RELATIONSHIP -- SEPARATION AND ADDDICTION

My grateful thanks to Ron Smothermon for inviting me to stand here for a while. 

What follows is glimpses of the view I get from this place.

A core benefit of relationship is an increased level of co-operation in the game of life. This applies whether the relationship is with another person, an event or process, or with our selves.

Why do we get so hung up, though, on the need for a "special" relationship, especially with someone else? Why does a healthy human preference for connection with someone else become an intensified addiction -- an addiction that carries within it the seeds of the souring of that relationship?

Well, with good reason we all come from a Presumption of Separation. In our reality it is a given that "we" will be separated. Where did we get that idea? Well, our first , universal, intensely traumatic experience of life was one of separation  -- Birth! We don't get more separated than that (though we seem to spend a lot of our lives trying to beat it). Later on, at some time in our first 7 years of life we got further separated, this time from our Self, and we've felt Lost  and a Certain Emptiness ever since. In the process of trying to please our "betters", we bought the notion that there was something "wrong" with us.  Because these people were essential to our survival, we pushed our natural being aside and created something we thought would go down better with our parents, grandparents, families, teachers, priests and - later- bosses, colleagues, partners..... we ditched our Self  in order to survive, and we assumed it wouldn't matter. How mistaken we were!

THE PRESUMPTION OF SEPARATION

We had now unconsciously and erroneously put it together that Separation is a fact and an inescapable part of what it means to be alive. We didn't (and still don't) like it that way, and we resist it, which all goes to ensure that our Presumption  of Separation is going to persist, forever and ever, Amen!

Later on, feeling a growing sense of incompletion, we went looking for something and someone else to fill that gap. School buddies and Princess Snow-White showed up. Yipppeee! We thought we'd found what we were looking for. We suckered onto them and leaned on them for emotional support. When they moved away (and they usually will move away -- only a masochist wants that kind of burden for life!!) we fell over -- big time. The payoff was that we got to be right -- "See? I can't be happy on my own, and no-one's gonna stay with me forever -- I'm not worth it!"

OK, so that hadn't worked either, but  did we learn anything from that experience? Did we ever question the basic assumption  of Separation-As-Fact? No, we keep plugging away, trying anything but reconnect with what was never lost in the first place, just mislaid -- our Self.

To be separated from anything is painful. But we manage somehow for that pain to languish outside of our awareness and, frankly, we'd like to keep it that way.

But...

The pain continues, and presses for admission to our awareness in any way that might get our attention. Dis-ease is one way. Mental illness is another. Repetitive patterns of freedom-sapping behaviour are another. And so, too, are Addictions.

All addiction is attempt to keep pain unconscious and un-experienced.

An Addiction is a Condition

Defined by an acute onset of pain

(always present and un-experienced)

when the addictive substance, circumstances or person

is removed.
Any pain arising from the Addiction
Is judged to be preferable
To the imagined pain of whatever it is
We're running away from.

When we look for a Special Relationship, we literally vow to the other -- "I can't live without you because I think there's something wrong with me, and you now have to try and prove me wrong every day for the rest of your life. As part of that, I have this hurting hole inside me from where I evicted myself. I  need you now to fill this gap for me every day of my life and, if you can't, I'll evict you, too!" Then we walk down the aisle, and say it to each other in front of witnesses! And they applaud. If the priest in the middle had half a gram of common sense, he'd say "Hang on you two. Find the bits you threw out, put them back where they belong and where they fit perfectly by the way, then come back and see me again.We'll talk then about you two becoming partners, instead of emotional gap-fillers!" But that doesn't happen, does it?. We're addicted to the suffering that follows the welding together of two defective beings, each looking to the other for fast relief.

The need for a Special Relationship is an Addiction -- a desire that once mushroomed into a Preference, and is now pussed up into an emotional boil.

We fall into romantic love, expecting it to somehow "make" us happy forever. We find instead that living together ramps up the number and intensity of chances to get in touch with a barrage of our other addictions, like where the toilet seat should repose, or which is the right end of the toothpaste tube to squeeze from., or whether picking your toenails or your nose is filthy or just a cultural taboo ......?? In our legitimate yearning for connection , we find separation because we've mistaken Romance ("what I'm looking for is over there in the other person") for Oneness -- Love -- the Real Thing.

If the need for Special Relationship was not an addictive cover-up, we would let go of any notion of "specialness"; we would find and reconnect with our misplaced self, then we could go out and relate with others authentically.   No need for special status. No pressure on the other to fill a gap that was never their responsibility.

But rather than deal with the problem heart-on, the lazy person's remedy for the pain of separation from self is to demand a special, exclusive relationship with one particular person. It's convenient.We go into Special Relationship to protect ourself from the pain of separation; only to find that the pain does not go away. Well, we didn't really expect it to, did we? Coming as we do from a Presumption of Separation, we subconsciously expect the other to leave us -- either through death or divorce. So when the expected does happen, we blame the relationship and/or the other person, and further separate ourselves from our Self, and Nature, and other people.

A Special Relationship looks so attractive because we think it will help resolve the un-felt pain of Separation from Ourself. We think it will complete us. It does an attractive cover-up job, to be sure. But the pain is still there. When the relationship fails to cure the pain (and it usually does fail to do so), we are left even further separated  from our Self than we were before, and with the handy conclusion that our partner (and/or her parents and family) are the cause of the pain. We shift the responsibility for our fear and despair to someone else.

When a Special Relationship transits from being an attempt to cure the pain to being an explanation for it, the dramas begin!

Relationship itself is not a problem. Things go pear-shaped because of the Addiction to having a relationship with someone else in order to make up for a defective relationship we have with our self . Well, in case you hadn't noticed, that doesn't work. And it's highly unlikely that it ever will, because the relationship we have with another is a mirror image of the relationship we have with parts of our self.

We live, along with all our stuff, in a skinbag of flesh and bones. and we are hurting, because we have excised from this skinbag a huge chunk of what we are, and replaced it with bits and scraps of things that are not who we are. But instead of looking inward to find the source of our pain, we look outside this phony skinbag we have defined ourself to be, and project False Cause -- we direct blame anywhere except where it belongs, and primarily onto this Special Relationship with someone we feel has turned feral on us and let us down. Our pain is His/Her fault! 

In a way, the mistake is understandable because the pain resulting from separating from ourself is rarely experienced directly from its source. It is usually experienced through disguises like  uncharacteristic behaviour, illness, accidents, physical pain and emotional pain. In our ignorance, nevertheless, this blaming-out-there process takes personal irresponsibility to new depths.

In the first, heady days of a Special Relationship we seem to be "free" of discernible pain, a phenomenon we credit to our new lover/spouse/partner/significant other..... But we are still separated from our soul; the pain is merely anaesthetised. And, sooner or later, anaesthetics wear off . When pain finally surfaces, we hang the "cause" of it onto the poor unfortunate we wake up with. It's more convenient this way, and our ego can continue to look good to itself. We feel "Just-ified".

FALLING OUT OF LOVE


Despite what it says in the magazines and paperback novels, romantic love is not a healthy basis for involvement with someone. It's great for hors d"oeuvres but, if we're committed to our nourishment and growth, there comes a time when we need to move on to the rest of the banquet. If you really know how to love, there are billions of people out there waiting for you -- and your partner.

In romantic love, we stare fondly into each other's eyes
At the expense of looking where we're going.
Without being aware that we are doing it --
We look at this person we woke up with this morning
And we selectively forget why we first chose him/her.
Behind minor, irrational  irritations over the way he/she behaves
We feel a dull disquiet welling up from deeper inside
And we assume that this person is the source of the ache.
The question arises -- "How is this person at fault?"

You can scan your lover's ego in the present,
find the negative aspects of the very qualities that first attracted you to this person,
pick on the perceived points of "difference" between you,
start an argument
and then blame what he/she says and does in response
for the pain of separation you're now aware of.

If there is nothing happening at the moment that you can readily blame,
Your mind will enter "fault" into its search engine
and willingly trawl back through its memory files,
and trot out a listing of that person's supposed "past crimes" against you
And blame those past crimes for your present pain.
You now feel justified in pushing the pain onto the other.

Either way, it is soon not necessary to even crank up an argument with your lover,
because the argument is already going on
inside your head.
It now turns on automatically any time you need an explanation for, or protection from feeling "off".
The internal argument becomes 24/7 talk-back  radio.

A mass of past incidents accumulates in your head:
All of them together congeal into The Story you put together about this person --
Your story.
In the lunatic parliament of your mind, your story now becomes this person's total identity,
and you lose all track of the whole of who this person really is.
You are now married, not to the other, but to your "story about" the other.
Your story obscures the former reality to the point where it becomes conveniently invisible.
You've changed your mind. You have switched sides.
Another separation has occurred --
a split between who you originally created this person to be
and how you now choose to create him/her
in the light of your disowned pain.

The price we all pay for dis-owning the fact that we are the sole source of the pain of our self-created separations
Is the loss of any remaining ability to experience other people as they are.
We suffer the loss of Love.
We fall out of love.

All the stories we crank out about our family, our lovers, our friends, our workmates, our enemies,
Together make up our paranoid reality.
To our minds, these people really ARE the way we say they are:
"Thems" are doing it to me .
False-Cause -- a substitute for taking responsibility for

• your pain
• your separation
• from your self.

This is one reason why we should be very wary about using relationship for our personal growth. We can continue our growth within a relationship, by working on our own stuff, and leaving our partner to work on his/her stuff. Help out it you're asked to, but only with great care.  Limit yourself as much as possible to actively listening. Keep your advice in check. Otherwise, mind your own business. Notice any addictive urge that your partner should change in some way to fit your models and expectations. Go to work on your own head, and give space to any addictive demands your partner may have on you. Don't get hung up on getting results. Don't set models. There are no accidents -- this person is exactly right for you right now. Check your commitment, not to her though -- to yourself and your growth.

And this, too, is a part of what it means to be human.

So, what hope is there for redemption and clear relationships?

Every possibility.

It is possible to live with another person as part of your overall commitment

to go personally responsible for all your experiences.

But, be your own guru.
No matter how enlightened you think you are, you do not know what is "best" for any other.

No matter how enlightened your partner may appear to be, do not make him/her your god --

False Cause --

Nobody wants or needs that burden.
Be your own guru.

Making anyone outside of yourself a guru puts them at a distance --

More separation.

Choosing a guru can be a turning-point for you: hanging onto a guru will delay the moment of your own enlightenment.

A true guru acts like a sounding board, reflecting your self back to you.

A true guru is like a diving board; eventually you have to get off it -- others are waiting.

Either back off and admit that you're not up to the dive yet 

Get off and do whatever you have to to get ready.

Or get out there and take the Big Leap.

Only you can take the dive, the board cannot do it for you.

Once you leap, the board is gone, and the experience is uniquely and wholly your own.

Standing on the board all your life is not what you got up there for.

Now, if you fancy yourself as any kind of guru, any kind of spiritual adviser, and you want to maintain the guru act,

Don't get married.

She/he will blow the whistle on your act.

And that is not good for the act.

{Watch the wives/husbands of political leaders. Be aware that you're looking at people who have made an agreement with their partner not to blow the whistle on them -- at least not while they're still in office}

The pain of separation is a universal human experience.

The only question is the level of our awareness of it.

Projecting any of our pains onto outside sources is a Delaying Tactic, a Defensive Diversion.

While thus engaged, we function as an isolated, angry false-self in a paranoid, "I'm-the-victim-here" reality...

• hoping for enlightenment to rescue us (that's not what enlightenment is for)
• expecting relationship to fill the gaps (that's not what relationship is designed to do)
• spraying False Cause all over the place
• being "right" about it
• and making any "other" wrong.

Playing the Right/Wrong game is also a near-universal addiction. We do it to protect our ego

from the direct experience of guilt, not-knowing, the lack of control, and the pain of separation from our soul.

Here's a handy formula to succinctly summarise what we've been looking at --

Compulsive Involvement  + Addiction  = Romantic Love

No involvement + Addiction  =  A broken heart

No involvement  +  No addiction  =  Casual Acquaintance

Open Involvement  +  No addiction  =  Unconditional Love.

When we heal the faulty relationship we have with missing bits of our self, we're  then able to come clean into a real one-to-one relationship with another. That is a wondrous thing. It is like saying "I like being with you because, when I am with you, I feel safe enough to get in touch with , and share the parts of me that are beautiful, capable and loving."  But words won't do it for you. This has to be experienced.

Having another person around can help you do two things -- to resonate with, and to mirror your self. But don't fall into the trap of crediting the mirror for what you get. So, get off your Sorry Cushion, get out there and put up the "Available"  sign. Trust that the universe will provide you with a  perfect partner (perfect for your growth, that is) when you are ready. In the meantime, work on yourself until you get to a level of awareness and skill where you can select wisely at a higher, as well as lower, level of consciousness. Take full responsibility for the partner you select -- there are no mistakes.

A conscious relationship can be good for your enjoyment, good for your growth, and both!

When I am imposing myself upon others

I am actually reflecting my restrictions

And the lack of freedom

That I feel inside.

I am realising now that how I am toward myself

Is how I am with others

and that

How I am towards others

Is how I am with my self.

I know now

How I would like myself to be with others .

I would like to give them, and myself

Room to grow

 Together