Married life, or more to the point happily married life has been, what could be called a passion of mine. Interpersonal dynamics, the way we work together has always fascinated me. It has been the focus of my day today as well. I thought about a toast I made recently as my friend's best-man at his wedding. I gave that toast to them so I cannot repost it here but I can certainly speak to my vision of a marriage.
The world right now is all a buzz about bullying and how to stop/prevent it. Believe it or not, it relates directly to our interactions in marriage. I've long said that we teach our children not with what we tell them to be but with what we show them to be. Bullying starts at home, take it from a bully. I'm going to lay out the framework, as I see it, for a happy marriage and then, if you're still with me at the end I'll tie it in to bullying.
You meet your sweetie, they are everything you could want and you make them your own, so to speak. The problem has started already, you see we attract someone by being what we believe they want, which is other than our selves. Then, surprise, surprise, we aren't what they thought we were and the game is afoot. The same thing is happening to them. They're (& we are also) terrified that you'll:
a) find out
b) hate them
c) leave or
d) all of the above
Why didn't we simply be ourselves? We aren't taught to, that's why. From "reality" tv to main stream media we are all taught how to fake it properly. So if you haven't found that special someone, find yourself first. It will make the next thirty to sixty (maybe more) years pleasant and not filled with what could have been or what should be. But what if you're just like me, married and tired of playing the part you enticed your partner with? You can only experience real happiness by being real. How do you find that? What if you, again, are like me and so confused with the different masks you've worn that you don't know which way is up? Find yourself. There are many ways to this destination, I'll tell you of the one which found me:
Into the nothingness: Mine was fortunate enough to coincide with a period of great aloneness (not loneliness) where I had a vision on my couch of who I was. It was unflinching and brutal. It had to be though, I'd looked away so many times before. I'd put my excuses on it and "reasoned" away my responsibility but this time I was shown me as though I was looking at a stranger, it was a lens of truth. I saw myself as though a strange would see me. I saw all those moments in which, from the inside, I believed no one saw the cracks, no one saw the manipulation, the facts not spoken, the perspective skewed; but I saw it all in blaring detail showing all my shame and embarrassment. I wouldn't be my friend because I used those people to prove my existence. Their reactions gave me the information I needed to calculate who I was. I was operating from the inside of myself with a sort of broadcast delay filter to react as the person I was portraying. That person didn't have a solid home life and didn't know how to be a husband with only the examples provided through failed marriages. However, none of us are informed that we can think outside the box. It happened for me in that moment on my couch, I thought outside the cave. If you haven't read any other of my blogs: the cave is the secret place inside of you in which you hide from reality, gauge your acceptance, plot your revenge and... formulate your bullying. Think outside the cave to find yourself. I found myself to be a person who would completely erase himself if he could, to erase the tendrils of bullshit I had contaminated my family with. I could see it within them, forming their choices, hurting their spirits... I had told them they were stupid! They started to believe it. It was my energy, the forcing of my will upon them; contaminating them. I wished for myself to cease to exist so they could be sparred of this. I saw how this same bullshit seeped into me from the human beings which were my parents. Their lessons bled over onto me, just as mine did to my children and my wife. I hold no ill will to either my Mom nor my Dad. They are beautiful beings in the middle of their own lessons. We're all having a hard time at life, so give people a break whenever you can.
A strange thing happened in that pit of despair. A light started to shine. As I was looking at my "self" and seeing his actions and how they hurt others I accepted them, those actions. I heaped them onto my shoulders and vowed to carry them myself along with any negative energy they caused within my family. Call it karma if it helps you to picture it. I took up the negative karma of my being and all the karma I created within others through their reaction to my negative self. I decided that since all I had was myself that I was going to the man who I had always known myself to be. Initially, as a young man that sort of semi-opaque future "me: didn't cut it. He wasn't strong physically, flashy, powerful or rich though I wished him to be many times. I found that man in this pit and he was a hero. I hadn't seen it properly before. This man who would take responsibility, who was the essence of stability was who I needed and, fortunately, exactly who I was. There was, and still is, nothing flashy to me really. I'm still not rich nor powerful, but I know who I am and I am a good man. That good man could never have become without him first accepting that he wasn't a good man. It's a strange sort of paradox but it makes perfect sense to me. To be who you are, accept who you are; down to the depth of your soul; in truth, accept who you are. Accept that in that "what else could I do?" moments you chose a weak path. Then, and only then, can you be. That light was coming from my heart, coming from me. As I saw myself again, stripped of the clunky items of dress I had stacked onto me and I was so thin, like a vapor and I was light. If I was going to be light, my light would be truth.
So how does this make for a good marriage? Do we need sunglasses? I was just me in this reality. The pit was my hell and I dind't chose to run from it, I chose to face it and become. To do that I stripped away all those indiscretions, those weak moments when I was less than myself, when I felt my own heart sink at the words coming out of my mouth. There I was naked in essence and there for my wife to love me, and I mean really love me. I gave to her my true self, my heart which wished for love. She is in the process of stripping herself. It's so painful to watch and at the same time beautiful in a tragic sort of way. There we are, children blinking at the light, the dream with it's darkness fading and we hold each other, truly hold each other and we can't help but weep at the moments lost. But then that crying is just a step back into the dream...
When you're with your lover only they exist, so why cry at what is not happening now, be now, be with them with your heart truly open for them. You find you exist just for them. This is base camp. This place you exist in is the anchor of your marriage. You walk out of your cave as nothing more than that inner child which has no real shape, raw and tender from the layers being peeled off revealing nothing more than the spark of life who turned away and allowed those weak choices made. You are simply you, you just exist. You're not attaching to your partners approval to define who you are; no, you're simply being. They are there with you and you love them, for the person they are not the approval they give. Then love isn't a ball passed back and forth; it's the very air you breathe and every particle of reality. it's as though the first part of your marriage (in my case anyway) was like dating on-line then finally meeting. Again, in my case, I was nothing more than my exposed soul and I gave myself to her. It is really all I have to give. I can give you a pencil and it will be lost, taken, used up or maybe broken but it was never really yours it was just in your possession for a time. When you give your love you give your self. The way I see it, I ceased to be, for myself, in that moment and I became. It's odd but you can think of it as sacrificing Single-Ryan for Married-Ryan, or more to the point shedding the scaly selfish skin of single-me to emerge as real me. Another metaphor? Sure! When I cared for only myself, when I twisted my family to reflect favorably upon me instead of respecting them as people, as people I loved! I was then the caterpillar, I went within (not an accomplishment, a happening) and when I emerged I was the butterfly. My being is the compilation of my choices and I chose my family. I chose to be the best example I could for my boys. I chose love.
She chose me too.
That attitude of forcing others into actions we want is the mode of the bully. They might use the threat of physical force, or pain. They might use a secret about you to threaten you with exposure. They might use guilt or your dury pulling on the strings of your honor to play you. However you look at it when you force someone for your own gains, you're a bully. "It's for their own good" - you're a bully. "You made me do this!" - yeah, you're a bully. "How can you leave your_____ in this condition? Don't you care?" Yup, manipulative and a bully. So maybe you start to see, we're all bullies, all of us.
We live in a civilization in which to have for me I take from someone and pay less than it's worth. I'm always forcing my way, at the water-cooler, in the meeting room, in the bedroom; I know when I'm being insincere, shallow, hollow; when I've made this choice to show you something which isn't me so that I might get what I really want but can't ask for. The ones called bullies are just the ones who got good at the one style. Sure we all have our limits and you might say that you could never do what had been done to you, that you saw that one guy do, but they are subjective and meaningless unless actually in that moment. We all have within us the capability of being evil beyond imagine. It's our choices which define us though, isn't it? Not what we say we'd do, but what we actually did. So why are our standards set just above everyone else? Why don't we do what's right instead of what's easy?
It starts at home. It starts with who you choose to be. What you chose to give your soul to. You can choose some religious path, and I'd say if it makes you a good person, then it's a good thing. Sadly, so often we use that "doing of right" which always comes with someone else's explanation of how to do something, as our club of righteousness to bully some more, only with a fancier wrapper. Don't be that guy. Live and let live and if your cause is noble enough to fight for, then realize that the "fight" is really just appealing to someone's heart, to the best of them, so they can choose. Either way, if they agree or disagree you haven't manipulated them so you can trust, you haven't made them choose out of fear, so you can trust, you haven't subverted, coerced or outright robbed them so you can trust; you can trust that their heart, like yours, is true. You can experience true happiness then. It comes from letting go, becoming and being.
That is just the opinion of one former bully. We were only ever trying to be loved.
Find your basecamp and live the full tale of your own legendary life. Do it honestly and bring the light of truth with you where ever you may go. Be humble, be a good person, what will be, will be.
Namaste :-)
The world right now is all a buzz about bullying and how to stop/prevent it. Believe it or not, it relates directly to our interactions in marriage. I've long said that we teach our children not with what we tell them to be but with what we show them to be. Bullying starts at home, take it from a bully. I'm going to lay out the framework, as I see it, for a happy marriage and then, if you're still with me at the end I'll tie it in to bullying.
You meet your sweetie, they are everything you could want and you make them your own, so to speak. The problem has started already, you see we attract someone by being what we believe they want, which is other than our selves. Then, surprise, surprise, we aren't what they thought we were and the game is afoot. The same thing is happening to them. They're (& we are also) terrified that you'll:
a) find out
b) hate them
c) leave or
d) all of the above
Why didn't we simply be ourselves? We aren't taught to, that's why. From "reality" tv to main stream media we are all taught how to fake it properly. So if you haven't found that special someone, find yourself first. It will make the next thirty to sixty (maybe more) years pleasant and not filled with what could have been or what should be. But what if you're just like me, married and tired of playing the part you enticed your partner with? You can only experience real happiness by being real. How do you find that? What if you, again, are like me and so confused with the different masks you've worn that you don't know which way is up? Find yourself. There are many ways to this destination, I'll tell you of the one which found me:
Into the nothingness: Mine was fortunate enough to coincide with a period of great aloneness (not loneliness) where I had a vision on my couch of who I was. It was unflinching and brutal. It had to be though, I'd looked away so many times before. I'd put my excuses on it and "reasoned" away my responsibility but this time I was shown me as though I was looking at a stranger, it was a lens of truth. I saw myself as though a strange would see me. I saw all those moments in which, from the inside, I believed no one saw the cracks, no one saw the manipulation, the facts not spoken, the perspective skewed; but I saw it all in blaring detail showing all my shame and embarrassment. I wouldn't be my friend because I used those people to prove my existence. Their reactions gave me the information I needed to calculate who I was. I was operating from the inside of myself with a sort of broadcast delay filter to react as the person I was portraying. That person didn't have a solid home life and didn't know how to be a husband with only the examples provided through failed marriages. However, none of us are informed that we can think outside the box. It happened for me in that moment on my couch, I thought outside the cave. If you haven't read any other of my blogs: the cave is the secret place inside of you in which you hide from reality, gauge your acceptance, plot your revenge and... formulate your bullying. Think outside the cave to find yourself. I found myself to be a person who would completely erase himself if he could, to erase the tendrils of bullshit I had contaminated my family with. I could see it within them, forming their choices, hurting their spirits... I had told them they were stupid! They started to believe it. It was my energy, the forcing of my will upon them; contaminating them. I wished for myself to cease to exist so they could be sparred of this. I saw how this same bullshit seeped into me from the human beings which were my parents. Their lessons bled over onto me, just as mine did to my children and my wife. I hold no ill will to either my Mom nor my Dad. They are beautiful beings in the middle of their own lessons. We're all having a hard time at life, so give people a break whenever you can.
A strange thing happened in that pit of despair. A light started to shine. As I was looking at my "self" and seeing his actions and how they hurt others I accepted them, those actions. I heaped them onto my shoulders and vowed to carry them myself along with any negative energy they caused within my family. Call it karma if it helps you to picture it. I took up the negative karma of my being and all the karma I created within others through their reaction to my negative self. I decided that since all I had was myself that I was going to the man who I had always known myself to be. Initially, as a young man that sort of semi-opaque future "me: didn't cut it. He wasn't strong physically, flashy, powerful or rich though I wished him to be many times. I found that man in this pit and he was a hero. I hadn't seen it properly before. This man who would take responsibility, who was the essence of stability was who I needed and, fortunately, exactly who I was. There was, and still is, nothing flashy to me really. I'm still not rich nor powerful, but I know who I am and I am a good man. That good man could never have become without him first accepting that he wasn't a good man. It's a strange sort of paradox but it makes perfect sense to me. To be who you are, accept who you are; down to the depth of your soul; in truth, accept who you are. Accept that in that "what else could I do?" moments you chose a weak path. Then, and only then, can you be. That light was coming from my heart, coming from me. As I saw myself again, stripped of the clunky items of dress I had stacked onto me and I was so thin, like a vapor and I was light. If I was going to be light, my light would be truth.
So how does this make for a good marriage? Do we need sunglasses? I was just me in this reality. The pit was my hell and I dind't chose to run from it, I chose to face it and become. To do that I stripped away all those indiscretions, those weak moments when I was less than myself, when I felt my own heart sink at the words coming out of my mouth. There I was naked in essence and there for my wife to love me, and I mean really love me. I gave to her my true self, my heart which wished for love. She is in the process of stripping herself. It's so painful to watch and at the same time beautiful in a tragic sort of way. There we are, children blinking at the light, the dream with it's darkness fading and we hold each other, truly hold each other and we can't help but weep at the moments lost. But then that crying is just a step back into the dream...
When you're with your lover only they exist, so why cry at what is not happening now, be now, be with them with your heart truly open for them. You find you exist just for them. This is base camp. This place you exist in is the anchor of your marriage. You walk out of your cave as nothing more than that inner child which has no real shape, raw and tender from the layers being peeled off revealing nothing more than the spark of life who turned away and allowed those weak choices made. You are simply you, you just exist. You're not attaching to your partners approval to define who you are; no, you're simply being. They are there with you and you love them, for the person they are not the approval they give. Then love isn't a ball passed back and forth; it's the very air you breathe and every particle of reality. it's as though the first part of your marriage (in my case anyway) was like dating on-line then finally meeting. Again, in my case, I was nothing more than my exposed soul and I gave myself to her. It is really all I have to give. I can give you a pencil and it will be lost, taken, used up or maybe broken but it was never really yours it was just in your possession for a time. When you give your love you give your self. The way I see it, I ceased to be, for myself, in that moment and I became. It's odd but you can think of it as sacrificing Single-Ryan for Married-Ryan, or more to the point shedding the scaly selfish skin of single-me to emerge as real me. Another metaphor? Sure! When I cared for only myself, when I twisted my family to reflect favorably upon me instead of respecting them as people, as people I loved! I was then the caterpillar, I went within (not an accomplishment, a happening) and when I emerged I was the butterfly. My being is the compilation of my choices and I chose my family. I chose to be the best example I could for my boys. I chose love.
She chose me too.
That attitude of forcing others into actions we want is the mode of the bully. They might use the threat of physical force, or pain. They might use a secret about you to threaten you with exposure. They might use guilt or your dury pulling on the strings of your honor to play you. However you look at it when you force someone for your own gains, you're a bully. "It's for their own good" - you're a bully. "You made me do this!" - yeah, you're a bully. "How can you leave your_____ in this condition? Don't you care?" Yup, manipulative and a bully. So maybe you start to see, we're all bullies, all of us.
We live in a civilization in which to have for me I take from someone and pay less than it's worth. I'm always forcing my way, at the water-cooler, in the meeting room, in the bedroom; I know when I'm being insincere, shallow, hollow; when I've made this choice to show you something which isn't me so that I might get what I really want but can't ask for. The ones called bullies are just the ones who got good at the one style. Sure we all have our limits and you might say that you could never do what had been done to you, that you saw that one guy do, but they are subjective and meaningless unless actually in that moment. We all have within us the capability of being evil beyond imagine. It's our choices which define us though, isn't it? Not what we say we'd do, but what we actually did. So why are our standards set just above everyone else? Why don't we do what's right instead of what's easy?
It starts at home. It starts with who you choose to be. What you chose to give your soul to. You can choose some religious path, and I'd say if it makes you a good person, then it's a good thing. Sadly, so often we use that "doing of right" which always comes with someone else's explanation of how to do something, as our club of righteousness to bully some more, only with a fancier wrapper. Don't be that guy. Live and let live and if your cause is noble enough to fight for, then realize that the "fight" is really just appealing to someone's heart, to the best of them, so they can choose. Either way, if they agree or disagree you haven't manipulated them so you can trust, you haven't made them choose out of fear, so you can trust, you haven't subverted, coerced or outright robbed them so you can trust; you can trust that their heart, like yours, is true. You can experience true happiness then. It comes from letting go, becoming and being.
That is just the opinion of one former bully. We were only ever trying to be loved.
Find your basecamp and live the full tale of your own legendary life. Do it honestly and bring the light of truth with you where ever you may go. Be humble, be a good person, what will be, will be.
Namaste :-)
Very thought provoking and touching, as always. It's almost scary how each human is different and unique in so many ways, yet so very alike when it comes down to it. We all seem to falter much in the same ways, no matter who we are and what backgrounds we come from.
ReplyDeleteThank you for finding the words and the courage to help the rest of us find ourselves, when many times we seem so lost in the process. I know, personally, I have found myself attempting to fix my many mistakes, only to find myself so completely overwhelmed I get lost in the laberynth of my faults, unable to find a place to start.
One step at a time. One moment at a time.
Peace to you and yours =)
Thank you so much for your comment! I was hoping to eventually get some interaction from those reading. It has seemed like speaking into an empty room a bit.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe there is a "right" place to start. I believe, for me at least, the right place was the last time I made an excuse to myself so I would "look away" from some shortcut I was making. It may not have been "wrong" but it still hurt my spirit. When I look back at those moments where I was weak I lift up that gentle spirit who quietly said "no" from within but wasn't listened to. I cement in some way in reality that this is my heart, this gentle being is who I am. I load all the responsibility (karma) onto my shoulders with a vow to change that action and it's ways and I move on.
I have found that eventually by actively going back into those moments and choosing the right action, or the action my spirit inherently wanted to take, that I became myself.
I think of is as scrapping off the rust from the silver thread of my soul. In those moments where I want to avoid conflict, or what have you (fear) that I tarnish my spirit. It takes work and spiritual elbow grease to remove it all. It's a slow process and it leads to loving yourself.
Take it one moment (or scene) at a time. Work up to the big painful ones. Take breaks in between each one to center and find yourself and never give up. It IS a labyrinth a walk twisting this way and that within yourself and if you make it through you walk back out with less baggage, less worry, less fear and bring with you more love, more compassion, more patience. You have to give those things to yourself in order to have them to give to others.
When it feels overwhelming I must remember this:
Though I was doing something wrong all along my spirit was that of a good person. That is the reason I brave the gauntlet of my memories, to stand against what I did and stand FOR who I really am.
Thank you for this. I was just thinking somewhere along these lines last night, and then happened upon this today! It is a beautiful thing that you are so willing to share so much of yourself, so that others can learn and grow.
ReplyDelete