The Primary Purpose of Romantic/Intimate Relationships

 
The Principle purpose of all romantic and intimate relationships is healing potential. This is true if the relationship is mutually happy, mutually unhappy, viewed as "failed" (which BTW, with the understanding of healing as the primary purpose of intimate relationships, is never the case) or even abusive.

When we engage in an intimate relationship that turns out to be a "negative" experience for us, we are engaging in our own potential and prospective healing process. This is true whether we are consciously aware of this or not. Most times, I am imagining, we are not aware of it on a conscious level.

Often, when we are in an abusive relationship, the healing that is taking place extends far beyond ourselves and our partner. How is this so? Here is just one example: Sometimes abusive relationships become known to the general public. This may happen through a number of circumstances. The extreme or vicious nature of the abuse may be such that it finds its way into the media or the general or social consciousness of the masses. Or the victim or perpetrator of the abuse or both may be well known individuals or celebrities. And so this particular spin is what brings it to national or international attention. Or there may be some other circumstance or nuance about the degree, type of or nature of the abuse or the relationship that brings it into the spotlight.

The ultimate goal of any healing process whether it be physical, mental,emotional, social, psychological or spiritual is wholeness.

I saw the film "What's Love Got To Do With It," which chronicles the physically abusive relationship between Ike and Tina Turner. One of the many thoughts I had afterward was, "I wonder how many women/young girls got out of their abusive relationships after viewing this film?" I have no doubt this occurred. Perhaps it is as much as tens of thousands or even more. Wouldn't that be impressive. So with this example it becomes easy to see how what we might otherwise view as a horrible story that ultimately has a good and redemptive ending (Tina Turner goes on after the time period covered by the film to an almost unprecedented level of musical and international stardom and fame) contains the strong ability to heal not only the protagonists in the film but perhaps thousands of people who see the film or hear about its storyline. Healing is a powerful energy that is hard to contain once it builds momentum.

Why some of us choose the things we choose as our particular path toward healing is one of the many mysteries of The Universe and of choosing to live in the form we call human. If we try to understand it with the mind, it often doesn't make sense.

There are many possible interpretations though. We could be participating in the healing of generations of hurt, pain and violence. We could be healing future generations in our immediate families, our ethnic communities or participating in the healing of an entire generation of people who are living in the present moment. The possibilities are endless. The only thing I am certain of is that all romantic and intimate relationships are formed primarily as a vehicle for healing of some sort. Because of this they are all also Sacred.

May All Beings Be Free!

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Enlightened Romantic Relationships (Part 1)

Almost everything I've learned about enlightened romantic relationships I've learned from Eckhart Tolle. Well, that's not completely true. I have likely learned just as much about enlightened romantic relationships from my own bumbling, clumsy and unenlightened misadventures in love, as much as from anything I've ever read or not read. Tolle has definitely been a major teacher for me though, in this and other areas. For those who want to get right to the jackpot without buying the lottery ticket, read the section entitled "Enlightened Relationships" in Tolle's "The Power of Now." Tolle, as has already been implied, heavily influences my positions on this topic. It however, has also been shaped by my own life experience. So perhaps both reference points will be beneficial for those who seek some clarity on this issue. Like the format used in the book, “The Power of Now,” I am going to use the question and answer format for this. I believe that will work best. All of the questions are actual questions specific people have asked me in various settings. Some of the answers however,were constructed from a compilation of answers given to different people at different times.

(Q) I don’t like the word enlightenment. Can we have this discussion without using the word enlightenment or the phrase enlightened relationships?

(A) Yes, of course we could have this discussion without that word or any of its derivatives or synonyms. I am going to continue to use this phrase though. I am going to continue to use it for two main reasons. One is because I like it and I believe it applies to the subject matter at hand nicely. Second, I don’t want to encourage your tendency to get bogged down in words you don’t like and then to use that as an excuse to miss the forest for the trees, as it were. But you are right. These are words and concepts that are largely misunderstood and/or misused especially in the West.

So let me start by demystifying the word/concept as much as I am able. Lets then try to go from there. Enlightenment is not a destination. It is an ongoing journey. With this awareness, no one is ever truly totally enlightened. It is a journey we are all on whether we are aware of it or not. Our physical bodies grow in some form or another throughout the course of our lifetime. Our mental bodies (or what might conventionally be called “our minds”) continue to grow and develop in some form or another over the course of our lifetime, even after and if some form of dementia happens to set in. So too does our spiritual "body" continue to grow in some form or another over the course of our lifetime. This spiritual development and growth could be called a process along the path of enlightenment or awakening. So like those other processes, it is a developmental process. It is not a destination.

Let me now dispel some other myths about enlightenment that may also be the source of some of your dislike for the word. Enlightenment or consciousness, another word I like, but unfortunately, that word is just as disliked and just as misunderstood, does not come from outside us, but rather from within. In other words, this process is not automatically or by design connected to the number of Dharma Center retreats one attends; nor the number of hours of meditation one achieves; nor the number of yoga poses one has mastered; nor the amount of prayer or church, mosque and temple attendance one engages in. It is not even directly related to the good and beautiful acts one does. Some people who are thought of or said to be “enlightened” may have demonstrated great degrees of all of those things. They may have spent thousands of hours in meditation or in various asanas. But none of that is in any way a necessary aspect of the enlightenment process. Again, the process is an inner one. It could be aided by all kinds of outer things, people, situations, practices, etc. None of that however, is necessary.

Another thing to know is that the term enlightenment is fairly culture bound. It has different, greater or lesser meaning and importance depending on the culture one resides in. In the West I would say, if a person who has also grown up in Western culture refers to him or herself as enlightened, it is a statement of the ego a majority of the time, rather than a statement of spiritual growth. Still, no one will truly know this except for the speaker. In this way it’s like many other great and obvious truths. Caution may still be a good practice here though. How many times does one hear a great genius in a field say, “I am a great virtuoso musician” or ”I am the greatest nuclear physicists alive?” It doesn’t happen that often. Truly great achievements truly speak for themselves. So a highly enlightened person usually has no need to point this status out to anyone, typically.There are numerous exceptions to that however. Again, ultimately it is a form of judgment for someone else to try to figure out what is going on when someone refers to him or herself as enlightened. Best advice--just go with the flow. Eventually the way the person "is" in a lot of different situations will become rather illuminating.

And finally, as alluded to earlier, do not get bogged down in terminology. If this word truly is an obstacle to you moving forward, throw it away or replace it with some other word that does not bring about such reactivity in you. As I said, I am going to continue using it because I like it.

(Q) Ok, so what do me and my partner need to do to move toward having an enlightened relationship, as you call it?

(A) Your partner doesn’t need to do anything.

(Q) Okaaaaaay. What do I need to do?

(A) You don’t need to do anything either.

(Q) I’m confused. What do you mean?

(A) Each human language comes with built in wisdom, gems and depth that are the essence of great spiritual teaching, just in the mere seemingly innocuous words they contain. In the case of English, one of the greatest universal and divine spiritual truths lies simply in the words in English that are used to describe what we are. We are Human Beings. We are not Human Doings. It is usually far more important how we are being in any given situation in life than what we are doing in any given situation in life. Know this and this alone and put it into action and your life will improve 50% instantly.

So your partner truly doesn’t need to do anything. You truly don’t need to do anything. Your partner doesn’t need to Be anything either. You however, do. You need to Be present. You need to Be alert. You need to Be conscious, tricky word there, I know. I’ll explain. And there is actually one thing you both could do together that will vastly help your chances. What you could do is to make an agreement with each other; an agreement with the greatest amount of depth you each individually and collectively can bring to it. That agreement is that you each will view your partnership as a spiritual practice. Then you will also want to act every moment on making that agreement a living agreement in your relationship however the term “spiritual practice” is defined by you both.

Now, I said you need to Be conscious. What do I mean? Really, it means you need to be aware. In popular parlance this means you need to be aware of “your own stuff.” You need to be aware of your emotional injuries, your reactivity, and the inner pain you are carrying inside you that could very well go all the way back to toddler age or earlier. And you need to be conscious of not projecting any of that onto your partner and pretending that it is his/her stuff when in fact it is your own. Even if it totally, absolutely, without question looks like your partners stuff. Trust me. It is always your own stuff. What is the main litmus test to know if it is your stuff and not your partners? If it is something that causes you to get upset, angry, rageful, depressed, anxious or withdrawn. He or she typically has more than enough of his/her own rightfully earned stuff to keep him/her busy enough.

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Enlightened Romantic Relationships (Part 2)

(Q) I’m very loving, very attentive, very caring. I make myself emotionally available to my partner. I attend to him. I’m a good listener. I tell him what my needs are. I do all of this and more. And I do it consistently. You just don’t know my partner. If you did, I don’t think you would say that he doesn’t need to do anything. He needs to do a lot of things to help make this relationship work. I’m doing all the giving. What would you say to me, to that?

(A) Codependency is not enlightened. Being a victim is not enlightened. Being a martyr is not enlightened either…not when we are talking about romantic relationships at least, which we are. How do I know? I suffered, once upon a time from each of these perhaps ego-based maladies. My partners suffered from my being those things, even more. You are lucky your partner has not left you yet. Perhaps he is holding out hope that you will one day finally see the light and stop being what some might call codependent (I am trying to stop my use of that and many other labels), stop being a victim and stop being a martyr and that you will finally become a partner who can meet him where he is at rather than being a schoolteacher always scolding him for what you perceive as his deficits.

Perhaps he is waiting for you to become a partner to him the person and not a partner to your idea of who he should be. Let me be even more blunt here. I can do that in this case because you are describing how I was in romantic relationships for many years and you are a good friend who I can be direct with and with the awareness you are grounded enough not to take it personally. Perhaps he is waiting for you to grow up so that he can finally be in a relationship with an adult. His patience may ultimately be the salvation of your relationship. If not, your holier than thou attitude will certainly lead to its demise. And if/when it does end, all of your friends will ask you, “How did you stay with that a-hole for so long?” Unfortunately, they will be directing their query to the wrong partner.

I believe, in great measure, you are indeed the vast majority of those things you say you are, that you possess many of those wonderful qualities. You however, lost me when you said “he needs to do a lot of things…..” If you had said instead something along the lines of-- “How can I be these things in a way where he can more easily receive them?”-- you would not have gotten that little sermonette from me. My response would have been very different. Once your litany morphed into a Janet Jackson song (What have you done for me lately?), it was literally, all she wrote.

My advice, leave those sentiments to the top 40 charts. Enlightened relationships usually require the direct opposite of the messages contained in your average pop “love song” or any other kind of pop song for that matter. Again, enlightenment is an inner process not an outer one. That includes the habit of always looking for things outside us that need to be changed. The only important changes for you, for me and for everyone, come from within.

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Enlightened Romantic Relationships (Part 3)

(Q) There are ka-zillions of “how to” books out there regarding relationships written by psychologists, spiritual teachers and others. What are your beliefs or what are you saying that is different from all of them?

(A) As you say, there are lots of books out there, many of them by therapists types, but not exclusively so. I have to admit, I’m not familiar with a lot of these books. Another thing is that for the last many years, I have not looked to those type books for guidance in the area of love. I am sure there are some good ones out there. I have simply found most of what I needed in other kinds of books, or in other arenas.

In responding directly to your question I have to say I’m not sure that my beliefs or what I have to say is unique or original or has not been said by many others before me. I'm pretty certain nothing I say here will be entirely new.

This however, is what I know: Most traditional psychoanalytic approaches to healing are based on the medical model. In other words, they begin with the premise that something is wrong or that something is broken and that the solution involves correcting what is wrong or fixing what is broken. More recently some spiritual schools of psychological thought have emerged. Some of these simply add spiritual, flowery and/or new agey sounding rhetoric to what is essentially again, the medical model-- there is something essentially wrong with you and/or you need to be fixed.

My jumping off point is very different from this. I believe you and each of us is wonderfully, beautifully made. I believe we were born from perfection and that we will die in a state of perfection whether that is personally known or accepted. There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing that needs to be fixed. I believe someone who counsels from a place of “something is wrong with you” will tell you very different things from someone who counsels from a place of “you are wonderfully, beautifully made.”

Traditional therapists and some new age ones also, will see you as a glass that is half empty. Or they will see you as a glass that is half full, depending on their training. If I see you as anything, I see you as a caterpillar that is potentially about to undergo a magnificent metamorphosis. When that shift occurs is unimportant. And if it never occurs then you will still be fully something magical and beautiful, not half of anything. You will live your days as a full caterpillar and will make the best of that experience and reality that you can. So for some, my words are designed to inspire a comfort with caterpillar reality and consciousness and making that the best it can be for them. For others they may serve as the inspiration to believe in their ability to transform. For others still, they may encourage waking up to the new transformed self. For others my words may be the inspirational equivalent of “now take flight you amazing creature.” And finally, there may be some, where my words may bring about the realization that you are in fact my teacher who may inspire me to do any of those things or more. Traditional psychotherapy does not allow for that possibility very easily. Nor do traditional teacher/student paradigms.They do not readily allow for the possibility that the “patient” or "student" may be the one who is the true healer of the two participating in the transformation process. I allow for both. In fact I encourage that consciousness and awareness.

A very amazing teacher once said "physician heal thyself." What was left unsaid--and that particular amazing teacher seems to have often left things unsaid---which is a whole class of teaching unto itself---still, what he left unsaid was--and if you cannot heal yourself look to your patient. For surely your patient will be able to assist you.

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Enlightened Romantic Relationships (Part 4)

 (Q) What are the 2 or 3 most basic things you can tell me that will help me in creating an enlightened romantic relationship?

(A) The answer to that question varies slightly depending on what stage the relationship is in/at. I would say before the relationship even begins the most important thing, which also happens to be one of my favorite anecdotes in life, is to...choose wisely! A lot of people have suffered a fair amount of trauma in their lives, a great deal of that being connected in one way or another to the family of origin.

As we know, ones relationship with ones primary caregiver or caregivers during the formative years of development is so important in setting so many wheels of a persons life into motion. Research has demonstrated this very conclusively and for many decades. Unfortunately, it is not only the good stuff that shapes us. The problematic stuff shapes us as well. Many people had a parent or both parents or other primary caregivers whom they experienced as emotionally distant, critical, non-supportive or abusive in some or several ways. Some were having or dealing with one or more addictions or neuroticism in not fun ways. Some were actively psychotic. Some were completely absent emotionally. All of these things are extremely emotionally damaging to even the most mature, imaginative and gifted young person dealing with such realities.

Because of a whole set of psychological processes that I won’t go into right now, many people who have dealt with one or more of these factors tend to choose partners who essentially allow them to continue to work out the specific emotional dramas that were set into motion during early childhood. Imagine, for a moment, the case of two sexually abused children from two totally different families growing up and trying to emotionally deal with that particular drama primarily through the romantic choices they make. Now imagine they choose each other as partners. Even the most torrid and outrageous family based reality TV program cannot accurately portray the potential madness that would likely ensue. Yet, this is exactly the kind of madness many people are dealing with when it comes to the romantic choices they make. Subconsciously there may be a tape similar to these rolling in the background: “My father didn’t love me so I am going to find a man (or woman) who does. Hmmm, but I only know how to attract and deal with men who have similar traits as my father. Oh well. At least it will be familiar." Or, “My father didn’t love me so I am going to find a man (or woman) that is so different from my father I will never have to deal with not being loved ever again.” Or, “My father didn’t love me. So I will give some other man (or woman) the love I never received from my father. And I will take care of him, protect him, comfort him and support him through all his pain and suffering which is probably what my father was dealing with anyway and why he couldn’t love me. And when I do this, I will have a man (or woman) who will love me so intensely, he will never let me go.”

The problem with each of those scenarios is that the perceived or actual absent love from the father is the principal focus of attention in the selecting of a partner. One of the basic laws of the Universe is that we attract to us what we place our undivided attention on. So each of these individuals, in those scenarios, is likely going to attract someone who is emotionally distant, if not emotionally abusive. I have a host of similar examples. But I’m sure you get the picture. Choosing wisely is extremely important. If all of this were done consciously, we would be talking about something entirely different. Healing the wounded inner child is probably what is happening here in either case. It's just that when this is happening consciously it's so much more of a wonderful trip than when it is done unconsciously.

Choosing a partner who is similar to you in terms of emotional and psychological maturity is perhaps best for most though certainly not for all. Choosing a partner who is significantly more awakened than yourself will present enormous challenges to one of you. I’ll let you guess which one (hint: it’s not the more awakened partner). Choosing a partner who is significantly less awakened than yourself and who hasn’t done nearly as much emotional “work” as you could be very challenging for both of you or not depending on many factors.

There however, is no rulebook about these kinds of things. Grace, luck and many other factors could change the outcome tremendously. Generally speaking however, similar emotional/spiritual development between the partners seems to work best for many, again, not all though.

Factors such as biological age differences, ethnic background differences, religious differences, differences in education and socio-economic status, when emotional and spiritual development is similar, in general, is of almost no consequence. In summary: Choose wisely or better yet, choose consciously, if that is an option. After the choice of a partner (or partners—polyamory is a real option among us and can be a valid choice for some), the other things to take into consideration are mostly the things I mentioned in the previous installments in this series. Staying present to yourself and with your partner, recognizing your own stuff, recognizing the many masks your ego wears, learning the beauty of unconditional love, not creating an identity for yourself based on being “partnered” or out of your pain, will all be a part of the ebb and flow of an enlightened relationship, as the relationship itself is tested and goes through the ebbs and flows of life.

One additional thing of merit I wish to address however, is the whole concept of “until death do us part.” What a dreadful promise that is to make to ourselves or to someone we say we love. Of course, if we are wise enough to play with that word “death” and realize it could mean all manner of things other than physical death, then you’ll be fine.

The idea that a romantic relationship, especially a deeply serious and connected one, has to be a lifelong thing is #2 on my all-time list of the 100 most horrifying things we tell ourselves in/about a relationship. What is my #1? the phrase, “you complete me” or “you are my other half” or some other similar such madness.

There is a time, reason and a season for everything. Your relationship is no different. That time and season may be 100 minutes or 100 years. It doesn’t matter. Time is ultimately an illusion anyway. The only real moment in time is this moment in time. Everything else is the past or the future. Enlightened relationships exists totally in the present moment. Enlightened relationships live almost completely outside of the concept of clock time. Therefore, the present moment is the only one we need to be concerned with when it comes to our relationships. Let go of the rest. Let it go.

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Enlightened Romantic Relationships (Part 5)

(Q) I am a gay man. Most of my friends are gay men. I have read both “The Power of Now” and “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle. I loved them both. Tolle spends a decent amount of time dealing with both the universal pain body in general and the collective female pain body specifically, in both of these books, especially in The Power of Now. He does not however, to my recollection, devote any time at all to the collective male pain body. Is there such a thing? And if so, what are the factors that shape it?

(A) Those are excellent questions. Thank you for asking them. First I want to say there is essentially no difference between the basic collective pain of the universal gay/same gender loving man and the basic collective pain of the universal straight or bisexually identified man, or any other man for that matter. This awareness becomes one of the many avenues available to us for true love, understanding and fellowship across sexual orientation lines among men.

Second, for others who will read this, some people may not be familiar with the concept Tolle introduces in “The Power of Now” that he calls “the pain body.” So I want to give a brief explanation of this terminology first. Essentially, Tolle says that most people carry many different forms of pain in their physical and emotional bodies as well as in the psyche and that spring from many sources. At the most basic level, we each have pain that is derived from the totality of our human experiences at any given moment. This is an experience that typically, and over a lifetime contains love, beauty, joy and the like. It also typically includes challenge, grief, and other things that could be called “negative.” Tolle believes a lot of our individual pain comes from our families of origin. Tolle also posits an idea he calls “collective pain bodies.” This is pain that is derived from the collective experiences of a gender, an ethnic group, a religious group, etc. This collective pain is usually the result of group persecution that has gone on for many, many generations and that is passed down energetically and even genetically as well according to Tolle.

I also noticed how Tolle spent little if no time devoted to the discussion of the collective male pain body in either “The Power of Now” or “A New Earth.” I am certain he is aware of a collective male pain body. I am guessing for whatever reason, it simply was not something he either believed he was particularly tuned into or it may not have been a priority for him, given the other very weighty topics he dealt with in both books. Or perhaps he knew someone like me was waiting in the wings and was more than ready, willing and able to address it. I am very eager and willing to discuss this.

So without further delay, yes I believe there is a collective male pain body. It is largely connected to the dynamic around Fathers and Sons and to a slightly less intense degree connected to the dynamic around Mothers and Sons, particularly in situations where the father was totally or mostly absent or where a divorce or separation took place and the son remained primarily with the mother. I believe a relatively small percentage of men on the planet have had a truly incredible and directly healing experience with their biological fathers or the man or men who served as their primary father figures during their formative years.

First, and very importantly, such men, men who served as young boys primary father figures during their formative years were most likely consistently physically present and available. There was also near unconditional love, emotional bonding, physical affection, emotional support, recognition of all and various achievements of the boy, little or no pressure for the young boy and emerging man to conform to gender-based norms, appropriate and loving initiation into manhood, etc.

Most men living on the planet today I believe, had pretty much the opposite experience from that which I listed  above. I can speak far more competently about Western men in this regard than I can about men who grew up in non-Western environments. Though my intuition tells me there is likely not a huge difference there. In either case, the presence or absence of this father/son love forms, in my opinion, the basic foundation of a modern man’s life experience/life injury.

Even if a man had the most magical and amazing experience with his father or father figure, he would have been surrounded by friends, brothers-in-law, co-workers, step brothers and such who did not. He will not be able to escape the very real pain this causes the vast majority of men around him nor how it is played out in everyday life. Further, he is likely to have bosses, supervisors, colleagues, cousins and the like who through their father/son pain experience will project many of the dysfunctional aspects of this onto him.

Male competition (and not the friendly kind) is one of the most common examples of this. There is a belief among many of my feminist women friends that women are the most vicious creatures on earth in terms of how they generally or potentially act toward other women. I don’t want to get into a game of “whose the worst to whom.” What I can say is if there are large numbers of women out there who are more vicious to their sisters than I have observed and experienced corporate, fraternity, military, athletic association based, and other men acting toward their brothers, then-- May God help us all!

So the central and predominant collective male pain body experience on the planet and that has been in existence for thousands upon thousands of years is the sons desire and failure to obtain (he believes at least) the love of his father or the dominant father figure in his life. And then secondarily how the mother consciously or unconsciously contributes to that.

Connected to this is another predominant male experience. This is the competition between men that is born out of the desire for that love that was missing from the father and the struggle to somehow compensate for that. And of course if the sons biological father is still alive there could be competition with and between them on both extremely subtle as well as not so subtle levels. This could be true even if there is no tangible and active relationship between the two or hasn't been for years. The line that separates deep, real, even sexual love from real aggression can be an extremely blurred line in the conscious but mostly unconscious lives of many men. This is primarily because of the extremely deep bond between most men and their fathers, even if this bond resides mostly in the subconscious realm. Traditional psychoanalysis, I believe, has not really understood this.

And where there is this deep bond, the resentment often is usually just as deep. This sets the stage for the archetypal love-hate relationship energy that exists on the planet. It is a love-hate relationship energy that I believe is nearly 100% about and between men. Women represent the womb and the giving of life. The love-hate dynamic on the planet is not essentially perpetrated by women at least not at the deepest psychological and archetypal level. It is perpetrated by men and collective male pain. There is a reason much of the weaponry on the planet resembles on a small scale (handguns, arrows used in bows and arrows, etc) or on an extremely large scale (weapons of mass destruction such as bombs and rockets), the male penis.

Nowhere is this potentially more true than in gay male romantic relationships. This is also one of the main reasons gay male romantic relationships are potentially some of the most powerful healing energies on the planet, especially gay male relationships between two men of color. The sane and enlightened and inspired and sexual and unconditional love between 2 men and especially two men of color (because of the added historical pain and oppression of men of color, usually at the hands of other men) has the power to heal the collective male pain body more than almost anything else I am consciously aware of at this time on our entire planet.

Every man who hates gay men is consciously or more likely unconsciously aware of and extremely fearful of the powerful and healing, completely natural and innate bond of love between men, whether or not that love is ever expressed sexually. When women hate gay men something entirely different is going on. Addressing that is beyond the scope of answering your question. So I won't go into that.

What I will go into briefly is the cultural socialization that many men around the world receive and that I also believe is a strong element within the collective male pain body. Essentially what we are talking about is the development where men are not allowed to display the full breadth of the emotional repertoire available to humans. Men are perceived variously as weak, feminine, not masculine, wimpy and many other unflattering things when we display many of these emotions. There are also many secondary issues that come from this basic emotional dissonance men are forced to live with-- many of which, over the centuries, have become just as powerful and dysfunctional as the root issue---how men are socialized culturally around emotions and emotional display.

Historians are beginning to do a fairly good job of recording the horrifying depth of oppression and atrocities history has expressed against women. One of the major consequences however, of being the "dominant" gender on the planet is that the at least equally horrifying and atrocious and long standing violence men have perpetrated against other men is historically lumped into the phrase and consciousness as "crimes against hu-man-ity." This unfortunately diffuses the power of the specific suffering of men in that equation. Many people still have difficulty wrapping their heads around the idea that men have historically been the victims of great violence on the planet and for thousands of years.

Here's an easily accessible remedy for that (especially if you are an American or Jewish male). And I absolutely mean no disrespect to the Jewish faith here whatsoever. Still, if you are male, American, Jewish or from certain other world destinations, take a look just a little south of the equator on your body. There you will likely find the living evidence of the first physical act of extreme violence that was perpetrated on you relatively soon after birth. From that pivotal and horrifying moment in your very young male existence, the hits just kept on coming.

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Enlightened Romantic Relationships (Part 6)

(Q) OK, what does everything you said about fathers and sons, what you see as the collective male pain body, gay male relationships in general and all of that have to do with enlightened relationships?

(A) Roughly half of the Human Beings on the planet are male. Most are in some sort of romantic relationship of one form or another. If what I say about most men is true for only 10% of the men on the planet, millions of men are bringing that pain into their romantic relationships in some form or another, either in their romantic relationships with women, other men or both. Of course, there are more than just two genders on the planet. That however, is a whole different conversation. At any rate, that is the connection and the answer to your question.

(Q) OK, in terms of romantic relationships, is it easier for one type of couple to reach an enlightened state? In other words, for example, is it easier for heterosexual couples to attain enlightened relationship status than say, a lesbian couple?

(A) Interesting question. What do you think?

(Q) I think it would be easier for straight couples to attain enlightened status because in most places around the world heterosexual couples live in cultures where their relationships are more supported and accepted.

(A) So you believe socio-cultural support and acceptance is the determining factor in a couple being able to reach enlightened status.

(Q) For some reason I’m suddenly feeling less comfortable with the whole use of the word enlightened. But yes, I would say that.

(A) What if the woman in that heterosexual couple is dealing with all kinds of “collective female pain body” stuff and the man is dealing with all kinds of “my father never loved me” stuff?

(Q) Yes, well two women would be dealing with twice that female pain stuff and two men would be dealing with twice that father stuff. Plus they’d both most likely be living in societies and cultures where more pain was heaped on them through the lack of acceptance and validation of their gay and lesbian relationships.

(Raven) Do you have a partner?

(Questioner) Yes.

(Raven) Is your partner male, female or identifies as something else?

(Questioner) My partner is a man.

(Raven) Do you consider yourself gay?

(Questioner) Yes.

(Raven) Does your partner consider himself gay?

(Questioner) He was married to a woman for 15 years. I am his first male partner. He probably considers himself bisexual. But I don’t know that for sure.

(Raven) OK. I am not going to answer your specific question because no matter how I answer it, I would be creating in essence, a new victim class and I am not going to do that. So this is what I will say to you: Focus on making your specific relationship with your partner as fantastic as it can be and be a beacon unto the world of the possibilities that can exist between two Human Beings who are partnered in love. Leave the rest to what I truly hope is a shrinking group of people who are incessantly concerned with whose better off, worse off, whose climbing up or falling off the ladder in the worldwide game of human groups shuffleboard.

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Enlightened Romantic Relationships (Part 7)

  (Question) I have been reading all your posts on enlightened relationships. I’m loving them. And stuff is coming up for me. I’m dealing with that. But I actually have a question about something you said in the very first part. You said: “So your partner truly doesn’t need to do anything. You truly don’t need to do anything. Your partner doesn’t need to be anything either. You however, do. You need to be present. You need to be alert.” What do you mean when you say we have to be alert?

(Raven) Yes. Sure. So what I mean by Be-ing alert is just that. In romantic relationships and indeed all human relationships, there is a tendency for reactivity, projection, insensitivity, poor communication, and other things to show up. Being alert simply means being aware that some or probably all of these things are going to be a part of our relationships at one point or another and then responding out of Presence when they do instead of reacting out of ego, when they do show up.

I would say some of the things we need to be most alert of are--our reactivity, our projection of our stuff onto our partner and what I call the dynamics of holding the space. I will address each of these separately.

Reactivity: Feel your body; your heart; your pulse; your blood pressure; that place on the back of your neck; your gut; your eyes; that sensation of blood rushing to your face. These are the expressions-- the places where the most common physical clues arise that inform us we are moving perhaps from a place of deep listening or calm responding to a place of reactivity. That transformation can take place instantly or it can build slowly like a volcano. Once we are in reactivity mode, all bets are off. There is usually no more conversation or discussion or listening taking place. Once we are in reactivity, one or two mental positions or stories are simply jockeying for dominance; usually, by any means necessary. So we must be very alert to either notice when we are moving into reactivity mode (and those physical cues are incredible for bringing about that awareness) or knowing that we have entered it and that we probably, at that point, need to take a timeout from the conversation. Hurtful, regrettable things will likely begin to flow out of mouths at a faster pace than the flow of the Colorado River at peak current.

Projection: This is about owning our stuff and resisting the extremely powerful urge to label our stuff as our partner’s stuff and to then move into blaming, attacking, and defending of our mental positions. I’ve already previously spoken about this at length. I have nothing substantive to add to that at this juncture except to tell you to notice and to try to be alert when this is happening.

Holding of the space: A very large number of disputes between people, including partnered people result from one partner clumsily or disastrously asking the other person to “hold” something for him/her. This could be me asking my partner to hold my pain, my anger, my sadness, my hurt, my feeling of being misunderstood all the way to very deep long standing issues like holding the years of anguish and rage I have about being sexually molested for 20 of the 25 years I’ve been alive. On the other side of that is the receiver part. Most people who are clumsily or disastrously asked to hold this kind of stuff or energy are at least as clumsy or disastrous in their communication of their discomfort and openness to holding it or their absolute resolve not to hold it.

Here is an example of the most idealistic way that whole dynamic could play out around a specific potentially disastrous conversation: (Partner A): “I know we have tried to discuss this before and we’ve not gotten anywhere, in my opinion. I however, want to try again. I want to broach the conversation once again about us starting a family, about us having kids. I know this is difficult for you and brings up lots of stuff for you. I am sensitive to that. And, this is a need of mine. Are you able to go there with me right now?” (Partner B) “I love you so much. I really do. I know this is important to you. You have been so patient with me on this. And no, I am not ready to go there right now. I just can’t. I can’t do it just now.” (Partner A) “Ok, do you have an idea when you might be able to have that conversation with me?” (Partner B) “No, I don’t.” (Partner A) Ok, I’m going to check back in with you in a week. Is that Ok?” (Partner B) “Yes, and if I get ready before that, I’ll initiate a conversation with you about this. Thank you for being so sensitive to where I’m at right now.”

Ahhh, the joys of a Hollywood ending. Unfortunately, for such a weighty discussion as having kids where one partner is totally wanting to go there and the other partner totally isn’t, that conversation, I just demonstrated is probably all too rare. It doesn't need to be though. As I said, a lot of difficult conversations revolve around one person wanting the other to hold something and the other person not being ready to do it and neither person being able to articulate clearly what they are doing or needing or requesting…or demanding (we’ll get to that in a moment…the demanding part, I mean).

So here is where alertness comes in. We must become very alert to the fact that we are often asking our partners to hold something for us; usually that is some specific thing or some specific set of complex emotional energies. We have to become equally alert when our partner is asking us to do the same. And we must become alert to all the stuff that can come up in that process.

Usually, when we get the information that someone is not ready to hold something for us, the best advice is to retreat. However, this is not always the case. I am currently reading a book entitled “The Survivors Club” by Ben Sherwood. In this book Sherwood tirelessly examines all kinds of emergency and life threatening situations that can show up in people’s lives. He, through research-- talking to experts and through many other exhaustive means, creates a sketch of what types of things and personality traits seem to predict who survives these catastrophes, and who doesn’t. Fascinating stuff. In one of the many stories in this book he describes a plane crash (he discusses many plane crashes, but I’m only going to focus on one here). Many people survived the initial impact. But the plane is on fire and the cabin is quickly filling up with choking, toxic smoke. There is a woman sitting in one of the emergency exit seats. She survived the initial impact. But, as we learn in the book is very common, she is psychologically and physically frozen. She just sits there as a rapidly growing line of survivors find themselves literally at safety’s door…and she is blocking it. So basically everyone in line is asking this woman to “hold” her responsibility for agreeing to sit by the emergency exit and to follow through with that holding by opening the door so people can escape the burning plane.

People audibly ask her to open the door. She is frozen. She is non responsive. So in essence she is saying “No, I can’t hold this responsibility right now. I’m too freaked out.” So one of the other passengers immediately forces his way past her, kicks open the emergency exit, physically picks this woman up and throws her out of the plane onto the wing and then allows the other surviving passengers to escape from the plane. People died in that crash. Many more would have perished if not for this particular passenger. This man saved many people’s lives because he refused to accept this woman’s refusal to “hold” the energy of being responsible for the safety of others; a responsibility she took when she agreed to sit by the emergency exit.

Now, how does that relate to the typical romantic relationship, you might be asking? Not too long ago I had a boyfriend, where there was an issue that was, from day one, a troublesome issue for me. I tried many times to discuss this with him. He wasn’t having it. He wasn’t ready to hold my energy and emotions around this issue. So I retreated…repeatedly. I knew the Starship Enterprise could boldly go where no man has ever traveled before. The Starship Enterprise however, even knew not to go where another person isn’t emotionally ready to go. At one point however, I became like that man on that plane. I very calmly and lovingly began a conversation with my partner once more about this thing he didn’t want to talk about. He immediately let me know, in many verbal and non-verbal ways that once again, he was not ready to hold my energy with regard to this topic. I persisted. He physically got up and removed himself from me. I followed him and gently stood in front of him and said my piece. For me this was the relationship equivalent of us being on a burning plane with toxic smoke filling up the cabin. So I forced the issue. I forced him to listen and he did. He broke up with me 2 days later because I essentially kicked open the emergency door and threw him out onto the wing and he didn’t like that. Metaphorically speaking, he would have preferred to die on that plane.

I was distraught, heart broken and completely beside myself when he left me. If every single element of that situation, including many things I have not reported, repeated themselves in my life today, with what I now know, would I do the same thing? Yes, in a heartbeat. Sometimes, very rarely and very selectively, we must also understand that even if the person is silently or actually screaming “I can’t hold this right now!” for our own sanity and deliverance, we must make them hold it. And then accept, whatever consequences that follow.

(Q) Those are powerful stories and powerful words. But all that being alert stuff sure sounds like a lot of work.

(Raven) It’s only a lot of work if you tell yourself it’s a lot of work. Tell yourself it’s a lot of love and it will be a lot of love. Tell yourself it’s a lot of compassion and it will be a lot of compassion. And even if it is a lot of work, what amount of “work” is your relationship worth anyway? That is something we all would benefit from being clear on before we engage in one

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Enlightened Romantic Relationships (Part 8)

(Question) In one of your posts on enlightened relationships you said you didn’t want to create a new “victim” class. I don’t remember which one it was. But with all this stuff you are saying about men and what men have suffered and are suffering and everything you say men have endured; aren’t you doing exactly that?

(Sage) No, I am not. If someone witnesses a crime and eventually writes an essay about what they witnessed, has that person perpetrated the actual crime? Of course not. It is the same here. Many people may not have known about the particular crime detailed in the essay until this person wrote about it. Similarly, if I am pointing out a truth that the majority of people on the planet, for whatever reason or reasons, have not known or accepted before as truth or what is real, I have not created that reality. I am simply reporting it and shining the light of consciousness on it. Gandhi did not create the second-class citizen status of Native Indians in 19th and early 20th century India under British rule. He however, is certainly recognized universally, as catapulting it to global recognition status. I am not comparing myself to Gandhi. I think however, you will see my point.

Secondly, and of much more importance and significance is this: It is my awareness that a large number of men are in rather constant yet varying and wavering states of grief, mild depression, unexplained states of confusion, degrees of unexplained and perhaps not well understood emotional or mental pain as well as a particular and odd state of malaise. Additionally, just under the surface is anger or aggression as well. I believe the things I speak of are, to a significant degree, the root cause of a lot of that. So while certain hip, internet savvy, perhaps Ivy league educated, social constructionist theorists among us may prefer to view my particular brand of men's work as creating a new and not only new but also a false victim class comprised of men; I know that is not the case. I am coming from a place of healing. I view this work as healing work. I view my work as shining a light on something that needs the light of healing on it to make it sacred again. It is noble work. And yes, it may be misunderstood. Most noble work is at some point or another. And that’s OK. I can deal with that.

I very much appreciate your question. You are probably not the only one who has that question. Also remember however, that the context right now, in which all this is being discussed, is the context of enlightened romantic relationships. So in this particular discourse, I am discussing all of this in the context of helping men and others as well, including women, understand some things about men that may enable us to have better, more healthy relationships with the other Human Beings we may find ourselves in love relationships with.

(Q) OK, but isn’t this healing work you are doing and that is aimed at, I suppose liberating men, by its very nature, downplaying or even dismissing the very real and continuing oppression of and against women?

(Sage) No, it is not. It does sound like you however, may be at least somewhat invested in making sure a certain group of people on the planet are saddled with victim class status for a little longer.


Photo Credit: Henri de Toulouse Lautrec

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