep. What are we when we sleep? What has become of the mind, of the "self" that rules the waking hours? Nobody can say, but the breathing bodies resonate anyway, together in a realm deeper than mind or thought.
You know this in the monastery: you can wake up at 3:50 a.m. because everyone else is doing the same.
Leaving the people you sleep with is hard; it disturbs something in that very deep realm, and on the surface there is a feeling of loss, or grief, or anger. We don't know who we are, and part of ourselves is moving to another place. We will sleep in the company of unseen neighbors, in silent buildings hundreds of miles apart. We don't know who we are, and we don't know what we are shaped into by the other lives that invisibly meld into ours.
Reb Anderson used to caution students against sleeping together (including "just" sleeping together) on the grounds that it connects people in ways they may not be ready for. Even if you're not in the same bed, sleeping in the same room with others will put you in synch: entering into consciousness in the morning; drifting into oblivion at night; continuing to be alive in the nonexistence of deep sleep. What are we when we sleep? What has become of the mind, of the "self" that rules the waking hours? Nobody can say, but the breathing bodies resonate anyway, together in a realm deeper than mind or thought.
You know this in the monastery: you can wake up at 3:50 a.m. because everyone else is doing the same.
Leaving the people you sleep with is hard; it disturbs something in that very deep realm, and on the surface there is a feeling of loss, or grief, or anger. We don't know who we are, and part of ourselves is moving to another place. We will sleep in the company of unseen neighbors, in silent buildings hundreds of miles apart. We don't know who we are, and we don't know what we are shaped into by the other lives that invisibly meld into ours.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Belonging
I don't understand the nature of emotional attachment to others. But I am finding lately that "belonging" seems to be the deepest motivating force of all. More so than the gratification of being admired, or having sense pleasures fulfilled, "belonging" to a group, or "belonging" with another person rules the day.
In "Irma LaDouce", a delightful film starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, Irma (MacLaine) is a resourceful green-stockinged streetwalker with a furry little dog. Irma is recruiting Lemmon's character to be her new boyfriend/pimp; she's quite determined that they be partners in "the business", and in bed at the end of the day. Of course Jack Lemmon asks why such an apparently self-sufficient young woman would need anyone to manage her affairs.
"Because everyone needs to belong with someone," she says, "just like [the doggie] belongs with me." I watched the movie twice.
If you look at people walking their dogs, especially if they have more than one dog, you see a group of belonging-beings together: the dogs and the people both look satisfied; they're in-synch; they're all part of a crew that's enjoying the world together. That coziness of association is so effortless that we often don't recognize it; but having no one else to belong to, we do feel somehow empty.
There's an initial attraction that draws us into Intentional relationships with other humans, as in a community of spiritual practitioners, or a life partnership. But the alliance doesn't last in the absence of compatible deeper purpose. If my sweetie's destiny takes him across the country, and I really need to do what I do here, things can't last. But if you sign up for a shared destiny, whether raising a family or starting a business or breeding racehorses—or vowing to explore the nature of self through the medium of relationship—things will last. There must be a purpose: you belong to it; and you belong to one another.
I don't know yet how to negotiate the tension of loving somone, but feeling (rightly, wrongly, delusionally—who knows?) that I'm Meant To Be with someone else. Not because of any lack of regard for the one I "merely" love, but rather because I sense our life purpose does not lie together. Perhaps there's nothing to do; things take their course, and disentangle naturally if not forced.
In "Irma LaDouce", a delightful film starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, Irma (MacLaine) is a resourceful green-stockinged streetwalker with a furry little dog. Irma is recruiting Lemmon's character to be her new boyfriend/pimp; she's quite determined that they be partners in "the business", and in bed at the end of the day. Of course Jack Lemmon asks why such an apparently self-sufficient young woman would need anyone to manage her affairs.
"Because everyone needs to belong with someone," she says, "just like [the doggie] belongs with me." I watched the movie twice.
If you look at people walking their dogs, especially if they have more than one dog, you see a group of belonging-beings together: the dogs and the people both look satisfied; they're in-synch; they're all part of a crew that's enjoying the world together. That coziness of association is so effortless that we often don't recognize it; but having no one else to belong to, we do feel somehow empty.
There's an initial attraction that draws us into Intentional relationships with other humans, as in a community of spiritual practitioners, or a life partnership. But the alliance doesn't last in the absence of compatible deeper purpose. If my sweetie's destiny takes him across the country, and I really need to do what I do here, things can't last. But if you sign up for a shared destiny, whether raising a family or starting a business or breeding racehorses—or vowing to explore the nature of self through the medium of relationship—things will last. There must be a purpose: you belong to it; and you belong to one another.
I don't know yet how to negotiate the tension of loving somone, but feeling (rightly, wrongly, delusionally—who knows?) that I'm Meant To Be with someone else. Not because of any lack of regard for the one I "merely" love, but rather because I sense our life purpose does not lie together. Perhaps there's nothing to do; things take their course, and disentangle naturally if not forced.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Tidbits from Bayda & Bartok
From Saying Yes To Life:
Contrary to the romantic fantasies we have about relationships, in actuality they often push us directly into our blind longings, our dark fears, and our unhealed pain.
We're often more attached to the belief that we need a particular person in order to be happy that we are to the actual person.
On some level, we as a society regard sexuality as something dark, forbidden. This shadowy undercurrent of puritanical sentiment still flows deep in our cultural memory. As a consequence, the desire for sex is rarely simple.... Often it is driven by the thirsting desire for excitement and romance, to cover the anxious quiver of our aloneness. And almost always, from our very core, there comes the desperate craving for acceptance, for love. Yet the power of our sexual energy is in itself neither good nor bad. Far more important than the mere denial or fulfillment of desires, the clarity of our awareness determines whether our sexuality is a heaven or hell.
Contrary to the romantic fantasies we have about relationships, in actuality they often push us directly into our blind longings, our dark fears, and our unhealed pain.
We're often more attached to the belief that we need a particular person in order to be happy that we are to the actual person.
On some level, we as a society regard sexuality as something dark, forbidden. This shadowy undercurrent of puritanical sentiment still flows deep in our cultural memory. As a consequence, the desire for sex is rarely simple.... Often it is driven by the thirsting desire for excitement and romance, to cover the anxious quiver of our aloneness. And almost always, from our very core, there comes the desperate craving for acceptance, for love. Yet the power of our sexual energy is in itself neither good nor bad. Far more important than the mere denial or fulfillment of desires, the clarity of our awareness determines whether our sexuality is a heaven or hell.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Tara Brach on Relationship Practice
Blogging is supposed to be your own thoughts, but I am reeling from this article by Tara Brach in an old Yoga Journal, and so have decided to post most of it here.
When Molly and Dave arrived at my office for their first therapy appointment, they were quiet and grim. Molly headed for a seat in the center of the small sofa, and Dave squeezed in next to her. As he stretched his arm out along the back of the couch, Molly immediately moved to the far end, folded her arms, and crossed her legs. Throughout the session, they both addressed me, rarely even glancing at each other.
The story they told was not unusual. A little over a year ago, they had fallen deeply in love, and for months, making love had been a passionate and intimate experience they both relished. Hardly a day passed without them finding some time to express their passion. But over the past couple of months, Molly had been cooling to sexual intimacy, leaving both of them confused about how to continue with each other. Even though they had agreed that it was OK if their sexual interest followed different rhythms, Dave continued to approach Molly amorously every day. By the time they came to see me, she was regularly rebuffing his approaches with anger. "It's like he's been imposing himself, totally disregarding who I am, what I want," she said. "He's not giving me a choice." But she also felt guilty when she saw the hurt in his eyes. "I just can't believe I get so mean, so hard-hearted," she added. "But this is just how I feel....I can't stand being treated like an object!"
Dave protested that to him, Molly was "the furthest thing from an object." Eagerly and sincerely, he declared, "She's a goddess to me...really! She's so good, so beautiful. I just want to express my love, to surrender into her." He talked about how pained and frustrated he felt every time she rejected him. Looking at her pleadingly, he said, "Molly, you mean so much to me....How could you not see that?"
For the past three decades, I have been working with psychotherapy clients and meditation students who are grappling with their fears about and longings for intimacy. For many, the dance of intimate relationship is what feels most meaningful in life. Yet besides the joy and communion they may have found, they inevitably suffer the anguish of conflict and hurt. In my work (as well as in my own marriage, divorce, and subsequent partnership), I've seen how readily we can fall into reactivity, how easily we can get locked into the role of victim or "bad guy." During these times, all the potential and promise of love get bound up in blame and defensiveness.
John Schumacher, an internationally known teacher of Iyengar Yoga, points out that "any deep connection with another naturally pushes us up against our edges." Speaking of his own marriage as a fertile source of insight and inspiration, he says, "Like a spiritual teacher, our partner knows us—knows when we're selfish, stuck, caught in feeling separate." Schumacher notes that relationships, like asanas [yoga poses], require the willingness to remain present for the difficulties and challenges that inevitably arise. "Discomfort and imbalance are flags that adjustment is needed."
When we enter into an intimate relationship, few of us escape visitations of insecurity and shame, of aversion and jealousy. Learning to bring an openhearted presence to these kinds of feelings, rather than reacting out of fear or hurt, is not easy. But when we are willing to stay put and pay attention at precisely the moments when we most want to lash out, cling tightly, or pull away, our relationship becomes a path of deep personal healing and spiritual transformation. As with any type of yoga, one of the blessings of the yoga of relationship is the profound inner freedom that comes from realizing the goodness and beauty of our essential Being.
CULTIVATING COMPASSION
When they arrived for their next session, Molly and Dave (not their real names) immediately launched into their own versions of how the other was causing hurt and confusion. I suggested to them that instead of focusing on each other, they both begin to investigate their own feelings more closely. They were puzzled but curious and willing. "When intense feelings of desire or aversion arise during the week, consider these as signs to stop and pay attention," I told them. "It might be hard to remember at first, but if you clearly commit to pausing in this way, I can guarantee you it will make a difference." They glanced at each other for a moment and then nodded in agreement.
Learning to pause is the first step toward transformation and healing. We pause by stopping what we're doing—we stop blaming, withdrawing, obsessing, distracting ourselves. In the space a pause creates, our natural awareness arises, allowing us to be mindful—to recognize what is happening inside us without judgment. By pausing, we begin to dismantle lifelong patterns of avoiding or distancing.
I suggested to Molly and Dave that after pausing and becoming still, they would be able to gain insight into their reactivity rather than being carried away with the momentum of blame or shame. The next step would be to ask themselves, "What is happening inside me right now?" and then bring wholehearted attention to whatever was taking place in their bodies and minds—the squeeze of anxiety, the heat of anger, the stories of who did what. They might even name the thoughts, feelings, and sensations, if doing so would help them stay focused and investigate what they were actually experiencing.
Then I introduced what is perhaps the heart of the practice. While continuing to notice whatever was most predominant or difficult, Molly and Dave were to ask themselves, "Can I accept this experience, just as it is?" Whether we're fuming with anger, dissolving in sorrow, or gripped by fear, our most powerful and healing response is an allowing presence—not indulging or wallowing in our feelings but simply acknowledging and experiencing what is happening in the present moment. By accepting what is, we let go of the story of blame that either pushes away our partner or condemns our own feelings as bad or wrong.
I call this courageous kind of attention radical acceptance. It is a way of regarding whatever is happening within us with the two wings of awareness: mindfulness and compassion. With mindfulness, we see clearly what is going on inside us, and with compassion, we hold whatever we see with care. By bringing radical acceptance to our inner experience, we recognize and transform our own limiting stories and emotional reactions. We are freed to respond to our partner with creativity, wisdom, and kindness; we can choose love over being right or in control. Even if only one partner meets conflict with less defensiveness and a more accepting presence, the relational dance begins to change. In place of the familiar chain of reactivity, each person's vulnerability and goodness shine through.
THE DOORWAY TO CONNECTION
At our session the following week, Dave talked about what had happened to him on the previous Saturday night. Molly had gone to bed early, and as he sat working at his desk, he found himself anticipating climbing in beside her and making love. Instead of immediately acting on the thought as he would usually do, he paused to investigate what he was feeling. As his hunger for pleasure became increasingly compelling, he remembered my suggestion and noted the feelings of "wanting" and "excitement." Then the thought arose that once again, Molly wouldn't want to make love with him, and the hunger turned into a sinking feeling. He named that "shame" and felt the tightness in his chest, the hollow ache in his belly. "When I stayed with those feelings, I got really scared. My heart started racing, and I felt desperate, like I had to go to Molly right away...almost like I'd lose something forever if I didn't have it immediately." Dave paused, looking down at the floor. Then he whispered in a shaky voice, "I've always been afraid I'll never get what I really want...like somehow I don't deserve it. I wonder if that's why I'm after Molly all the time."
After Molly let Dave know she'd heard what he said, she told her own story. Sunday morning, Dave had seemed irritated and sulky, and she figured he was punishing her because they hadn't had sex the night before. This made her furious, and the unexpected intensity of her rage reminded her to pause. When Molly asked herself, "What inside me really wants attention?" she immediately felt a stabbing hurt, like a knife in her chest. "In my mind, I heard the words, 'He doesn't love me for who I am. I can't trust that he loves me at all,'" she said. "Suddenly, that seemed like the truth. I totally believed it!" Her eyes had started stinging, and she'd felt like a little girl all alone. But rather than blaming Dave for not loving her, she just imagined holding that little girl and telling her she understood how hurt and lonely she was. "I knew then that I'd felt like that ever since I was really little—that nobody would ever really love me. Not Dave, not anyone."
After Molly finished speaking, she and Dave were both very quiet. When they looked at each other, I could tell that something had shifted. Rather than reacting to what they assumed about each other, they were opening to the reality of each other's pain and insecurity. In the honesty of this exchange, both had become more open and tenderhearted.
Facing the truth of our hurt and fear and having the courage to share what we experience with our partner are the lifeblood of the yoga of relationship. Stephen and Ondrea Levine, spiritual teachers and coauthors of Embracing the Beloved (Anchor, 1996), have infused their own marriage with the power of awareness and truth-telling. Stephen emphasizes the profound healing that is possible when couples are brave enough to disclose their vulnerability: "When two people in a relationship admit together that they are afraid, they begin to dissolve the constricting identity of being a separate and fearful self. In these moments, they tap into the blessing of pure awareness and pure love."
Through our willingness to experience and share our vulnerability, we discover a shared and compassionate awareness that is spacious enough to hold the natural imperfections of all humans. Painful emotions become less personal—"my fear" becomes "the fear," "my loneliness" becomes "the loneliness." As poet and teacher Adrienne Rich writes, "An honorable human relationship, that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word love, is a process of deepening the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this, because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation." By telling the truth in an intimate relationship, we awaken from our belief in separation and discover once again who we truly are.
TRUSTING OUR GOODNESS
In the weeks that followed, as Dave and Molly continued to bring compassionate attention to their own experiences, each found increasing freedom from the tension and judgments that had been separating them. As Dave met his fear of "not getting" with a clear and kind attention, and was brave enough to share this with Molly, things kept shifting. He no longer felt so sexually driven. He began to feel more at home with himself, and the energy that had been bound up in feeling that "something is missing....Something is wrong with me" gave him a sense of renewed vitality and confidence. Instead of channeling his passion for life into lovemaking with Molly, he felt more alive in general. "Of course, I still cherish making love to her," he told me, "but I also feel more zest for playing basketball, going biking, listening to Mozart." No longer desperate, Dave experienced a growing spaciousness and ease about whether or not they made love. "The more alive I feel, the more I'm 'in love,' no matter what Molly and I are doing," he explained.
As Molly continued to recognize and accept the feelings of anger and distrust that arose in her, she realized that no matter how much anyone had ever reassured her of love, deep down she'd felt too flawed to believe it. Seeing how many moments of her life she had spent imprisoned in feeling undeserving brought up a deep sadness. The more she shared this with Dave, the more she opened up and accepted the pain inside her. "Then one afternoon," she said, "I realized I was really feeling tender toward myself...that I was a good, tenderhearted person." Experiencing herself in this way changed everything. "I could look into Dave's eyes and see the purity of his soul," she said. "Rather than feeling afraid that he wanted something from me or wondering if he really loved me, I could simply be there with him and appreciate his goodness." After reflecting for a few moments, she added, "When I trust myself, I want to just let go completely into the love that's between us."
In my work with individuals and couples, I've found that perhaps the deepest source of suffering is the feeling of being flawed, the belief that "something is wrong with me." Especially when we and our partner are at war with each other, these feelings of being unworthy or unlovable lock them into patterns of anger, clinging, blame, mistrust, and separateness. Yet when we are willing to use the tools of attention and radical acceptance, of sharing with each other the truth of their vulnerability, the entrenched patterns of feeling unworthy and separate begin to dissolve. We glimpse our own basic goodness—our natural wakefulness, openness, and tenderness. Like Molly, when we trust our own goodness, we can trust the goodness in others. We see beyond the veils of personality to the indwelling divine.
THE GUIDING LIGHT OF INTENTION
The kind of conscious relationship that developed between Molly and Dave was founded on clear intention. Knowing that their intention was to find their way back to love and understanding, they were open to try whatever might work.
For George Taylor and Debra Chamberlin-Taylor, this intention was made explicit in their wedding vow—that all circumstances might serve the awakening of wisdom and compassion. In this pledge, known as the bodhisattva's vow, they were committing themselves not only to the liberation of their own hearts but to serving the freedom of all beings everywhere. From the moment they stood side by side in a grove of ancient redwood trees and made that pledge together, they have attempted to make every aspect of their relationship part of the path of healing and spiritual awakening. Over and over, this touchstone has reminded them to respond to what was happening inside and between them with awareness and compassion, and it has served them even in the midst of one of the greatest disappointments of their lives.
After 10 years of marriage, Debra and George had decided to create a family together. Deeply bonded as partners, they anticipated the raising of a child as the ultimate expression of their love. Each saw in the other the makings of a wonderful parent. But tests revealed infertility, and Debra had a worsening case of chronic fatigue that ruled out adoption as an option. All the promise and fun and goodness of life seemed to fall away as their dreams crumbled. They were, as Debra put it, "in the fire."
Every one of us who has walked the path of relationship knows those turning points when we can either grow closer to our partner or begin the irreversible drift apart. The fork in the road might take the form of a lost job, an extramarital affair, or a struggle with addiction. The intense disappointment and grief Debra and George were suffering might have turned them against each other permanently. Instead, the pain at this critical juncture in their relationship served to strengthen their bond and deepen their love.
As a psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher, I am drawn to exploring what makes the difference for couples at points of crisis. Because Debra and George are especially conscious, loving, and mature in their relationship, I asked them to explain how the kind of conflict that might drive a wedge into other relationships has served to deepen their intimacy. Without hesitation, Debra answered, "What saved us was the intention we both hold that everything—our anger, hurt, fear—serves spiritual awakening. In the midst of an argument, one of us would suddenly stop and remember, 'Oh! This is it! This is what our marriage vow is about.'" Then they would sit down together, become quiet, and breathe. "Once we could remember that what most mattered was waking up and helping each other wake up," Debra said, "our defenses would fall away."
In a conscious relationship, our vows or intentions can help us burn through the trance of fear, hesitancy, and doubt and allow us to show up with a spontaneous and wholehearted presence. In Embracing the Beloved, Stephen and Ondrea Levine talk about the power of mutual commitment to awakening together: "Vows taken by committed lovers are like precepts pledged by a monk or nun. They are a support along the high path into the unknown....No matter what circumstances arise, they are the bedrock for the next step." The intention expressed in their vows proved to be that bedrock for Debra and George.
When we choose to make our relationship with our partner a spiritual practice, we enter a sacred journey of ever-deepening love and freedom. The path is challenging, yet with purity of intention and clear attention, the very circumstances that threaten to drive us apart can open the gateway to the blessings of communion. In the moments when we remember what matters and are fully present, we come home to the pure awareness that is the essence of our Being.
THE SWEETNESS OF DEVOTION
Fulfilling the commitment to be mindful and compassionate in a relationship takes real effort; the way unfolds gradually when we show up every day and bring what is unconscious into the light of awareness. This training of heart and mind clears away the clouds and allows us to see the beauty and goodness—the divine presence—that shines through our partner. With that recognition, we spontaneously let go more fully into loving. This letting go is the grace and sweetness of devotion. As we practice offering all of our hurt, fear, longing, joy, and gratitude into the shared field of unconditional loving, our devotion blossoms.
The Levines consider such devotion to be the very essence of spiritual relationship, the quality that allows a relationship to become a mystical union. In their book, they write: "It begins with one being meeting another in love. It deepens and expands until the loved one becomes, in our heart, the Beloved....This union is not with another but with the mystery itself, with our boundaryless, essential nature."
By recognizing the Beloved in the other person and ourselves, we open into the sacred space of mystical communion. This liberating realization of our shared essence is the sweetest fruit of the yoga of relationship. We are no longer loving our partner or receiving love, we are love. Through the purity of our intention and attention, we have released the river of our separateness into the radiant and edgeless ocean of Being.
When Molly and Dave arrived at my office for their first therapy appointment, they were quiet and grim. Molly headed for a seat in the center of the small sofa, and Dave squeezed in next to her. As he stretched his arm out along the back of the couch, Molly immediately moved to the far end, folded her arms, and crossed her legs. Throughout the session, they both addressed me, rarely even glancing at each other.
The story they told was not unusual. A little over a year ago, they had fallen deeply in love, and for months, making love had been a passionate and intimate experience they both relished. Hardly a day passed without them finding some time to express their passion. But over the past couple of months, Molly had been cooling to sexual intimacy, leaving both of them confused about how to continue with each other. Even though they had agreed that it was OK if their sexual interest followed different rhythms, Dave continued to approach Molly amorously every day. By the time they came to see me, she was regularly rebuffing his approaches with anger. "It's like he's been imposing himself, totally disregarding who I am, what I want," she said. "He's not giving me a choice." But she also felt guilty when she saw the hurt in his eyes. "I just can't believe I get so mean, so hard-hearted," she added. "But this is just how I feel....I can't stand being treated like an object!"
Dave protested that to him, Molly was "the furthest thing from an object." Eagerly and sincerely, he declared, "She's a goddess to me...really! She's so good, so beautiful. I just want to express my love, to surrender into her." He talked about how pained and frustrated he felt every time she rejected him. Looking at her pleadingly, he said, "Molly, you mean so much to me....How could you not see that?"
For the past three decades, I have been working with psychotherapy clients and meditation students who are grappling with their fears about and longings for intimacy. For many, the dance of intimate relationship is what feels most meaningful in life. Yet besides the joy and communion they may have found, they inevitably suffer the anguish of conflict and hurt. In my work (as well as in my own marriage, divorce, and subsequent partnership), I've seen how readily we can fall into reactivity, how easily we can get locked into the role of victim or "bad guy." During these times, all the potential and promise of love get bound up in blame and defensiveness.
John Schumacher, an internationally known teacher of Iyengar Yoga, points out that "any deep connection with another naturally pushes us up against our edges." Speaking of his own marriage as a fertile source of insight and inspiration, he says, "Like a spiritual teacher, our partner knows us—knows when we're selfish, stuck, caught in feeling separate." Schumacher notes that relationships, like asanas [yoga poses], require the willingness to remain present for the difficulties and challenges that inevitably arise. "Discomfort and imbalance are flags that adjustment is needed."
When we enter into an intimate relationship, few of us escape visitations of insecurity and shame, of aversion and jealousy. Learning to bring an openhearted presence to these kinds of feelings, rather than reacting out of fear or hurt, is not easy. But when we are willing to stay put and pay attention at precisely the moments when we most want to lash out, cling tightly, or pull away, our relationship becomes a path of deep personal healing and spiritual transformation. As with any type of yoga, one of the blessings of the yoga of relationship is the profound inner freedom that comes from realizing the goodness and beauty of our essential Being.
CULTIVATING COMPASSION
When they arrived for their next session, Molly and Dave (not their real names) immediately launched into their own versions of how the other was causing hurt and confusion. I suggested to them that instead of focusing on each other, they both begin to investigate their own feelings more closely. They were puzzled but curious and willing. "When intense feelings of desire or aversion arise during the week, consider these as signs to stop and pay attention," I told them. "It might be hard to remember at first, but if you clearly commit to pausing in this way, I can guarantee you it will make a difference." They glanced at each other for a moment and then nodded in agreement.
Learning to pause is the first step toward transformation and healing. We pause by stopping what we're doing—we stop blaming, withdrawing, obsessing, distracting ourselves. In the space a pause creates, our natural awareness arises, allowing us to be mindful—to recognize what is happening inside us without judgment. By pausing, we begin to dismantle lifelong patterns of avoiding or distancing.
I suggested to Molly and Dave that after pausing and becoming still, they would be able to gain insight into their reactivity rather than being carried away with the momentum of blame or shame. The next step would be to ask themselves, "What is happening inside me right now?" and then bring wholehearted attention to whatever was taking place in their bodies and minds—the squeeze of anxiety, the heat of anger, the stories of who did what. They might even name the thoughts, feelings, and sensations, if doing so would help them stay focused and investigate what they were actually experiencing.
Then I introduced what is perhaps the heart of the practice. While continuing to notice whatever was most predominant or difficult, Molly and Dave were to ask themselves, "Can I accept this experience, just as it is?" Whether we're fuming with anger, dissolving in sorrow, or gripped by fear, our most powerful and healing response is an allowing presence—not indulging or wallowing in our feelings but simply acknowledging and experiencing what is happening in the present moment. By accepting what is, we let go of the story of blame that either pushes away our partner or condemns our own feelings as bad or wrong.
I call this courageous kind of attention radical acceptance. It is a way of regarding whatever is happening within us with the two wings of awareness: mindfulness and compassion. With mindfulness, we see clearly what is going on inside us, and with compassion, we hold whatever we see with care. By bringing radical acceptance to our inner experience, we recognize and transform our own limiting stories and emotional reactions. We are freed to respond to our partner with creativity, wisdom, and kindness; we can choose love over being right or in control. Even if only one partner meets conflict with less defensiveness and a more accepting presence, the relational dance begins to change. In place of the familiar chain of reactivity, each person's vulnerability and goodness shine through.
THE DOORWAY TO CONNECTION
At our session the following week, Dave talked about what had happened to him on the previous Saturday night. Molly had gone to bed early, and as he sat working at his desk, he found himself anticipating climbing in beside her and making love. Instead of immediately acting on the thought as he would usually do, he paused to investigate what he was feeling. As his hunger for pleasure became increasingly compelling, he remembered my suggestion and noted the feelings of "wanting" and "excitement." Then the thought arose that once again, Molly wouldn't want to make love with him, and the hunger turned into a sinking feeling. He named that "shame" and felt the tightness in his chest, the hollow ache in his belly. "When I stayed with those feelings, I got really scared. My heart started racing, and I felt desperate, like I had to go to Molly right away...almost like I'd lose something forever if I didn't have it immediately." Dave paused, looking down at the floor. Then he whispered in a shaky voice, "I've always been afraid I'll never get what I really want...like somehow I don't deserve it. I wonder if that's why I'm after Molly all the time."
After Molly let Dave know she'd heard what he said, she told her own story. Sunday morning, Dave had seemed irritated and sulky, and she figured he was punishing her because they hadn't had sex the night before. This made her furious, and the unexpected intensity of her rage reminded her to pause. When Molly asked herself, "What inside me really wants attention?" she immediately felt a stabbing hurt, like a knife in her chest. "In my mind, I heard the words, 'He doesn't love me for who I am. I can't trust that he loves me at all,'" she said. "Suddenly, that seemed like the truth. I totally believed it!" Her eyes had started stinging, and she'd felt like a little girl all alone. But rather than blaming Dave for not loving her, she just imagined holding that little girl and telling her she understood how hurt and lonely she was. "I knew then that I'd felt like that ever since I was really little—that nobody would ever really love me. Not Dave, not anyone."
After Molly finished speaking, she and Dave were both very quiet. When they looked at each other, I could tell that something had shifted. Rather than reacting to what they assumed about each other, they were opening to the reality of each other's pain and insecurity. In the honesty of this exchange, both had become more open and tenderhearted.
Facing the truth of our hurt and fear and having the courage to share what we experience with our partner are the lifeblood of the yoga of relationship. Stephen and Ondrea Levine, spiritual teachers and coauthors of Embracing the Beloved (Anchor, 1996), have infused their own marriage with the power of awareness and truth-telling. Stephen emphasizes the profound healing that is possible when couples are brave enough to disclose their vulnerability: "When two people in a relationship admit together that they are afraid, they begin to dissolve the constricting identity of being a separate and fearful self. In these moments, they tap into the blessing of pure awareness and pure love."
Through our willingness to experience and share our vulnerability, we discover a shared and compassionate awareness that is spacious enough to hold the natural imperfections of all humans. Painful emotions become less personal—"my fear" becomes "the fear," "my loneliness" becomes "the loneliness." As poet and teacher Adrienne Rich writes, "An honorable human relationship, that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word love, is a process of deepening the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this, because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation." By telling the truth in an intimate relationship, we awaken from our belief in separation and discover once again who we truly are.
TRUSTING OUR GOODNESS
In the weeks that followed, as Dave and Molly continued to bring compassionate attention to their own experiences, each found increasing freedom from the tension and judgments that had been separating them. As Dave met his fear of "not getting" with a clear and kind attention, and was brave enough to share this with Molly, things kept shifting. He no longer felt so sexually driven. He began to feel more at home with himself, and the energy that had been bound up in feeling that "something is missing....Something is wrong with me" gave him a sense of renewed vitality and confidence. Instead of channeling his passion for life into lovemaking with Molly, he felt more alive in general. "Of course, I still cherish making love to her," he told me, "but I also feel more zest for playing basketball, going biking, listening to Mozart." No longer desperate, Dave experienced a growing spaciousness and ease about whether or not they made love. "The more alive I feel, the more I'm 'in love,' no matter what Molly and I are doing," he explained.
As Molly continued to recognize and accept the feelings of anger and distrust that arose in her, she realized that no matter how much anyone had ever reassured her of love, deep down she'd felt too flawed to believe it. Seeing how many moments of her life she had spent imprisoned in feeling undeserving brought up a deep sadness. The more she shared this with Dave, the more she opened up and accepted the pain inside her. "Then one afternoon," she said, "I realized I was really feeling tender toward myself...that I was a good, tenderhearted person." Experiencing herself in this way changed everything. "I could look into Dave's eyes and see the purity of his soul," she said. "Rather than feeling afraid that he wanted something from me or wondering if he really loved me, I could simply be there with him and appreciate his goodness." After reflecting for a few moments, she added, "When I trust myself, I want to just let go completely into the love that's between us."
In my work with individuals and couples, I've found that perhaps the deepest source of suffering is the feeling of being flawed, the belief that "something is wrong with me." Especially when we and our partner are at war with each other, these feelings of being unworthy or unlovable lock them into patterns of anger, clinging, blame, mistrust, and separateness. Yet when we are willing to use the tools of attention and radical acceptance, of sharing with each other the truth of their vulnerability, the entrenched patterns of feeling unworthy and separate begin to dissolve. We glimpse our own basic goodness—our natural wakefulness, openness, and tenderness. Like Molly, when we trust our own goodness, we can trust the goodness in others. We see beyond the veils of personality to the indwelling divine.
THE GUIDING LIGHT OF INTENTION
The kind of conscious relationship that developed between Molly and Dave was founded on clear intention. Knowing that their intention was to find their way back to love and understanding, they were open to try whatever might work.
For George Taylor and Debra Chamberlin-Taylor, this intention was made explicit in their wedding vow—that all circumstances might serve the awakening of wisdom and compassion. In this pledge, known as the bodhisattva's vow, they were committing themselves not only to the liberation of their own hearts but to serving the freedom of all beings everywhere. From the moment they stood side by side in a grove of ancient redwood trees and made that pledge together, they have attempted to make every aspect of their relationship part of the path of healing and spiritual awakening. Over and over, this touchstone has reminded them to respond to what was happening inside and between them with awareness and compassion, and it has served them even in the midst of one of the greatest disappointments of their lives.
After 10 years of marriage, Debra and George had decided to create a family together. Deeply bonded as partners, they anticipated the raising of a child as the ultimate expression of their love. Each saw in the other the makings of a wonderful parent. But tests revealed infertility, and Debra had a worsening case of chronic fatigue that ruled out adoption as an option. All the promise and fun and goodness of life seemed to fall away as their dreams crumbled. They were, as Debra put it, "in the fire."
Every one of us who has walked the path of relationship knows those turning points when we can either grow closer to our partner or begin the irreversible drift apart. The fork in the road might take the form of a lost job, an extramarital affair, or a struggle with addiction. The intense disappointment and grief Debra and George were suffering might have turned them against each other permanently. Instead, the pain at this critical juncture in their relationship served to strengthen their bond and deepen their love.
As a psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher, I am drawn to exploring what makes the difference for couples at points of crisis. Because Debra and George are especially conscious, loving, and mature in their relationship, I asked them to explain how the kind of conflict that might drive a wedge into other relationships has served to deepen their intimacy. Without hesitation, Debra answered, "What saved us was the intention we both hold that everything—our anger, hurt, fear—serves spiritual awakening. In the midst of an argument, one of us would suddenly stop and remember, 'Oh! This is it! This is what our marriage vow is about.'" Then they would sit down together, become quiet, and breathe. "Once we could remember that what most mattered was waking up and helping each other wake up," Debra said, "our defenses would fall away."
In a conscious relationship, our vows or intentions can help us burn through the trance of fear, hesitancy, and doubt and allow us to show up with a spontaneous and wholehearted presence. In Embracing the Beloved, Stephen and Ondrea Levine talk about the power of mutual commitment to awakening together: "Vows taken by committed lovers are like precepts pledged by a monk or nun. They are a support along the high path into the unknown....No matter what circumstances arise, they are the bedrock for the next step." The intention expressed in their vows proved to be that bedrock for Debra and George.
When we choose to make our relationship with our partner a spiritual practice, we enter a sacred journey of ever-deepening love and freedom. The path is challenging, yet with purity of intention and clear attention, the very circumstances that threaten to drive us apart can open the gateway to the blessings of communion. In the moments when we remember what matters and are fully present, we come home to the pure awareness that is the essence of our Being.
THE SWEETNESS OF DEVOTION
Fulfilling the commitment to be mindful and compassionate in a relationship takes real effort; the way unfolds gradually when we show up every day and bring what is unconscious into the light of awareness. This training of heart and mind clears away the clouds and allows us to see the beauty and goodness—the divine presence—that shines through our partner. With that recognition, we spontaneously let go more fully into loving. This letting go is the grace and sweetness of devotion. As we practice offering all of our hurt, fear, longing, joy, and gratitude into the shared field of unconditional loving, our devotion blossoms.
The Levines consider such devotion to be the very essence of spiritual relationship, the quality that allows a relationship to become a mystical union. In their book, they write: "It begins with one being meeting another in love. It deepens and expands until the loved one becomes, in our heart, the Beloved....This union is not with another but with the mystery itself, with our boundaryless, essential nature."
By recognizing the Beloved in the other person and ourselves, we open into the sacred space of mystical communion. This liberating realization of our shared essence is the sweetest fruit of the yoga of relationship. We are no longer loving our partner or receiving love, we are love. Through the purity of our intention and attention, we have released the river of our separateness into the radiant and edgeless ocean of Being.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
True Wholeness
Our goal in starting this blog is to explore questions of embodiment and the craving for intimacy—the ways we turn towards romantic relationships as a way to salve some deep inner wound, and the ways in which spiritual practice offers an alternative to that lust for closeness.
Having experienced a number of intense states that felt at the time like "love", some part of me knows not to believe the romantic stories the mind creates. And yet these unconscious forces are too powerful to simply devalue or ignore; to do so invites great calamity. We can't trust everything we think. And yet we have to trust ourselves.
To fully know ourselves, we must be acquainted with the cravings of the body and the psyche. With the stories we tell ourselves about what we need to be happy. With the impulse to "fix" loneliness— or horniness— using another human being.
Rather than viewing them as gratification-objects, can we truly see our loved ones? Is it possible to be romantically involved in an aware way, without being trapped by appetite, or terrified of loneliness?
Is celibacy an ideal? Is it the preferred practice for a person who has declared investigation of the Great Mystery to be life's defining focus?
From Toni Packer:
Having experienced a number of intense states that felt at the time like "love", some part of me knows not to believe the romantic stories the mind creates. And yet these unconscious forces are too powerful to simply devalue or ignore; to do so invites great calamity. We can't trust everything we think. And yet we have to trust ourselves.
To fully know ourselves, we must be acquainted with the cravings of the body and the psyche. With the stories we tell ourselves about what we need to be happy. With the impulse to "fix" loneliness— or horniness— using another human being.
Rather than viewing them as gratification-objects, can we truly see our loved ones? Is it possible to be romantically involved in an aware way, without being trapped by appetite, or terrified of loneliness?
Is celibacy an ideal? Is it the preferred practice for a person who has declared investigation of the Great Mystery to be life's defining focus?
From Toni Packer:
Sexual activity is a normal, infinitely creative function of all living forms, physically pleasurable to the senses and occurring in orderly rhythms and cycles....
Most human beings feel lonely, separate, and alienated from each other, and the only possibility for at least a momentary joy of togetherness appears to lie in sexual union with its delights and self-abandonment.
And yet there can also be that amazing awakening to our intrinsic wholeness beyond the sensuality of imagination and fantasy, revealing a vast stillness at the very core of this bustling existence. At a moment of touching this all-pervading, vibrant emptiness, our illusory isolation has disappeared. The ending of separation is love beyond imagination and sensual pleasure.
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