(link to original post in Journal de Henry)
Major breakthrough/realization yesterday.
Following my direct observations of moving vibrational charges via Kiman’s analogy/observation, my sensitivity and awareness of emotional tone has been increased for the last few days. It’s more clear than ever what perfection consists of for ‘me,’ as well as how the emotional states inter-play with one another.
My current situation, to simplify somewhat, is that I am seeing a girl who I have been seeing for 3 years now, and the entirety of our relationship has been ‘open’ as in, if she wants / I want to see someone else, we are free to. For the most part it has still looked monogamous for 95% of the time, though there have been occasional other people involved for periods. There has also been just as much felt jealousy, possession, and codependency as in any conventional monogamous relationship, but with the awareness that we want eachother to be free and happy.
She started dating a good friend of mine (side note - what exactly is friendship?) a couple months ago, and with the beginning of that relationship our dynamic with eachother turned upside down: where she had most-often been the insecure ‘chaser’ and I the prideful ‘leader/’the one who would run away,’ we flipped in the emotional paradigm. This was very educational in terms of emotional dynamics, and it almost ended the relationship more than once.
I also had the benefit of having been in her place before, and fully-knowing the amount of discomfort I was causing her with my insecurity, and now knowing first-hand the insecurity-suffering that she had previously been experiencing. Since the beginning of the arising of jealousy I was determined to remove it.
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She has been visiting for the christmas holiday, and with her return to town my emotional tone became increasingly panicked/insecure. This was identical to the last time she visited. Luckily, in the intervening time I had been making tremendous progress in being happy & harmless, as well as in my increasingly clear view of the dynamics that were operating between us. My motivation to understand and remove the ‘me’ that was in the way has been greater than ever before.
Shortly before she returned to town, I met a man who I spoke with at length late into the night about all things humanity, as well as another girl who I similarly connected with. With both individuals there was tremendous naivete and enjoyment, verification of the work that I have done.
Seeing this girl was further illustration to me of freedom: I was delighted to be able to delight with another human and to still be able to see my partner.
Shortly after my partner returned home, in addition to dividing her time with my friend that she was dating, she became mutually romantically attracted to the man who I spoke with at length.
This was incredibly threatening to me. I have found myself vacillating between extreme clarity and delight, all of us delighting and having a wonderful time together, and greater jealous-insecure fear than I have ever felt in my life.
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This came to something of an inflection point yesterday: the man I met, my partner, and I, all went snowboarding at a local ski resort, on the man’s dime (I don’t have money for such pursuits).
I could see pretty immediately that I was having a lot of trouble getting out of my own way and having a good time.
I left to take care of a practical consideration: fresh wax for my snowboard.
When I came back, I looked and found them: I looked up and saw them on the chairlift, her with her arm around him. I could see that they were having a sweet, close time together.
My insecurity flared. I was in deep emotional distress, and I could see that it was as a direct outcome of the sweet, close time that they were experiencing together.
The entire arrangement that her and I have set up, has been to allow for freedom-of-movement for her and for me, which was also what allowed for me to be able to meet with the other girl I mentioned above. I knew the sweetness that that moment consisted of. I also knew that my insecurity caused her distress.
The only thing in the way was ‘me.’ I couldn’t get out of the road with this issue. I knew that I was the only problem with the situation.
For the rest of the day I kept my attention on the insecurity I was experiencing. I was able to speak my mind with her and tell her what I was experiencing, while the man was on another part of the mountain for a few hours.
She and I went back to the lodge for a meal together, and while I was waiting for a bite to eat, shortly after peeing (incidentally, I frequently experience PCEs while/after peeing, to the point where we have a joke together: pee-PCEs), it suddenly hit me:
All my delight with her was completely conditional.
I was happy with her so long as she is giving me attention / delighting with me / sleeping with me.
As soon as any of those shift, I am no longer happy or harmless. I become miserable, moody, insecure, depressed, lash out, complain.
And the ‘happy’ is really possessive too: ‘I’ am happy, because ‘I’ am getting the love and attention that ‘I’ want.
I realized that I had to make it unconditional:
It doesn’t matter what she does.
It doesn’t matter how she interfaces with me or doesn’t interface with me at any one moment.
It doesn’t matter who else she connects with. It doesn’t matter what she does with her day. It doesn’t matter how she talks with me. It doesn’t matter how she listens to me. It doesn’t matter how chaotic or ‘straight-laced’ she is. Nothing about what she does, should shift:
What I can be, is happy to see her. Every time. No matter what.
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For me, it has the character of some friends of the family (basically friends of my parents) that I have in my life.
They don’t have any expectation of me ‘showing up’ in a certain way.
They aren’t offended or bothered by anything that I happen to be getting up to in my life at any one time.
There’s enough distance that anything I report to them, isn’t threatening to them. It’s interesting. Everything is interesting/an adventure.
That’s what I can be, for her. And it doesn’t mean we can’t do anything particular, too. If what we mutually want to do is passionately make love for hours, great. If what we mutually want to do is talk, or each do our own thing, great. If she doesn’t want to see me that day/week/year, that’s ok. She is her own person. I know I’ll be happy regardless, and happy to see her regardless. If she shows up and wants to tease me, or yell at me, or attempt to manipulate me, it does not matter. I am happy to see her (though I may show her the door, lol).
–
This was epoch-shaking for me, and I actually was kicked into an extended EE in which I went upstairs and told her about the realization and thought for a bit that I may have entered virtual freedom as a permanent state, though the emotional tones came back after 45 minutes or so.
In any case, my approach is now obvious and it’s essentially the opposite of everything I was doing before.
Where before everything was about the love and attention that I needed from her, and an uncomfortable attempt at ‘giving her freedom,’ now the answer is always there: I am happy for her / happy to see her. She is no longer ‘within my sphere of influence.’ I can now clearly see that she is an individual human being, and that I never possessed her to begin with. It has a completely different character than anything I’ve ever experienced before.
It’s clearly connected to my own autonomy of what I experience when I’m alone, too: I have always been trying to ‘set up’ love-situations / sex-situations, from a distance: scheming for it to happen always.
Now, for the first time, the only place I have to get to is: actually free.
And I get to give her actual caring, rather than caring as a part of my scheme to get love/attention/sex.
It’s as if I have laid down a great burden. I have never felt like this in my adult life (indeed since sexual awakening around age 12 - that is 20 years of my life!)
. Superb!