Home Alone, Fam­ily Ties

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.

If you haven’t found your­self, how will any­one else find you?

Some years ago, a young woman of my acquain­tance went through a breakup. She was quite beside her­self, and e-mailed me. I sug­gested she have a look at all of the issues she raised: self-awareness, hon­esty, open­ness, her sex­u­al­ity, etc. We went back and forth a cou­ple of times, and then she wrote that another per­son had asked her out, and so she would work on her issues some other time.

As far as I know, 5 years later, she’s yet to do that.

Because the real issue is being com­fort­able in her own skin, able to relate to and know her­self. As opposed to the norm, which is to view one­self through the lens of “how oth­ers see me,” and “what is my role?”

Oth­ers see me…

The most dif­fi­cult thing in the world to do is to look at how we are set­ting our­selves up. In the above exam­ple, my young friend spent an inor­di­nate amount of time describ­ing the moti­va­tions of the guy who dumped her. Now, in actu­al­ity, all he said was, “I need time to work on myself.” Se went on and on about what she thought was “really” going on—his sex­ual pref­er­ences (which she judged she didn’t meet), his lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion (which she judged to be about her being unre­cep­tive,) etc. She was liv­ing her life in reac­tion to what she imag­ined he was thinking.

We all ben­e­fit from ask­ing our­selves, “How did I set this cir­cum­stance in motion?” In other words, to self-explore what my role is in the drama I am cre­at­ing. What we tend to do is to ten­ta­tively put our toe in the water, and then anx­iously crane our necks around to see how the crowd is responding.

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, my task is first of all to notice, and then to let go of, 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.

The “home alone” sce­nario requires that I look after my house, which I am alone in—that I under­stand that I brought every­thing into the house that is there, and that oth­ers flit through my house like dis­em­bod­ied ghosts. Of course they do. Inside of you is no one but you.

The next time you are tempted to ask, “What will peo­ple think?,” remem­ber there is only one way to find out. Ask some­one. And then be will­ing to lis­ten and hear what they have to say, remem­ber­ing that their opin­ion is just that—their opinion.

The strange choice is to ask your­self that ques­tion, and then to pop into your head and answer for “peo­ple.” “Oh, they’ll think I’m irre­spon­si­ble,” or what­ever. Talk­ing to your­self gives you no data about others–that you, 100%.

Up your tol­er­ance for self-discovery by remind­ing your­self that you are always “home alone,” even when sur­rounded by oth­ers, and the only way to func­tion respon­si­bly is to own your home. To hold on loosely to your dra­mas. And to act with clar­ity and integrity.

Fam­ily Ties

Your bio­log­i­cal fam­ily is just that—it’s the result of the ran­dom join­ing of sperm and egg. There’s noth­ing mag­i­cal about it. It is what it is, and is noth­ing else. Might be great, might be “not so much.”

“I just want to have the Xmas I’ve always dreamed about, instead of the one I always get.”

I’ve heard vari­a­tions on that one for­ever, from clients and friends alike. There’s this imag­i­nary “norm,” usu­ally Hol­ly­wood cre­ated, and then there’s “my dys­func­tional fam­ily.” The Hol­ly­wood ver­sion is held up as the real or authen­tic ver­sion, and the real crew are found wanting.

I sug­gest that such folk gen­tly let go of the myth, relate as best they can with the fam­ily they have, and move on. And by move on, I mean cre­ate the fam­ily they want from the “inti­mate” friends that sur­round them.

The Dance of Intimacy

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. The dance between inti­mates has the poten­tial to cut through the sto­ries, pre­var­i­ca­tions, and bull­shit, and in that clar­ity, to let go of what is not working.

Who would you select as your “cre­ated fam­ily?”

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 we appear to them. We solicit feedback—and as we lis­ten, we choose 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.

We cre­ate for our­selves 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 do 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.

That’s it from us for this year. Dar­bella and I wish you Season’s Best, and we’ll be back to you in the New Year!