Should I be angry at someone who has unfair and cruel judgment towards me? The anger is natural, a response of my animalistic PSNS kicking in, ready to fight my perceived enemy because my needs are threatened. My need is for acceptance as I am, but my judgment of them betrays the fact that I don't wish to apply the same standards towards them that I want for myself.
They have a right to their feelings, their opinions, their stories, and their freedom of speech. My anger, which is about my needs not getting met, does not justify my judgment of them. Do they also not deserve the right to be accepted as their are in their judgmentalness? And if I do not accept them as they are, what justification do I have to believe they are wrong for not accepting me as I am?
We tend to respond to our own pain and anger with judgment, negative intent, or rejection of the person we are angry at. This response is natural but not necessarily valid. It is true that when we feel threatened or our needs are not met, we tend to feel angry, and we tend to respond to our own anger with a desire to fight or flee - a very natural response from our animal nature. However, that association can be broken - we do not have to yield to the desire to fight or flee in order to have our anger. When we recognize our anger as simply a feeling, no judgment or action need to go with it.
Just because you caused me pain does not mean you are a bad person; yet, this is an assumption we often make. This assumption comes from this logic: If it were not for your words or actions, I would not be in pain; therefore, you are at fault for causing me pain. And if you caused me pain, you must be a bad person. And if you are bad, you are not like me (because I see myself as good), and therefore worthy of my judgment and rejection, and I am justified in causing you pain in return.
There are many logical problems with this line of reason; but first, realize that this line of reasoning does not come from our rational minds; rather, it is built into our DNA from when we were animals. Animals attack or run from other animals they perceive as "bad" - i.e., somehow harmful to them. The genetic encoding for this logic comes from tens of millions of years of experience and natural selection. Thus we come to this logic from a completely natural source. We are not "bad" for having this logic, only ignorant and unaware.
The beauty of the human mind is that we can detect and act contrary to our genetic programming. We can choose to act based on our beliefs, morality, and lessons we have learned. We can have complex understandings that cause us to draw new conclusions on how we want to behave.
Deciphering our genetic coding, understanding it, and changing it to better suit our needs as complex human beings is the glory of being human, and gives us well-deserved pride for reaching a higher moral standard than what we were born with. Our genetic encoding served us well as animals; but now we are grown past that point and need to choose how we want to live in this world - because we are able to choose.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Unconditional Love can't be done in a weekend
Recently I received an advertisement for an evening workshop, and among the many things promised was "unconditional love". Now, I know what they are talking about - I have done many workshops, and came away feeling like these people were my deepest friends, and the love and sincerity was deeply moving. The closeness that can occur from a well-run workshop is truly amazing. And as we all crave unconditional love, the evening sounded very tempting.
However, ultimately, I believe this is just a quick fix for our true need. I've realized over the past few years that "unconditional love" does not happen in an evening or over a weekend, but rather over years and years of being together and sharing lives. The wonderful highs we receive during a weekend workshop are great, but that is all they are - a high. It is possible that we meet someone at a workshop and start a wonderful long-term relationship that involves unconditional love, but that is an exception, not the rule.
I can no longer accept the phrase "unconditional love" for anything so short-term. Nostalgic memories of an experience together do not count. To have an intimate relationship with anyone requires, in my mind, spending significant and regular time together, involved in topics and activities that deeply matter to both people. Meeting a loving person at a party or workshop is just a teaser, and in my experience has rarely led to something that actually satisfies my deep longings for connection and intimacy. I'm not speaking here of physical intimacy, but rather intimacy of the soul, when two hearts have gotten to know each other so much that a sense of deep connection develops, and you are part of each others' lives. And how can you be part of someone's life without spending significant one-on-one time with them?
Today, this is the crux of friendship to me - spending significant one-on-one time with someone. Without that, I will never know if I am truly valued.
However, ultimately, I believe this is just a quick fix for our true need. I've realized over the past few years that "unconditional love" does not happen in an evening or over a weekend, but rather over years and years of being together and sharing lives. The wonderful highs we receive during a weekend workshop are great, but that is all they are - a high. It is possible that we meet someone at a workshop and start a wonderful long-term relationship that involves unconditional love, but that is an exception, not the rule.
I can no longer accept the phrase "unconditional love" for anything so short-term. Nostalgic memories of an experience together do not count. To have an intimate relationship with anyone requires, in my mind, spending significant and regular time together, involved in topics and activities that deeply matter to both people. Meeting a loving person at a party or workshop is just a teaser, and in my experience has rarely led to something that actually satisfies my deep longings for connection and intimacy. I'm not speaking here of physical intimacy, but rather intimacy of the soul, when two hearts have gotten to know each other so much that a sense of deep connection develops, and you are part of each others' lives. And how can you be part of someone's life without spending significant one-on-one time with them?
Today, this is the crux of friendship to me - spending significant one-on-one time with someone. Without that, I will never know if I am truly valued.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Deep Friendships
Over the years, I've developed many friendships that are important to me. And yet, I have found myself lonely. I started looking at the friendships I had, asking why I was lonely when I had so many friends.
I noticed some characteristics - first, I only saw these friends at events or parties. I never got together with them one-on-one. And while they were very warm, and glad to see me, and gave me hugs and wanted to know how I was doing, an insecurity grew in me - did they want to know me enough to be willing to spend time alone with me?
I have a wonderful relationship with a partner. We live together. We spend a lot of time one-on-one. There is tremendous depth in our relationship, partially because of the alone time we spend together. I realized that if I wanted more depth in my other friendships, we would need to spend significant alone time together, really getting to know each other.
But there were several problem with that. It was awkward. I doubted anyone really liked me enough to want to spend hours, just the two of us, talking. In fact, I didn't want to spend significant time alone with many of my friends - why would I expect them to want to spend time alone with me?
I started looking over my friends, asking myself, who would I really like to develop a deeper relationship with? I picked out a few that I felt would enhance my life significantly if I could spend time with them. Several problems came up. First, most of my friends were too busy - the first free date they had would typically be a month away. I could not imagine having a deep friendship with someone I saw once a month at max. Second, people were suspicious - if it was a woman, a sexual agenda was often assumed. If it was a man, they would look at me strangely and ask, why do you want to be alone with me?
I finally decided I wanted to pick a guy, as sexual attraction with a woman brought in too many confusing factors, and creating the kind of friendship I wanted was difficult enough as it was. After a lot of thought, I picked a guy whom I had met several times at different events. I knew very little about him or his life, but I sensed that he was a kind person with a deep heart, and he was not afraid of closeness with men.
So I approached him and basically proposed to him - I said I wanted to develop a deep non-sexual friendship with a guy, even though I did not have a good idea what that would look like. How close can two men get? I thought of stories of brothers who would die for each other, or a father and grown son who spent warm times together. Obviously it was possible, but could someone just create it?
He was quite surprised - he had had an impression of me as someone who already had plenty of friends, and had it all together, and puzzled over why I would want to spend time with him - but in the end he accepted my proposal, and we began to explore what it meant to be real friends. It was not easy. I had to start looking inside for what I wanted from him, what I expected, what I was willing to give, how much time I was willing to give, how deep I was willing to go with emotional closeness. I had no answers to those questions when we started, and I had to keep searching inside as we got together and talked for what was working and what was not working.
I was so used to a close relationship including sexual attraction that I was kind of lost with what to do with a guy. But we soon found some deep subjects we had in common, and started by telling each other of our problems and supporting each other in dealing with it.
The subject, ironically, was sex - sex with our partners. We were both having issues in our relationships, and I found a lot of comfort in being able to detail exactly what was happening and what was not happening, and how I felt about it. I felt very safe with him, exposing tender feelings, because of the way he handled them. We could speak graphically about sexual details, as well as deeply and honestly about our troubled feelings and worries and frustrations.
I've discovered what works for me in developing deep friendships - one-on-one vulnerable, uninhibited conversation.
I noticed some characteristics - first, I only saw these friends at events or parties. I never got together with them one-on-one. And while they were very warm, and glad to see me, and gave me hugs and wanted to know how I was doing, an insecurity grew in me - did they want to know me enough to be willing to spend time alone with me?
I have a wonderful relationship with a partner. We live together. We spend a lot of time one-on-one. There is tremendous depth in our relationship, partially because of the alone time we spend together. I realized that if I wanted more depth in my other friendships, we would need to spend significant alone time together, really getting to know each other.
But there were several problem with that. It was awkward. I doubted anyone really liked me enough to want to spend hours, just the two of us, talking. In fact, I didn't want to spend significant time alone with many of my friends - why would I expect them to want to spend time alone with me?
I started looking over my friends, asking myself, who would I really like to develop a deeper relationship with? I picked out a few that I felt would enhance my life significantly if I could spend time with them. Several problems came up. First, most of my friends were too busy - the first free date they had would typically be a month away. I could not imagine having a deep friendship with someone I saw once a month at max. Second, people were suspicious - if it was a woman, a sexual agenda was often assumed. If it was a man, they would look at me strangely and ask, why do you want to be alone with me?
I finally decided I wanted to pick a guy, as sexual attraction with a woman brought in too many confusing factors, and creating the kind of friendship I wanted was difficult enough as it was. After a lot of thought, I picked a guy whom I had met several times at different events. I knew very little about him or his life, but I sensed that he was a kind person with a deep heart, and he was not afraid of closeness with men.
So I approached him and basically proposed to him - I said I wanted to develop a deep non-sexual friendship with a guy, even though I did not have a good idea what that would look like. How close can two men get? I thought of stories of brothers who would die for each other, or a father and grown son who spent warm times together. Obviously it was possible, but could someone just create it?
He was quite surprised - he had had an impression of me as someone who already had plenty of friends, and had it all together, and puzzled over why I would want to spend time with him - but in the end he accepted my proposal, and we began to explore what it meant to be real friends. It was not easy. I had to start looking inside for what I wanted from him, what I expected, what I was willing to give, how much time I was willing to give, how deep I was willing to go with emotional closeness. I had no answers to those questions when we started, and I had to keep searching inside as we got together and talked for what was working and what was not working.
I was so used to a close relationship including sexual attraction that I was kind of lost with what to do with a guy. But we soon found some deep subjects we had in common, and started by telling each other of our problems and supporting each other in dealing with it.
The subject, ironically, was sex - sex with our partners. We were both having issues in our relationships, and I found a lot of comfort in being able to detail exactly what was happening and what was not happening, and how I felt about it. I felt very safe with him, exposing tender feelings, because of the way he handled them. We could speak graphically about sexual details, as well as deeply and honestly about our troubled feelings and worries and frustrations.
I've discovered what works for me in developing deep friendships - one-on-one vulnerable, uninhibited conversation.
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