Do It Alone, in Groups

One of the more interesting concepts to get your head around is how the individual work we propose fits in with our constant "nagging" about building intimate relationships. Since the two things seem to be opposites, surely you must have to choose.

Well, no.

We're back to the idea of things being more than black or white. We're back to the idea that we could be doing two seemingly contradictory things at the same time, and far from being at cross-purposes, it may be the tension between the two poles or goals that causes the whole thing to work in the first place.

Idea one: the walk of life is a solo walk.

It's no great shakes to remind ourselves that we are born alone and die alone -- these are tasks we can't assign to someone else. It's also not really a stretch to understand that the rest of life is a solo walk, too.

I'm sure that there are directions for life (or ways of understanding life)  beyond the ones I presently see, but for now, my understanding is that I am here to figure myself out -- and in that process to take responsibility for how I am seeing and living my life. No matter how often I am tempted to want to list off the things I think are "making" my life miserable, in the end, I know that what makes the circumstances of my life miserable are my interpretations. 

So, I work at watching myself get myself going over my interpretations. I pretty much know I'm heading down the garden path when I start thinking or saying, "This isn't fair," or "Why are they (the ever mysterious and evil "they") doing this to me?" Other times, I confuse myself with what I actually want out of life, and then simply whine about how "tough" life is.

In fact, I am setting up my life, all the time, by virtue of the choices I am making. We create scenarios, or what I call "dramas," and we're completely in charge of both the script for the drama and the cast of characters that show up to play roles. 

An example: I was working with a woman who fell out of love with her husband, and promptly fell into love with a carpenter who was building an addition on to her house. The woman was unwilling to deal with the reality of her confused life. What she wanted was for her husband to agree to live with her as "a brother," and her carpenter friend to leave his family and spend his time with her. Until all of this happened, until everyone else changed, and happily, she insisted, she'd not be able to get on with her life or career. So, she started to wait.

I suspect she'd still be waiting, but ironically the husband and the carpenter talked, went out for a beer, bonded, (ah, male bonding...) and decided that she had the problem and that they weren't going to solve for her. They dumped it back in her lap. She was furious, as she had "planed it" so they would solve the dilemma for her. When I then refused to solve it, she terminated therapy, and determined to go home and wait to see what's going to happen next. Her drama is entitled: "Here I sit and wait and wait, and no one is making me happy."

What happens next in our lives is determined by what we set in motion and what we are willing to see and understand. That's it. Now, sure, stuff does happen that's out of our control, but all that means is that we have to figure out what we're going to do with the hand we're dealt. Whining about the cards dealt is simply a waste of time.

Rule two: You need an intimate friend or two.

We're been here before. An intimate friend is one with whom I am willing to be open and honest -- someone with whom I engage in clear communication. And the communication is about who I am today, what games I'm playing, where I'm stuck and what I'm figuring out.

Talking to ourselves, and to ourselves alone is the short road to delusion. This is so because we are so good at deluding ourselves. We set up a situation and assume that we can get away with it, and someone walks in and we're caught in our story. We begin blaming those around us, or making excuses, and dig ourselves a hole. And all that was ever necessary, way back in the beginning, was a conversation with an intimate who would challenge our assumptions.

And then, of course, we would have had to have listened to our friend and acted differently. Unless we really needed the drama we were about to set up.

If we are choosy, and we should be, we will end up with a short list of friends who are excellent at commenting on what we're doing and how it appears to them. We can solicit feedback -- and in listening to it cause ourselves to pull up short and see what we're missing. In other words, in intimate friendship, we avail ourselves of a slightly or widely different perspective.

Not to the exclusion of thinking for ourselves. As an additional stream of information. In this intimate conversation, we are reminded of how easy it is to head down a familiar path leading to a big crash, without choosing to be aware that we're doing it again. This wisdom comes in the form of intimate communication -- and we then, on our solo walk, we can chose to try things differently.

Now, admittedly, this requires the willingness to be vulnerable with a friend, to listen to what they have to say, and equally a willingness to stop shooting ourselves in the foot. A lot to ask, it seems.

Or not.

This week, examine your walk. How self responsible are you? How much of your life are you still blaming on past events, accidents, the behaviours of others, bad karma or whatever other crap you're spreading? How much of your life seems out of your control, dictated by the choices of others? How often do you remind yourself to look deeply at the life you are creating, right now, when none of that other past stuff is at all relevant?

And how often do you stop your hustle and sit down with a friend, and open up, and let them know what little or big drama you're setting up right now? How often do you invite them to comment, and how often do you listen? How often are you tempted to say, "I know that?" without noticing that your behaviour would indicate you really don't "know that?"  How willing are you to be teachable?

In the end, we walk alone, building a life, making a difference, (if we are wise) or building nothing, carping all the way. In the end we either trust a few people, or we scare ourselves into silence and isolation. In the end, as we always say, you choose.

So, choose consciously. Choose wholeness. As you walk alone. In the company of friends.