What's In Your Mind?

Is love fading away... again?

After three blissful months in love with Richard, bliss seems to be fading away, again, escaping us... What is it we are doing wrong? Neither of us seems to know. Panic, sadness... I write to him:

"Everything scares me these days. Do I love you, do you love me? Fear opposes love, I can see this clearly. Fear = paralysis, love = action. I feel paralyzed, everything scares me, I don’t know why. Am I not able to love? Paralyzed by fear, by my lack of optimism? Can we fix this or will you give up first, tired of this immense "drain"? What do you think?

Maybe I should go see a "counselor" to talk about it? To talk about these fears, this confusion? (never done this). I know that a relationship is a "personal growth journey", it sheds light on many things about oneself, etc, it is not necessarily all easy and blissful. How is it that when we want to give the best of who we are to the one we love, it is the worst of ourself that comes out?

What is going on? Why don’t I simply trust you, and myself, to succeeed in this adventure, have a good time, be happy together? Is there a problem between us? An incompatibility? Have your feelings changed now that you know me better? Or mine? How do you see things? Does it scare you, this little low between us?

This distresses me a little. Is it just because I am bored? Actually, negative thoughts are winning over positive thoughts and I feel that this is what I am suffering from. But why?

I feel "high maintenance" for having this kind of feelings – I don’t want to take your time/energy, I would like to bring you only joy and simplify your life – I don’t want to say "you must do this or that for me to be happy", I don’t want to need you to be happy.

Let’s talk about these things. Maybe it is normal to have to talk about these things when we’ve been in a relationship for a few months. Go one step further. What do you expect, what do I expect, what does love mean to you, do you think you can be happy with someone like me, etc, etc. Let's not shy away from sharing our deepest feelings, or we may keep feeling that we are growing apart.

Yes, it may be that I am less "love-skilled" than someone who is less cerebral (this confusion I’m in now for example is symptomatic) and sometimes it seems to me that you and I are trapped in a "feedback loop": the more I doubt the more you doubt, etc. Can we turn the loop the other way: the more I trust our love, the more you trust our love, etc?

(…) I would like to hear what you feel, and if you think that there are things we can do, you, me, or both of us, to destroy these doubts, move forward fearlessly, and reconnect even more strongly. Are fears only on my side? Does this kind of exchange tire you? Do you think things should just happen naturally, without having to discuss? (this is the paradox that haunts me). Do you think it is a woman thing, this emotional instability? (I’m not really used to this, not really used to being a woman in fact).

Just a few thoughts. I think that, like me, you want to have a successful love life – with me or somebody else – so I know that we have the same objectives. I am aware that the image of myself I’ve been projecting, i.e. weakness and doubt, is not very attractive. Probably this is a burden to you, well this is a burden to me also, and I would like to change things, it doesn’t feel like this is the image that I typically project. Life doesn’t scare me, in general. Here, it is as if our nascent love was touching a sensitive spot. Something more difficult, more confusing. Maybe because it suddenly feels all so serious between us while we’re still a bit like teenagers… who knows. Maybe it’s just the way it is and not to worry, there is ebb and flow, there is inhalation and exhalation!

Maybe I need more feedback from you: how to love you better, what do you expect from me, what do you like and don’t you like. The state of doubt in which I am now is destructive: I dare not do, invent, undertake anything, and I think that this lowers your interest for me and creates this negative feedback… I don’t know.

Talking about it with open hearts will maybe help me see more clearly, and feel closer to you. Except if you would prefer not to have this type of discussion. I hope I am not bruising us… The fear again.

I’d like us not to let passion escape. Or is there nothing we can do? I know that it is work, a work of art, to love one another. And I have a tendency to contract into laziness/paralysis, which distresses me greatly.

I love you. Poorly, but I love you ;-)

I know that the response to my doubts is action. We must craft an action plan… Stop talking, start acting…"

Is love accepting the other the way she is, or helping her grow?

Email to Richard:

"The other day, you were telling me that I had told you "either you love me the way I am, or you leave". I protested, telling you that I could not possibly have told you that, because I believe that we are here on earth to grow and learn, and I wanted you to teach me, at the very least, how to love you – e.g. how to not hurt you when I speak.

On the other hand, you often told me, when we were together and even after: "I am like I am, and if you don’t love me the way I am, if I need to change, it means that you don’t love me".

So, do you think one must love and accept people exactly the way they are, or help them become better, enjoy life more, surmount their difficulties, i.e. try to change them? Feels like a contradiction, right, like a paradox…

Well in fact there is a paradox only in appearance. There is only one way to love – and therefore grow others: it is to ACCEPT them EXACTLY the way they are, accept them, welcome them, see in them the miracle of perfection that they are – not seek to change anything – and know that the only way to help someone grow and become more him/herself, open to life, is the skillful deployment of our love, is our always expressed and renewed acceptation of them.

I think it is our ignorance and lack of skills that made us see this as a paradox while, in reality, there isn’t any."

Eradicate the poison of expectations

Email to Richard continued:

"For example, as you know, I suffered greatly after our breakup from my own expectations: your behavior was directly opposed to my idea of what it was supposed to be. I had a fantasy, a dream, that you would call me, that you would support me, that we would see each other again, and reality did not correspond to that dream at all, hence suffering. I suffered also when we were together, instead of quite simply accepting you the way you were, with your energy, all your qualities, etc. I see this quite clearly now.

I spent a lot of time fantasizing our relationship instead of living it – while living it was so nice, while, when we accepted each other the way we were (like at the beginning of our relationship) we were so happy! As simple as that! And, guess what, at that time we were not "incompatible", we were not like oil and water! There was no expectation, no fantasy, we were taking life the way it came, minute after minute – and, guess what, you liked everything I did/said and I liked everything you did/said. There was not the poison of my (or our?) expectations.

I can see this now. I don’t know if you also let expectations poison your life. I think it is possible, maybe towards the end – where I could feel that I was no more accepted (which is when I freaked out, so I can sympathize that my non-acceptation of you must have freaked you out and that you left me!). I can see that what separated us is precisely this fantasy, this "delusion", while in fact we had everything we needed to be happy, in the reality of our lives, moment after moment. I did not know how to live reality.

Anyway. I am still quite unskilled at expressing those things – please forgive me if this is clumsy. I am working now at never forming any expectations. EVER. I don’t expect anyone to be on time at an appointment, I don’t expect my car to not break down,  I don’t expect to be able to survive a marathon training, I don’t expect you to read the email I send you… I don’t expect anything. ANYTHING. I am discovering that each minute of my life is in fact filled with joy, one just has to LOOK. It is fascinating. Life has now incredible depth. This is what I mean when I say "I am a new person".

The other side of the coin of expectations is fear – and you know that, as much as I lived in the fantasy of my expectations, I lived in that of my fears. I think I killed both monsters at once!

It is incredible when you realize this. I know that, when love knocks on my door again, that will be it. I know it. Because I have finally understood what love is, quite simply. Love, cherish ALL what life brings my way. Like, if love does not knock on my door again, it absolutely dot not matter. I accept with total surrender – and total awe – what live gives me.

By the way, I would like to seize this opportunity to once more express here my gratitude that you entered my life, that you took the risk to love me and endured the suffering that it caused, and that you were for me like this electroshock in my life that made me realize so many things, open my heart and be able to love, at last. 

I needed this to grow, I can’t imagine what other experience would have taught me all this, I had to live this pain to understand this, destroy these enormous barriers in my life, and be born again."

It takes only one

More email to Richard:

"About the question that was the object of some of our discussions: "whose fault is it?", like whose fault is it if it did not work between us, I think (I know) that we failed not because one of us did not manage to love the other, but because neither you nor I managed to love the other. I think that if I had managed to love you OR if you have managed to love me we would have succeeded.

Why? Because love works this way, it reflects itself, it is a mirror. Love (practiced with skills) calls for love, drives love, like an immense pump, a virtuous circle. One person is enough to drive the spiral in the right direction.

So, our failure is entirely my fault, yes – but it also is entirely your fault. I am almost sure that you know this.

But of course this is of no importance. It is what it is and it is perfect the way it is. One only has to open one’s eyes and SEE this perfection."

Feeding the fire of love

It seems that only now (about 6 months after the break-up) I am able to fully contemplate and understand what happened between Richard and I. I share with him in an email:

"We saw our beautiful love dwindle, slowly die down. We were both standing by the fire and we watched it die down without really understanding what was going on. We were sad, then we started feeling cold, then we left and sought warmth elsewhere.

What is crazy is that I understand now (and it staggers me that I did not understand at that time not so long ago) that one has to feed love, or the fire of any relationship for that matter, and that there are huge stacks of wood all around, right nearby! I could not see the wood before, I could not see anything – apart from the dwindling fire and the night all around.

Love (or friendship, etc) is not something that happens to us, it is something that we create. The trick is that when one falls in love, it is not a fire, it is fireworks bigger than ourselves, and we make "oooh!" and "aaah!" and all we think of is enjoy the show – I think this is what happened to us. I can see, objectively, that we gradually stopped giving each other the gestures/signs of love that we were naturally giving to each other during the first weeks. In the light of the flames, all I was doing/saying made you happy, and all you were doing/saying made me happy. It was easy, it was beautiful.

I remember that, when the fire started to die down, we started sending each other slightly hopeless email, saying that we hoped that the fire would start out again, without (neither you nor I, I think) understanding that it was entirely up to us. We were talking of our beautiful love as if it was external to us. We did not even realize that the reality of our behavior towards each other was changing day after day (in the wrong direction, we were doing less and less the gestures/signs of love). Instead, we thought it was fatality, or we thought it had to be the other one’s fault. On my part, it was pure ignorance, I had no idea how to do, I really was in the dark (the most amazing thing is that I was seeking, but in the wrong place). It feels to me now like I know, like a late discovery, and it seems now so obvious! I think that neither you nor I had had that realization. When I was with M. for example, he knew. He was throwing wood into the fire. I was impressed, even, I really could see how he was doing it, but I hadn’t had the realization myself. And it was working between us.

I see and practice this now in my relationship with other people. I see the IMMENSE SPACE there is to work on the relationship and make it luminous – each moment, each word, each gesture. I see the heaps of wood. There is much space, and, when you realize that, there is no more space for conflict, "games", fights, quick reactions, or even no-love. Everything is fluid, workable, nothing is set. A log here, a bunch of branches there. There is space. It is even fascinating and FUN. I also thought that it was fatality, that I did not get along with my parents, or that I was having regular fights with F., or that things were tensed between my boss and I, etc. Well, this is not at all the case. I know now my responsibility in this, I see the immense heaps of wood I can take from at any moment to feed the fires of my life, and I’m having a blast doing this. Everything is now bright, intense and warm, the cold night is no more. It is crazy. I was until now navigating with my eyes wide shut.

That’s it. It strikes me now, this passive and defeatist attitude we both had. It was totally inadequate, that neither you nor I felt responsible for what was going on between us. We were lamenting: "why? Are we unlucky? Maybe we are not "made for this"? Let’s hope that it will come back", and other inadequate thoughts. We were doing as if our love was not on our personal sphere of influence, as if it was coming to us from who-knows-where, while it was sitting there right in the middle.

We also, of course, started the game of finger-pointing: it must be the other’s fault if this is not working, the other is not enough this or not enough that, they don’t do things right and this is why it is not working.

My life has changed a lot since I’ve realized these things. Everything is more fluid, more soft, more rich, more pleasant, more intense, more fun! It is sad that I had to loose you to end up here – probably I needed something as painful as this to finally come to these realizations."

On love and being of flesh

Marco says he likes what I wrote :-). He says there are two topics we have not covered yet:
- We are beings of flesh: no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape.
- Where is love in all this?
My reply:

"On being of flesh. I like to think of the manifested vs the unmanifested. I see now (and I suspected before, and I think everyone has glimpses of it) that there is more to life than what meets the eye, what is manifested as form: objects, bodies, places, etc. In a way, the outside world that we perceive is a reflection of our consciousness: when you use only your object-consciousness (i.e. operate from the level of thoughts, emotions, etc, the objects in your consciousness) you see only the objects in the world. You see the world's physical manifestation (or some aspects of it, at least). When you start operating from what we could call space-consciousness (or receptive mode, or from the level of the box itself, or whatever) you see the space inbetween the objects and the world looks very different. Lots of was previously unmanifested manifests, you see plenty of things you didn't see before. Even your perception of the physical world is greatly enhanced and changed. The objects you saw before (and thought you knew fully) appear to be not nearly as solid as you once thought... and what you used to label "limitation" (because you turned a perception – e.g. backache – into a solid object) tends to disappear... Life becomes quite "magical" – I have plenty of examples in my recent life, with my body for example, I can tell you about it when we talk next. How our body is not nearly as solid as we think it is! (it is actually, even when described in physical terms, composed of about 99.999% emptiness, remember?). You also realize that there is no limit to the intensity with which you can feel a pleasure, contrary of what you may have experienced when you operated solely from the object-consciousness. Finally, lots of things that are "unexplained" in the manifested world have an easy explanation once more of the unmanifested manifests to you... science is catching up on all this... slowly (e.g. research on meditation, human energy field, eastern medicine, extra sensory perception, etc).

Love. Yes, the love I had twice in my life was before my "awakening" and it was very human love, love from the object-consciousness level, and yes there was still an ego so it had to do with it (which caused trouble and, eventually, unsurprisingly, failure). I think falling in love, passion etc, are glimpses into the unmanifested, a door that opens momentarily to show us the bigger thing (falling in love sweeps us away, right?), but often we pass on that opportunity, we do not understand, we let the door shut, and we fall out of love and bliss. We are sad, we think "Who can make love stay?", our heart breaks and we write songs that air on the radio, for others to hear the sadness of lost love. We do not get it. Now, yes, I guess the door opened again for me into the unmanifested, and I stepped in, and I have one foot firmly there, and there is no coming back, and I see that indeed love is all there is to experience in this world, that it is the glue that binds molecules together, that it is what reminds the manifestations of Life that we humans are that we are, in fact, just facets of one larger thing, that there is, in fact, no separation between us. That when I look into your eyes, it is my soul that I see there. That when I meet someone, it is in fact me that I am meeting. This is love. I do not have desire for love and relationships, I see that there is nothing else than love and relationships, this is all there is to life. There is One Life and it manifests through the plenty, and the plenty feels the One Life through love. The other and me are one and the same, so all I can do is help whoever crosses my path. This is all there is to do.

Love with ego is trouble, sooner or later. Have you noticed? Love is egoless or isn't, by definition. Whether I get married and/or bear beings to this world does not matter to me, if this is what you allude to. When you operate from space-consciousness, lots of things happen. One of them is that the notion of choice fades away – when you feel one with the universe, and not separated from it, what there is to do strikes you with the clarity of a thousand suns – and the more you surrender, the less you struggle against Life, the easier/happier/clearer things appear :-) well this is my experience..."

Falling in love

I have met someone and am falling in love! Letter to my new Love:

"Your words touch me so much they send me to another realm. Every word you write just plays with my soul an incredibly beautiful melody I didn't know existed. I really have been longing for you all my life.

The trick is this: you do not make me happy - I am deeply, thoroughly happy. This would not be altered if you were to leave me for some other corner of heaven. You are a consequence of my happiness, not a cause. This is where I feel I have really stepped into magic land, pure land, heaven. Some people think I am happy now because I met you. Before, they thought I was happy because I quit my job. But quitting my job and colliding with you happened precisely because I reached this state of quasi-unshakable bliss & clarity.

But now the meeting of our souls... and our bodies, and our minds!! This I feel can turn my bliss & clarity (and yours), in some magic mirror game, into some fractal manifestation of unknown proportion that keeps me wondering in awe and anticipation, like a child discovering an incredibly beautiful doll house, like the most exquisite psychedelic journey. This is exactly how I feel about us :-).

I want to see pictures of you. I want to meet the ones you love and who love you. Your mother, your brothers, your sister. I want to see your eyes dive into their eyes. I want to see you as a child. I want to get glimpses of all I missed of you all this time we were separated.

My heart beats much stronger when you come and visit my soul."

On the permanent collapse of ego boundaries

Marco replies to my email about love that, to him, falling in love is experimenting a "temporary collapse of ego boundaries" (I guess he has read Scott Peck!) and that, sooner or later, the feeling goes away. He tells me that the ego is always present, he tells me that life is "fucking difficult", and then he tells me… that he has fallen in love with me! My reply:

"Ego boundaries are GONE for me – I do not need falling in love to catch a glimpse of what it is like. I am everything and everything is me. The experience of falling in love, remember, is nowhere but in your consciousness. It needs not go away after a while once you understand this – that it is a plant that you can garden. If you fail to understand/realize this, then yes it will invariably disappear, as you will be unable to experience the freshness of the situation with the person you first fell in love with, day after day. There is no difference between falling out of love and not being able to see the beauty of the flower that you see everyday anymore, because you have labeled it "flower" and do not let it reveal itself to you. Same with a person you fall in love with. If you manage to avoid transmuting her into objects in your mind, then love – feeling of falling/being in love will bloom, day after day. It is one and the same. I now see the beauty of the flowers everyday, because I take care of my garden now, and the beauty of the moon, and of the birds, and I feel the feeling of love – of being in love – a lot. The bloom of romance fades if you do not understand how your mind works, how everything fades if you do not cultivate it, if you do not freshen up your garden every day. Such is the mind made. For survival. Once you do understand, it will not fade anymore – and you will still survive. The intensity of the color of the flowers does not fade for me anymore. Call it regression if you like – I suppose children see that too. I am proud to have regressed – been able to tear down the thick compartments and stiff ideas in my mind.

What do I mean by ego boundaries are gone for me? What do I mean by ego? Ego is the image of self that one constructs in their thinking mind, making it a solid object, one of the numerous objects in the box. I am this, I am that. Once you go beyond the objects in the box, and start operating from the box itself, you see it for what it is. And you know you are one with everything that is. And you start acting more and more with this knowledge in mind, and your life changes. Before, you identified yourself with your ego, now you don't. You see your features, e.g. tall, cute, French, athletic, smart, female, etc, but these are like tools you can use to do something. These are not you! Everything in this world manifests through the physical world – so of course love will manifest through our bodies – this is why this physical world is designed for: manifesting the unmanifested!!! So of course nothing is egoless, not even love, but at the same time, there is no ego. And this is not a paradox. There are egos, personalities, etc, but these are tools, these are not the real thing. You are not your ego Marco, you have it. You can change it, ignore it, do what you want with it. And no need to borrow from Freud, I do not think he knew about what I am talking about. I do not think he experienced the permanent collapse of ego boundaries.

Life is difficult, realize this and then transcend it: we could not agree more. In my words: first accept the world, and only then can you be of help. No need to make it sound so dramatic with words like "difficult" and "fucking" though. In general actually, once you accept something (a pain, a difficulty, etc), it ceases to be difficult and you start to see clearly how to overcome it. Until you accept it, it will hurt.

You have fallen in love with me and you would want to love a person like me, you say. What I think of this?
- that you will love a person like me, if you so desire, this is a fact;
- that meeting me gave you a glimpse of the collapse of ego boundaries, because this is what shows in my face and in my eyes and in my presence. You call it falling in love. And it is. But what matters is not you and me – what matters is that you are able to experience this glimpse we are talking about. It is the reason I wanted to talk with you. I wanted to show you a glimpse of the collapse of the ego boundaries, because I know there lies the key to happiness, and I could tell you had not experienced this in a while, which is why you felt bored with life. Only, I do not call it falling in love. No matter how you call it, it is beautiful, it makes you feel happy as a child, and I can tell you that you could feel this way all the time if you wanted."

I also tell him, that, in fact, I happen to have myself just fallen in Love with someone…

More falling in love

"I look forward to being
your companion, your friend
your sister, your parent, your child
your servant and your master,
your pupil and your teacher,
your poet and your muse,
your workmate and your playmate,
your lover and your beloved!

Kisses and all that ensues,

:-) Annelene"

Love again

More love email to my new Love:

"I love that you have so much surplus of love to give to others
I love that you feel the pain around you
I love that your love has no bounds
I love that you want to hold pain in your arms and dissolve it
I love that you seek to do what Love seeks to do
I trust you

You are so Beautiful

I've been looking for you all my life - not to have you or be with you:
I've just been looking to know that somewhere there existed someone like you."