Do You Feel Alone When You're Together? How to Deepen Your Connection With Your Partner

A lot of couples show up in my office because they don't feel deeply connected.  Often, one member of the couple feels like she can't connect with her partner and is lonely in the relationship.  Couples describe intimate relationships that contain a paltry supply of real intimacy.  In light of this, I wanted to offer something I witnessed recently, which was truly beautiful, and which reminded me of the divine ingredients of connection and how simple (but not easy) it can be to get there. 

John is a highly educated man and was vigorously expressing a lengthy and well-defended case against the validity of the whole phenomenon that is the Me too movement.  His argument extended to issues of race and gender as well, specifically, how all of the now-prevalent identity politics is overblown, unnecessary, negative and destructive. 

When he did pause, just for a moment, I snuck in an observation, namely, that the identity movement seemed to make him feel defensive and angry.  He denied feeling defensive but shared that as a teacher, the new politic did force him to be hyper-vigilant about the words he uses with students, to have to watch everything he does so as not to be wrongly accused.  I empathized with his experience and how hard it must be to be a teacher these days.  He then went back to his well-constructed case for what was faulty about the movement. 

As this conversation was going on, I was also keeping an eye on his partner, Nel.  As John went on with his narrative, Nel’s expression glossed over; she had checked out, lost interest in even trying to stay present.  I understood her experience as there was nobody there, really, for her to be present with.  The possibility for connection was gone, lost behind the steel walls of intellectual content.  

But I was hopeful as I had seen an opening; a little piece of John had emerged as he talked about the difficulty for teachers just now.  And so I inquired, hoping that I could get a little further than John’s teacherexperience. 

“What does it trigger in you personally, having to be in the thick of it, required to participate in this dialogue and all the forms and training sessions you probably have to be part of?”  And for some reason, with that very simple invitation, within the safety of our relationship, John showed up.  In an instant, his entire facial expression shifted as if he had also not been present and now, suddenly, he was there.

John then expressed how toxic the whole thing felt for him, that he was not interested in any of it and yet was being forced to be in a conversation that was not his life, not valuable to him.  He felt terribly put upon and trapped by the whole environment of identity politics, in a constant fight about issues that he didn't resonate with, having to prove he wasn't guilty of something that didn't in any way belong to him. The specifics of what he felt are less important than what happened in the couple as a result of this fresh truth that John was able to share.

Suddenly Nel was there in the room.  It literally felt like a wave of energy had wafted through the space; it was palpable.  Nel had returned, literally reentered the space behind her eyes.  In that moment, for the first time, I could see real empathy for her husband spread across her brow.   They were sharing the same space, perhaps for the first time in a decade.  Nel was looking at John with an entirely different expression, really looking at John.  Tears welled up in Nel's eyes; connection was happening.  At last, what had been separating them all these years, all her husband’s ideas, were out of the way and she could feel him, be with him, be truly together, in real company.  

John had been honing his ideas and intellect his entire life, using his arguments to validate what he was experiencing, but sadly, because of his own psychology, not even knowing or inquiring into what he was experiencing.  He had gotten quite skilled at proving his rightness, but all his ideas came at the cost of connection.  John didn’t get to feel connected to anyone or, for that matter, allow anyone else to feel connected with him.  He was an island in every way, surrounded by an ocean of mind.

Many people remain stuck in the land of contents—with the context underneath the contents rarely (if ever) reached.  Men particularly seem to get locked in their thoughts, information, and ideas, which shuts them out from their own hearts and shuts everyone else out in the process.  The feeling of being with such individuals is that of not being able to touch them, of being trapped in a corridor with no door, no way to be together, held at bay by the thoughts, opinions, and arguments, the armor that protects their hearts from ever being visible, or vulnerable. 

As the partner, you are not able to connect deeply, not below the neck, beyond the layer of intellect. Since it’s not possible to join them in their experience, empathy has to happen from a distance, via an idea of what they’re experiencing but without getting to feel it with them.  For the partner of such individuals, being together is an experience of loneliness, separation, hearts that can’t actually touch, a life that can’t actually be profoundly shared.

When John expressed his personal experience, not his narrative around it, not his justification for it, not all that he knew about it, just his truth in its raw, real, and alive form, simply what he was living on the inside, as it was coming freshly in the moment, Nel felt connected to her husband, like she was at last with him.  They were together in the same now.  His intellectual defenses had stepped out of the way for a brief and blessed moment. Nel could then experience the sensation of being in true company—not being alone together. (She later confirmed this to me in an individual session.) 

Couples spend decades trapped, like flies in spider webs, inside the arguments of content, and particularly who’s right, who’s justified in feeling the way they feel about the contents. They get caught, sometimes for good, in the ongoing battle for whose experience is deserving of empathy. This happens for many reasons, one of which is that we mistakenly believe that we are our thoughts and opinions.  Proving our rightness is thus a life and death struggle to ensure survival.  But such is a topic for another day.  In the interests of word count here, it’s my intention to simply point out that ideas and opinions, the stuff of mind, the generalized narrative and intellectual defense system, can serve as a non-navigate-able obstacle to connection. 

If you’re feeling that you can’t reach your partner, like you’re alone when you’re together, as if you can’t find the key to being truly with each other, notice, is your couple trapped in the land of contents—of mind—with no access to each other’s hearts.  Is your communication stuck in the land of opinions, ideas, and whether what’s happening is right or wrong, good or bad?  Notice if your relationship is waylaid in the purgatory of commentary, the airless box that it is to always be commenting on life to each other, but never in it with each other, forever a step away from your felt experience, and from each other.

If what I describe resonates, consider offering questions to your partner that contain an intention to reach the heart and uncover the real felt experience--not the story of it.  And, offer yourself the same invitation, to deepen your connection with yourself as well.

Questions that invite feelings:

-What is the experience like, for you, in that situation?

-What does that situation trigger in you?

-What does it feel like when you’re in that situation?

-What’s the worst thing, for you, when you’re in that situation? 

What makes it so hard, for you, when you’re in that situation?

And, when describing your own experience, try modeling the communication style you want to receive from your partner.  For example, “For me, when that happens, I feel (such and such)” “What makes it so hard for me is…” Actively model talking about your feelings, your personal experience, rather than your narrative about the situation, maybe even naming that distinction so that your partner can hear the difference, regardless of whether he knows how to do it.  Furthermore, remember that when your partner is able to express his direct and personal experience or a fresh perhaps newly discovered feeling, be sure to offer him (or her) a safe space and supportive response. Don’t correct or dismiss his truth, no matter what it contains.  Each time he moves from the known storyline to the unknown felt experience, he is growing, taking a baby step forward.  When you respond lovingly and with acceptance, you are encouraging more steps in this direction and thus inviting a deeper connection.  True connection happens when we can communicate from our vulnerability, our hearts--not our stories and protective mental layers.  It happens when we dive into life together rather than standing on the shore, safely commenting on it. The most important journey we take in relationship, and life, is from our head to our heart.     

Can a Relationship Recover From Resentment?

As a relationship therapist, I am often asked: “What's the biggest problem couples face?” The easy answers are money and sex, but neither would be exactly true or at least not what has walked into my office or my life. The most common problem I see in intimate partnerships is what I call, the battle for empathy. 

Paula tells Jon that she’s upset and hurt by something he said, a way he responded to her opinion on a family matter. She asks if, in the future, he could say that same thing with an attitude of kindness and/or curiosity and not be so critical, simply because her opinion differed from his. Jon reacts to Paula’s feelings and the request by aggressively inquiring why he should offer her kindness and curiosity when last month she had shut down his experience over a different family matter and treated him unkindly. Paula then attacks back, explaining why she deserved to behave the way she did in the interaction last month, and why her response last month was a reaction to what he did two months ago, which she believes was unkind and aggressive. Jon then barks that he was entitled to his behavior two months ago because of the unkind and critical thing she did three months ago…and back and back in time it goes, to a seemingly un-findable place before the hurting began.

Couples do this all the time. They fight for who’s deserving of empathy, whose experience should get to matter, whose hurt should be taken care of, and whose experience should be validated. Often, partners refuse to offer empathy to each other because they feel that, to do so, would mean admitting that they are to blame and thus giving up the chance to receive empathy and validation for their own experience. Boiled down, if I care about how my words hurt you then I’m admitting that I'm to blame for causing you that pain. And perhaps even more importantly, the truth of why I said those words or more accurately, why I was entitled to say those words, will never be validated or receive its own empathy. Empathy for you effectively cancels out empathy for me...

Read full article: http://nancycolier.com/blog/

4 Steps to Stop Blaming

This is the third blog in a series on blame. I wrote the first two blogs to help those who feel consistently blamed, while this installment is for those who do the blaming. It was not my original intention to write a piece for blamers, but I was inundated with (and inspired by) emails from readers who self-identified as blamers and asked for help in stopping their behavior.

Let me say first that in some situations blaming is helpful and healthy—it's not always a dysfunctional reaction. Assigning blame where it is appropriate can empower and protect you, and stop harm in its tracks. But the kind of blaming that I am addressing here is the unhealthy and chronic kind. It is the habitual and reactive sort that blocks your personal growth, damages your relationships, and gets in the way of your own well-being.

Try the following test:

1. Would it be normal for you to respond to someone with a problem by telling him why he is to blame for his problem?
    
2. In relationships with friends and family, do you often find yourself pointing the finger? Do you tell others how and why they are wrong, using phrases such as You did it, or, It’s your fault?
    
3. When you confront difficulties or inconveniences, is it common for you to identify and ruminate over who or what is to blame?
    
4. When you are upset or in a difficult situation, do you frequently blame someone for making you feel the way you do? 

If you answered yes to any one of these questions, you are a blamer. If you answered yes to multiple questions, then your blaming behavior may very well be compromising your relationships, your well-being, and your personal evolution. That said, keep reading: Blaming is a habit and awareness is the first step toward breaking it.   

First, I want to congratulate you on your willingness to look honestly at your behavior, and to address what may not be working in your life. It’s hard to investigate the parts of yourself that need improvement; such awareness takes courage. In addition, I congratulate you on the aspiration to grow and improve, which comes from your highest self. The intention to evolve is already evolved—just by continuing to read, you are doing something remarkable. 

Your blaming, when it began, was probably an innocent defense mechanism meant to protect you from harm. If your sister was to blame for eating the cookies, then she would be punished—not you. But sometimes, blaming takes a turn toward the dysfunctional, when blaming becomes your default reaction to life, causing harm to you and others. 

Blaming, when dysfunctional, is a way to avoid and deny feeling what you are feeling. While it may not be conscious, blaming is something you do to get away from the feelings you do not want to feel. But I feel lots of things when I blame, you might argue. And it is true that you do feel when blaming, but you feel something other than what you would if you could not blame. In this way, blaming conceals and distorts your real truth—you replace your feelings about what you are experiencing with feelings about who caused it. 

At its core, blaming is a form of self-abandonment and self-betrayal.

Case #1: "Jon"

Jon (not his real name) is driving his teenage daughter to a gymnastics meet. Traffic is dreadful and they are going to be late for this important event in her life. Jon goes to his default response—blame—accusing his daughter of dilly-dallying before getting in the car and related crimes. He spends the entire trip angry; berating her, explaining why it’s her fault that she is not going to make her meet on time. Later, as I unpacked the event with Jon, it became evident that underneath the blame, he was in fact experiencing many emotions. He felt sad and guilty about not being able to get her to the meet on time. He felt powerless that, as her dad, he couldn’t take care of her, which is what he really wanted to do. He felt anxious because he thought there might be a better route to take, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He felt heartbroken because he knew what the meet meant to her, and how hard she had worked for it.

Under all of the blame was actually love and pride for his daughter. As Jon and I re-scripted the event, reliving it in a new way, we replaced Jon’s blaming script with acknowledgment and expression. He revealed all the juicy feelings that he had not allowed toward his daughter or even in his awareness. Together, we invited in Jon’s actual truth. We re-framed the traffic jam as an opportunity not to determine blame or rightness, but rather to connect, create intimacy, and meet the truth of the moment. With the need to assign blame set aside, there was an opportunity for Jon to touch his actual experience. He could feel the depth of his vulnerability and love, which, thankfully, he was later able to share with his daughter.

Blaming is a way to uphold your self-image and protect your self-esteem. Your partner is the cause of your relationship problems, your boss is why you are not successful, the government is to blame for your lot in life. Someone or something else is to blame. This allows you to avoid having to look at your own participation—and, potentially, aspects of yourself that conflict with your self-image. Blaming keeps you safe from having to look at the gap between who you believe yourself to be and who you are. But in so doing, blaming also prevents you from being able to grow and change. Pointing the finger is a way to avoid responsibility, which ultimately keeps you stuck at the place from which you point.

Blaming is also a strategy (albeit usually unconscious) to keep from having to make changes or address your actual reality. As long as the problem is someone else’s fault, you can stay busy and focused on trying to correct the blame—that is, fix that person or situation that is at fault. You pour your attention into what you have determined to be the source of that fault. As a result, you turn your back not only on your actual experience of the situation, but what you might need to do—given that the situation is the way it is. 

Case #2: "Maggie"

Maggie (not her name) had been in a relationship with Phil for a dozen years. For 10 of those years, she had been talking about how and why he was to blame for what was not working in their marriage. She focused her attention perpetually outward, on changing him: He was to blame, so she needed to fix him. And when she fixed him, she would be happy in the marriage. She believed that blaming and fixing would set her free. In fact, it was paralyzing her and keeping her stuck, with her life balanced on a potential future that didn’t exist. 

After much suffering, Maggie became aware of how the blaming was prohibiting her not only from directly experiencing her unhappiness but also from honestly addressing what needed to happen because of it. If this was the state of the marriage, what then? Thankfully, she was finally willing to stop the cycle of blame, turn her attention away from Phil and his faults, and focus it back on her own heart. She was then able to see and take the next right step.

Recovery: how to break the blaming habit?

Step 1: Set an intention (make a decision) to stop your blaming behavior. Identify what it is you want and hope to experience as a result of moving out of blaming (better relationships, more peace, freedom from anger, less time ruminating, etc.). Write down (or tell a friend) about this decision. If possible, begin a journal dedicated to your evolution from blaming. 

Step 2: Start paying attention! Make a conscious effort to become more mindful of your blaming behavior. When you are able to catch the impulse to blame (before it happens), create a pause, be silent, and take two deep breaths. Then, make a different choice.

Remember, however, that breaking the blaming habit is a process that takes time. You will not be able to catch yourself before you blame on every occasion; it may be quite a while before you can catch yourself at all. That’s okay. It is a huge step just to notice your habitual reaction to blame, even if it is after the fact. But the more you practice, the more you will be able to interrupt the process before it happens and ideally respond in a new way from a different place.

Step 3: At whatever stage you notice your blaming impulse (before or after), ask yourself the following questions (and journal on what you uncover):

1. If I couldn’t blame in this situation, what would I have to feel?
2. What about that feeling is hard to feel?

Step 4: Honor yourself for making the commitment and doing the work that emotionally and spiritually evolving requires. A Final Note

Be gentle with yourself: This is not an opportunity to blame yourself for not getting yet another thing right. Practice these steps and when you forget to practice them, remember and start again. If you commit to making this effort, you will grow in ways you can’t yet know, and so will your relationships and your life.

Read more on the topic:

• What to DO About the People that Blame You for Everything
• When You're in Relationship with a Blamer
• The #1 Most Important Relationship Skill and How to Learn It
• How to Heal Defensiveness in Close Relationships
• "And" Not "But": The Secret to Healthy Relationships

When You're in Relationship With a Blamer

There is no better time for growing than the holiday season. And not just growing in the belly, but in the heart and mind as well. Family interactions, particularly those that go on over a period of consecutive days, offer profound opportunities for self-awareness, learning, and evolution. 

Our greatest challenges are our greatest teachers, and they often manifest in the form of family—at least, that’s been my experience. I have taken on a practice and habit of bowing to my hardest or most painful situations, even as I struggle with and loathe them. I know that if I can approach my greatest challenges with awareness and self-kindness, I can use them to evolve and find more peace in my life. I know from practice that the hard parts of life will change me, and for this opportunity to change, if not the situation itself, I am grateful.

Recently I had the good fortune to spend time with one of my teachers. Over the years, this particular teacher, who happens to also be a family member, has provided seemingly unending opportunities for me to grow and change. So I begin by saying thank you. I have become who I am, in part, because of what I have had to work with in my relationship with this particular person. 

But this family member is also a blamer. We all know a blamer—most families have at least one. This weekend, my daughter falls down, skins her knee, and is crying. His first words: “That’s what happens when you run so fast on the pavement.” Later, my tooth is hurting so much that I have to take pain medicine. He offers, “Well, why don’t you take better care of your teeth? You must still be chewing ice.” 

You get the point. 

The circumstances are irrelevant; empathy is always off the table. The only item of concern is fingering the person to blame and identifying his or her crime. 

This particular aspect of my teacher’s way of being was helpful some years back. Indeed, I grew from it. I can now be with his empathic vacuum, and recognize how it allows him not to feel sad or bad about himself. Being angry protects him from having to experience another’s pain, something by which he clearly feels threatened. I am also able (now) to refrain from getting involved in his pathology by defending the blamed. I am instead able to use it as a catalyst for opening my own heart and accompanying the other (the one being blamed) in the experience where they are. 

But this year, I witnessed a new form of blaming over the Thanksgiving weekend. Or you could say that a new teaching appeared from which to become even wiser and more aware. The challenge at the holiday table this year was that of being blamed for causing bad feelings that another person feels independently—projection, at its most basic level:

• Problem 1: She has (for many years) felt crippling shame about something at which she failed in her life.
  Reaction: She blames the other (in this case, me) for shaming her. I, in her narrative, become the active humiliator despite never actually raising the issue of the failure.
   
• Problem 2: She feels bad or guilty for getting stuck in traffic and not being able to get her daughter to an important event on time.
  Reaction: She blames the other person in the car and accuses that person of blaming her for not being a good mother. (In truth, the other person has not said a thing.)
   
• Problem 3: She feels entirely responsible for her husband’s happiness and vigilantly seeks to protect him from being unhappy or displeased even for a moment.
  Reaction: Overwhelmed, she then blames her husband for expecting (or demanding) that she make him happy.
• You get the point.

  This blamer blames the other for creating the feelings that she does not want to feel. She can then fight with and be angry with the person "doing" this to her. She makes them the keeper/source of her bad feelings, and in so doing, she can disown the bad feelings as not part of her, split off from the experience she finds threatening. 

  For the person being projected onto, this is quite a challenge. When the blamer is projecting their bad feelings onto you, they actually believe that you are doing this to them. You are to blame for creating this bad experience inside—with intention. They are not playing at being deluded, but actually believe that you are the bad one and blame you for trying to make them feel this way. In their projection, they are the victim of your negative intentions. The result: They succeed in morphing their bad feelings into a bad you. 

  The one receiving projection—the blame—has several fundamental dilemmas to deal with (and then some):

  • First, there's their own hurt—of not being seen for who they are and being assigned a negative intention that doesn’t belong to them.
  • Second, the anger and confusion at blame for something that they did not create, and the unfairness of the emotionally abusive behavior they experience.
  • Finally, the frustration of trying to communicate and portray oneself correctly within an environment of distortion and the absence of awareness. 

  How do you respond and, if you so choose, continue to be in relationship with a person who uses you as a place to assign the feelings that they cannot own? How do you learn and grow from someone who creates negative actions and intentions for you that aren’t yours as a way of splitting off from their own unprocessed experience—a way of staying in denial? How do you be in relationship with blindness—specifically, when your mistreatment is a part of that blindness? 

  I'll leave you with questions and a promise to return in the next few weeks with, hopefully, some answers that are helpful. For now, perhaps just knowing that this is a common difficulty and pain in relationships may help ease your own pain. If you are experiencing something like this, you are not alone. And you are not alone in the suffering that it is to live under the burden of projection. Remember too, as I am trying to, that with each projection, another teacher arrives, offering us yet another chance to become more aware, wiser, and more at peace with what is. 

  To be continued.
  Be sure to read the following responses to this post by our bloggers:

  What to Do About the People Who Blame You for Everything is a reply by Nancy Colier LCSW, Rev.

  4 Steps to Stop Blaming is a reply by Nancy Colier LCSW, Rev.

  You Can't Change Someone Else. But You Can Do This. is a reply by Nancy Colier LCSW, Rev.

How to Live in the Real World (Minus One Troubling Word)

Of all the words that exist in our language, “should” may be the one that creates the most suffering. Every aspect of our life is affected and infiltrated by it: I “should” be, he/she “should” be, my life “should” be, this moment “should” be… Sometimes we utter our “shoulds” out loud, sometimes we think them consciously, and sometimes they are so subtle as to escape even our own awareness, perhaps presenting as just a background dissatisfaction or despair, something not right with the way it is. At the core is always the same message: This [fill in the blank] “should” be different—should be something other than what it is. 

Lesley (all names are changed here) wakes up in her apartment in the city every weekend to a raging “should” assault: I “should” be doing something fabulous this weekend, I “should" be traveling and experiencing new and interesting things. I “should” be living a different life than the one I’m living. 

John suffers mostly with the “should” of the other. While his wife has been exhibiting the same insensitive behavior for the last decade, which is extremely frustrating and painful for him, his internal dialogue remains the same: She “should” be more sensitive to his needs, she “should” care about the fact that her behavior upsets him.  

Just now, as I was putting the finishing touches on this blog, I slipped out to meet a friend. “I should have gotten a nice day,” she exclaimed as we dodged the puddles on the way to lunch. It was her first day off in weeks and she felt deprived of the sunny day she “should” have gotten. Her experience was not what it “should” be, and that felt bad.

The “should” thought arises (generally) when we don’t like or want what is happening.  While the energy and intention of “should” is to point us towards the thing that we want, and thus to alleviate suffering, the effect is actually to create more suffering than we already felt. When we add “should” to a reality we already don’t like, we end up with the same unwanted reality we started with, but on top of it, we have an emotional battle against what is actually happening.

Most of the time, the reality we think we don’t want would actually be bearable if we just stopped struggling against it. It might even contain elements that we could enjoy, if we were to let ourselves experience it. What is not bearable, however, is the belief that we are being cheated out of a reality that we were supposed to get. The greatest suffering comes from our fight against reality—not our reality itself.

Giving up our “should” narrative is very challenging, in part because we are conditioned to believe that if we give up the fight with a reality we don’t want, we will be surrendering and agreeing to that unwanted reality, and to it continuing forever. Shifting the focus from what “should” be to what is, otherwise known as acceptance or allowing, is, as we've come to understand it, code for giving up and giving in to a life we don’t want. Acceptance or allowing reality is seen as passivity. This, however, is a radical misunderstanding of what acceptance and allowing actually mean.

What we are giving up when we stop fixating on what “should” be is just one thing—the fight with the fact that what is, is. Accepting that what is, is, has nothing to do with our actions, our intention to change it, or our approval of it. Acceptance and allowing simply means relaxing our opposition to the fact that what is happening on the inside and outside of us is actually happening.  

For my friend to accept that it is raining, and to stop imagining that it “should” be the way she wants it, would not be to agree to like the rain, nor would it mean she ought to leave her umbrella at home. To give up her “shoulds” would mean only dropping her anger and resentment against reality, the blaming of the sky for doing what it is doing, the insistence that she was supposed to get something else from her day off. It would leave her only with the rain itself to deal with, which is far more manageable and less painful than her feelings of being punished by a weather system utterly uninterested in her quarrel with it.

If Lesley were able to allow the fact that she is in the city in the summer, that this is her life right now, she would be giving herself the gift of the present moment. Her reality might be a little hot or loud, or a little lonely if she’s alone, but it would go on without the intense suffering that comes with the narrative of what her life “should” be. Instead of the absence of the weekend she’s missing out on, she would experience the presence of the weekend she's living in, a presence out of which she might create something she actually wants. Further, from her apartment in the city, she could still book a trip to the beach or a visit to friends in the country. Anything is possible when we start from the place we actually are, while nothing can happen from the illusion of where we “should” be.

One client discovered that when she dropped her painful and overwhelming “I should have a more fabulous life” narrative, she in fact only had one micro-moment at a time to contend with. Without the “shoulds,” and with just this moment, now, to address, her life felt quite bearable and even potentially interesting. She realized that when she didn’t have to live the “story” of her life, she could enter her actual life — go to the movies or take a walk, listen to a piece of music or sit on a bench and feel the sunshine. Instead of trying to figure out what she “should” be doing in her fabulous imaginary life, she started to discover what she actually felt like doing right now — in her real life. She was like a teenager with her first set of car keys, realizing that from here, from the ground she was standing on, she could go anywhere or create anything she wanted.  

When we stop obsessing over what “should” be and shift into acknowledging what is, we discover that, as opposed to becoming more passive, our solutions to a reality we don’t want actually become more creative and forward-moving. When we are willing to look at and feel what is actually true, solutions appear that are unexpected and fresh. Solutions that arise out of the direct experience of the truth, of what’s really happening, contain an energy and inarguable-ness that is far more powerful than anything that comes from an anxiety and urgency to get away from reality.

For years, I was in a relationship with someone whom I thought “should” be different. I remained in that relationship, unhappy but relentlessly engaged with my “shoulds.” At some point, however, having struggled and suffered with reality long enough (with no budge on reality’s part) I decided to drop my stories about the way it “should” be. I was bone tired and weary from my unhappiness and his “wrongness,” and, perhaps more to the point, from my fight against that unhappiness and that “wrongness.” Instead, I started looking at who he actually was instead of obsessing about who I wanted him to be. I started feeling the way I actually felt in the relationship instead of trying to feel a better way. When I did, instead of anger and frustration over what was, I sensed a deeper truth, and with it a calm clarity. As heartbreaking as the truth was, it was without any of the confusion and frustration that had plagued me throughout the years of “shoulds.” It was unavoidable: I didn’t want to and couldn’t be with this partner any longer.

This was the truth that my “shoulds” had kept me from having to face. And indeed, “shoulds” allow us to live in a state of denial, to avoid the pain of the truth, and what we might need to do about that truth. We believe that accepting reality creates passivity and inaction but in fact, allowing reality, as it is, actually creates the ground for powerful action and inarguable change. 

What if we were to approach our life with the attitude that this IS our life: It’s not supposed to be another life. It might one day be different, but right now it’s this life.

The irony is that whether or not we “allow” reality to be as it is, reality is still the way it is. "Allowing" reality to be as it is is really just an idea cooked up in our heads. Reality doesn’t go away because we stop allowing it any more than it comes into being when we do allow it; our resistance has no effect on reality itself; it affects only our own well being. Reality always wins. We can make our lives a whole lot more peaceful by renouncing the delusion that fighting with the truth will make it any less true. 

Each time you hear yourself saying or thinking what “should” be happening, flip it around and ask the question, What is happening? Drop your fight with reality, your narrative about what “should” be, and you’ll discover that reality, unburdened by your opposition, is a lot different than you think. The surest way to find peace is not to win the war, but to stop the fighting.

Copyright 2015 Nancy Colier