Beyond aversion and separation

Seeing our oneness is the beginning of our compassion, and it allows us to reach beyond aversion and separation. -Sharon Salzberg, “A Quiver of the Heart”

I think the "oneness" Salzberg talks about is integral to my concept of Higher Power.

Higher Power as defined on the SAnon website:
1. A source of help greater than we are; 2. A source of help we define ourselves (for example, the group, nature, God as defined in an established religion, etc.); 3. An ever-present Power greater than ourselves that gives us an increased feeling of peace and comfort when relied upon.

And I think it's through my relationship with this oneness, a power greater than myself, through faith in this bigger picture that I don't always immediately perceive, that I'll be able to reach beyond aversion and separation with Husband, and get to the love that persists.

For truly, I cannot do it alone.

I say this because that's so easy for me to forget. Even after 4 years of recovery, the self-sufficiency that has helped me survive and thrive is my go-to response and the direction in which I drift when I am lulled by the day-to-day into unconscious living.

A little input from higher power?

I subscribe to the Tricycle Daily Dharma, and today it had this to say about what is needed in order to challenge "the whole identity of your life:"

"...The strength that's needed is the courage of heart to remain undefended and open, a willingness to touch the ten-thousand joys and the ten-thousand sorrows from our compassion, the deepest place of our being. This is a different kind of fearlessness, which requires as much or more passion and fire."

-Jack Kornfield, "The Sure Hearts Release"

So I guess that's today's input from higher power regarding yesterday's post about my struggle with deep connection and intimacy with Husband.

So the next thing I'm wondering is how to be undefended and open and still maintain healthy boundaries. What is the right balance between those two things?

Finding love in loss

The Buddhist Reviews Tricycle Magazine publishes a "Daily Dharma" email that excerpts writings on Buddhism.

Today's edition about finding love in loss, from Lorne Ladner's book The Lost Art of Compassion, so aptly described what this journey has been for me:

"To live a meaningful life, each of us must step outside the familiar, confining walls of ego defenses and enter our own wilderness, our own charnel ground, to face honestly the truth of impermanence and loss. In the strange cemetery of imagination, mourning ourselves, we suddenly stumble upon what’s most essential. Facing loss, we find love."

Over the past 2 years I've found greater love and compassion for myself and others, beyond what I knew to be possible.

I still get scared, pissed off, resentful, etc. There's no doubt that I'll always be human, and that the logical effect of impermanence is that "good" is as temporary as "bad."

But in order to survive the loss of the life I thought I was living, I've been pushed into new territory and tasted the sweetness of a deeper love than I've ever known before, which has made possible a deeper and more profound peace.

What am I afriad of?

For the past several weeks I've been wrestling with fears. I even woke one night and went through Husband's emails and Twitter friends to see what I would find.

I found nothing, and I don't have any reason to think anything's going on.

It's surprising, because I'd have thought from the way things are going with Husband's recovery and our couples work that I would feel more secure, more sure by now.

Of course, the thing that I've been slacking off on is my own recovery work. After almost 2 years you'd think I'd have come far enough, right?!

But, not surprising now that I've jumped in, apparently it's going to take more time to cross these waters. Maybe a lifetime. Maybe that's human beings are here for. To be ongoingly recovering or avoiding recovery.

Recovering from what? Not everybody is married to a sex addict, after all.

I've decided that what I'm recovering from is being human...which explains why it's a life's work, and why others who find themselves in a human existence may also find it a useful pursuit.

I'm recovering from the curse of our big, human brains that know enough to know (even if only subconsciously) and be afraid of (even if only subconsciously) how much we don't know.

One question I've been looking at again recently is 'Why did this happen to me twice?'

Betrayed by my father, betrayed by my husband, both of whom I trusted with childlike certainty.

I think there are many ways of looking at everything, and that with that choice lies freedom and any hope of peace.

So I've decided to listen for the voice of my higher power/divine self/universal love intelligence/name-of-one's-choice-for-that-which-is-beyond-me in this matter. Some would call it the voice of God.

When I listen, what I hear is my higher power telling me that I'm ready. I'm ready to be with the groundlessness that is the truth of our existence and find peace. I'm ready to have faith that I everything I need in this life will be provided even if it's not what I think I need or what I want. I'm ready to accept that everything changes, the 'good' and the 'bad,' and that no matter how I plan for the future and wish for a different past, all I have is the moment I'm in and the choice to be full of love and compassion or not in that instant. I'm ready to find freedom, peace and the ultimate strength in courageous surrender to what is so.

Higher power has presented me with this opportunity because I am ready to find that inside myself.

So fear is my ally. When I feel it I'm reminded that I am on the right path, that I'm keeping myself open to learning who I am in the face of it, that I'm learning how I can resist both fight and flight to fleetingly experience my true self in those moments.

What I see about my fear

So I look at my last post and what I see is that I have some desire to control what Husband is thinking because I use what he's thinking to define myself.

That's part of where the fear comes from.

I know that for me wanting to control what I can't is a form of resisting what is so, and leads to nothing but unhappiness and dissatisfaction. So I'm willing to give that up (and give it up again and again and again, because it's not going to come easily.)

The other part of the fear is a fear of trust.

I'm afriad I'll be lied to again, even if it's only that his mind is somewhere else when I believe it's with me.

And I'm afriad of what would happen if he lied again. Although oddly, we've already been through a small slip with lying (about something other than sex with prostitutes) and I lived through it.

I guess I'm just afraid of the pain. I don't want that kind of pain again.

But I'm also reminded about the gifts of pain by reading Sophie in the Moonlight and Willow posting about being right where one is supposed to be.

After reading a lot of Buddhist and related spiritual literature, I've decided to take the position that I'm always right where I'm supposed to be, and either surrendering or resisting.

In the past I've gotten caught up in the thinking that "where I'm supposed to be" is a going to be a place that I'd want to be. Now I see this isn't necessarily true.

This is a note to myself to take this mantra with me wherever I go, wherever I find myself, into to the sunshine and into the darkness: I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

All I Got for Christmas

I realized this morning that I’ve come to dread Christmas.

Years ago I bought Husband a Thai cookbook for his birthday. He’d always enjoyed cooking, and had discovered Thai food as several inexpensive Thai restaurants blossomed around Seattle. I was so excited for him to open his present, and was crushed when he seemed almost insulted by my gift. The details of what was said have faded with time, but I was left with low-level dread about giving Husband gifts that has increased with the passing years.

My experience was that Husband always felt dissatisfied with gifts, particularly at Christmas. He never seemed to feel he’d gotten exactly what he wanted, and always seemed to feel slighted when given gifts that weren't "him," declaring them impersonal. He could never look past the thing to appreciate the thought and effort that had gone into getting the gift, and the care that it expressed. So I’ve learned to ask for a List and just shop from that rather than to try to put any thought into something special that I think up myself.

At the top of Husband’s list this year was an iPhone. He was also lobbying hard for Guitar Hero. But he’s being laid off in January and I’ve had a slow 4th quarter, so I was hoping we could go a little easy on the gifts this year. However gifts are a very big deal with Husband (he loves to give as much as he loves to receive,) and I began to get the feeling that I was getting some big surprise gift and that if I didn’t match up, I’d be disappointing him again.

I’d finished all my shopping the week before Christmas but realized over the weekend that I didn’t have anything “mind-blowing” for Husband. I’d gotten many things from his list, but not the high-end items. I thought back on the video iPod I’d gotten him a few years back and the beautiful watch I’d gotten him for our 10th anniversary (both of which were from his List,) both of which he lost soon after receiving. Even expensive things just seemed to sink into the insatiable abyss of wanting, instead of being valued as much as they were sought.

But as my anticipation of failure grew, I toyed with getting Guitar Hero. For the money I didn’t really think he’d play it a lot after the novelty wore off. So I considered the iPhone. It was expensive, but I’d heard that it was going to be available after Christmas for $99. So I thought I’d give him a $100 bill with my old cell phone.

But then on Sunday I had the opportunity to get him a gift certificate toward some spiritual classes he’d wanted to take. That wasn’t on the official List, but he’d mentioned that he was interested in taking some classes just weeks ago. I knew he’d end up with an iPhone anyway (especially if they were really going to be available for $99.) I decided to get the $200 gift certificate because, while the iPhone was more practical and could be written off as a business expense, the classes were a luxury so he’d be less likely to do that for himself.

But this morning as Son opened his considerable bounty yet still seemed to feel disappointed when it came to an end, and when Husband made joking mention of “not getting what I really wanted anyway, an iPhone” (he hadn’t opened my gift certificate yet) that feeling of dread surged and I felt the hollowness of what Christmas has become.

As I pondered, it dawned on me that because of Husband’s narcissism and affliction with addiction, almost anything would fall short of his expectations. Just like with all the prostitutes, he was always looking for that one mind-blowing ultimate experience, conversation, gift, whatever, that always seemed just out of his reach. Nothing was ever as good as he imagined once he got it, and he was always left unsatiated. Of course, nothing was ever enough to fill the undistinguished empty space he carried with him.

So all these years it had nothing to do with me falling short. It was a manifestation of where he was on his path.

Though I understood that logically and the realization helped me get some space and clarity, a heaviness continued to linger until I began to look more closely at my own feelings of sadness and disappointment. (The benefit of all the therapy and reading over the past 19 months is that I can often stay with the muck long enough to recognize the opportunity for me to grow rather than spinning into resentment, blame, distraction or skipping down the happy path of denial.)

I realized that I was feeling bad because I didn’t get what I wanted either.

What I wanted was for Husband to be thrilled with the gift certificate I’d gotten him (he wasn’t.) And for Son to revel in what he’d received rather than to be looking for more presents under the now barren tree. I was attached to each of them having specific experiences and because I didn’t get what I wanted I was hurt, sad, angry, disappointed.

Then, my Higher Power reminded me that I have no control over the experiences of another.

Authentic gratitude is a steep learning curve for narcissists, and only through this crisis we've faced has Husband found a foothold with which to being his ascent. (As I heard in church recently, it is darkness that makes it possible for us to see the light.)

All I can do is give what I give with love and joy, and Husband and Son must make their own experiences from there. And that will depend on where each of them are on their own paths, not on anything that I do or don’t do.

I still want to do Christmas differently next year, with less focus on lists and what we want (in other words, less focus on lack and desire for the months leading up to Christmas day.)

But now I have an opening to give with love and joy, and to revel in what I’ve received – life’s important basics: food, clothing, shelter; the love and support of family and friends; my health; my son; a career; material luxuries; spiritual growth; good therapists; the breath I'm taking now; all my needs met; and my growing presence to myself and each of us as unique and vital expressions of the Divine.

"... if the wave bends down and touches her true nature she will realize that she is water." - Thich Nhat Han, No Death, No Fear.

Once again, my life leaves me present to gratitude. That's what I got for Christmas.

Is it possible I'm coming to not regret the past?

Reading Pema Chodron's Wisdom of No Escape this morning, I realized that, while sounding trite, it's also true that those with the greatest challenges have the greatest opportunities.

I once visited a Tarot card reader who told me that this life was my R&R life. And, if you don't count my father lying about being sick and then running off to a commune when I was 12, that's pretty much been true.

I haven't had great fame or fortune, but I am lucky enough to have been born in the US at a time when life for the average American is easy relative to the lives of the rest of the world's population; I've always felt loved by my family and friends; I have a wonderful son and a husband who loves us and is committed to us; I've never wanted for any necessities in life; I've had the opportunity to get a good education and find good jobs; and I've had the luxury of thinking about life in terms of optimal self-realization and self-expression rather than survival. I've been lucky.

Maybe the ultimate luck is that I found a loving partner who has also, as a part of his own journey, presented me with my biggest opportunity for growth by delivering the biggest challenge of my life.

I never knew, and would likely never have known had I stayed on the same trajectory, that I was almost entirely without self-definition. I could describe myself certainly, my flaws, my qualities, my dreams and aspirations, my way of being in the world, the person I was striving to be. But as for identifying a core "self" that I defined as valid and worthy on its own, a self which could not be dictated or shattered by the responses of others...This was a distinction I didn't know I didn't have.

I am grateful to be on this journey, grateful for new perspective, new tools, a new relationship to spirituality and surrender. And while I don't always recognize it in the moment, I'm grateful for the pain that has taught me the non-dualistic nature of pain: The great opportunity that is only available with the greatest challenge.

Husband's Buddha Natue

I continue to gain strength and insight from my readings in Buddhist thought. I just read an article by the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche (I am proof that you don't have to know what those words mean or how to pronounce them to get something out of what he writes) about the basics of what the Buddha taught.

He says that Buddha believed "the fundamental nature of mind is utterly pure and primordially in the state of buddhahood...Its essence is wisdom and compassion that is inconceivably profound and vast."

"However, this potential is covered over by certain temporary obscurations, in the same way that the sun may be temporarily concealed by clouds...we see only what is perceptible by means of our dualistic consciousness: a stream of sense perceptions, mental constructs, thoughts, and emotions that arise and dissolve ceaselessly. It is these appearances of relative phenomena that obscure the direct recognition of the open, brilliant and dynamic reality of genuine mind."

So I have decided to try to stay present to Husband's Buddha nature. In the face of my fears and in the face of both our perceptions, constructs, thoughts and emotions that obscure our essential beings, I can look at him and know that his true nature is open, brilliant and dynamic, utterly pure, wise and compassionate. All else, like his addict for example, is impermanent, and but a temporary symptom of each of us clinging to our identities, when in reality those are temporary as well. "...for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

And no, I have not gone off the deep end. I'm just trying to cope, and this resonates with me as a way to understand my experience, and is helping me be in the present moment with Husband instead of dwelling in sadness about the past or fear about the future.