Love and ego

This morning, as I was talking to a friend, I realised that "something" has left me. There is a distinct lack of pain, as if things have gone quiet inside. It is unusual, and somehow disconcerting. I am not qualifying this shift as good or bad, just different.

Then in the afternoon I felt as if a humming, or vibration had been suddenly turned off, landing me on a school playground with voices of mothers chatting around me. Part of me is feeling anxious about this change, perhaps feeling anxious about the lack of anxiety. The other part is running with it, reassuring me that it is fine; that the cloud that has clung heavily over my head all these months, maybe years, is lifting. "I hope to be here tomorrow" says my anxious self .

Yesterday my internet was very slow, therefore no blog was written. What has been floating in my head is my relationship with relationships, how I approach them and what they mean to me.

To sum what relationships with other people mean to me, I must say that from an early age nothing has been as important, or has occupied so much of my thinking time than my relationships with other people. Everything else pales in comparison, mostly because everything else is much less complicated or interesting.

I am a keen people observer. I can see the fluttering of thoughts and perceive subtle changes in body language, and as we know, most communication is unspoken. For a while, people's reactions toward me became my most important preoccupation and source of worry.

As a child, to be loved and approved of was my main motivation for doing well at school or behaving appropriately. As a teenager, it was just great to be allowed to indulge in romantic stories that played in my head over and over. In them, there were all kinds of passionate twists and turns, with the underlying assumption of being so irresistibly special that one day I would meet an equally irresistible man and we'd love each other forever.

Even though, I didn't have a strong desire for a "princess wedding", I learned to have a high expectation of my relationships with men. A good dose of self-respect and dignity are appropriate. But I recognise now to have allowed my ego to dominate, which made me feel as if I hadn't have enough, needed more, wanted more.

"In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever. The alert attention is Presence." Eckhart Tolle. A New Earth.

In the quote by Eckhart tolle, I can see the focus should be on giving rather than receiving. The ego wants more and will never be satisfied, so it does make sense to be all giving and unattached. This is not very difficult with one's own children and even dear friends. However, love relationships without the interference of ego are an interesting proposition.

If a relationship is based on the idea of being ever changing and finite, then is it worth having at all? If I don't know whether it is going to end tomorrow, and I shouldn't be attached to whether it does or not, then what keeps me there? why is it a human inclination to pair up, if there is no benefit in attachment? is it mere reproduction? or just temporary fun? why are then chemical mechanisms in our bodies that encourage bonding?

Is there a contradiction between the concept of non-attachment and the fact that there is certain calmness in the thought of permanence, in the thought of having a person to come to? And yet, we know that all things are impermanent. I understand that certainty is a fabrication of our minds, but maybe there are good fabrications.

I have to say that I am not particularly hopeful about love relationships at the moment. Despite my support people being so optimistic about my future, it makes me a bit sad to admit that I am hardly hoping for another hard haul in the loving depatment. There is also a small part of me that feels undeserving. 

One could say that my self-esteem is low. But, am I not heading into a spiritual path based in part on losing my sense of entitlement? Maybe there is a kind of self-esteem that makes us easy pray of suffering, and another kind that says "I am ok no matters what happens"; the one that allows us to dream of a nicer future. I actually see no evidence of that being the case. However, there might be hope as I haven't even read half of the book.

I always wanted a deep and meaningful relationship with people with whom I am close. In the last ten years that changed very little, even though everything else has changed a lot. With a partner this is still my ideal, which has proven elusive and seems unattainable. There is however, evidence of other people thinking that is possible.

About a year ago, in a winter's day not unlike this gloomy, still day, as I waited in a daze to find out what those little lumps on my breast were, I wandered into a bookshop and found a couple of books that have become favourites.

In one of them "And Never Stop Dancing, thirty more things you need to know now" by Gordon Livingstone, I found a bit of relief in the idea that if we choose a partner with "ample reserves of kindness, capacity to forgive and willingness to put us at the centre of his or her life", then we could put down our weapons and enjoy renewable love. Of course, to be deserving of such partner we should cultivate those qualities in ourselves.

Maybe I should put down my weapons and make peace with now and non-attachment, instead. Really, what are the chances?

You can se by the length of this post that this one is going to be hard to crack...

Evelia