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The closer we are to our intimate other, the more painful the absence or diminishing of closeness between us (and yet the less we mind such pain if our relationship is sufficiently mature).
A feeling of disconnection arises and thickens, the mind makes lists of reasons why, and attention gauges the density and strength of the distance between us and the other. Something in us says, “oh damn!” or “why?” and something else in us says, “I need to face this” — voices of alarm and voices of acceptance, simultaneously ricocheting through us.
Some witnessing capacity is perhaps present, but love is having trouble taking root. Stormwinds of endarkened feeling (anger, fear, shame, hurt) may make it difficult to see what is actually happening. And attachment to being right — very tempting in the midst of reactivity! — makes it even more difficult.
What’s left of us cannot see a way out — except perhaps intellectually — but there nonetheless usually is at least some degree of a knowingness that the way out is in. Instead of turning away from our pain, we can turn toward it. And, step by conscious step, we can enter it, cultivating more and more intimacy with it.
Being close to our partner feels so good, so heartwarming and enlivening, that it’s easy to make a problem out of times when we don’t feel close to him or her. What we’re telling ourselves at these times we need to learn not to take so seriously — unless there’s physical or emotional abuse involved — for it is mostly just the voice of hurt or self-importance in reactive headgear.
Our challenge, our ongoing labor of love, is to be as intimate as possible with whatever is occurring, including our and our partner’s stuckness, reactivity, or closed-off-ness. It is, of course, easier to spot the other’s stuckness and hold it accountable for ours. Why this is not funnier simply highlights the stickiness of our stuckness.
It’s not so easy to be intimate with the difficult stuff within when we’re in it up to our eyeballs. But after a certain point — the length of which provides an accurate measure of our self-inflicted suffering — what else is there to do? How much longer do we really want to grind away at our consistently unsatisfying righteous waltz of avoidance? How much more can we milk it for it’s-not-fair handouts?
Being intimate with the difficult stuff is not about feel-good payoffs but rather about not losing touch with what really matters, however fragile or slippery our connection to that may seem to be. Spending some time openly feeling — feeling into, feeling through, feeling for — our closed-off-ness to our partner opens us, if only by widening the cracks in whatever self-possessed containers we are busy occupying. Again, this isn’t easy, given that we — particularly if we’re really hurting — may not be feeling very much like taking a break from our funk or nasty mood or whatever else is so seemingly important that we’ve allowed it to literally possess us.
But when we are deep in the muck — caught up in feeling doubtful or otherwise negative about our relationship with our beloved other — we can at least acknowledge that that is where we are positioned, however embarrassing it might be to us. This is where we can very profitably drop all blame and stop indulging in reactivity (which may sometimes appear to be far from reactive!), and also in any self-condemnation for being reactive.
And we might as well also drop any romantic notions we have regarding advanced stages of relationship. Difficulties will, to whatever degree, continue to happen, reactivity will not disappear, and obstacles large and small will continue to cross our path — regardless of what depth of relationship we’re occupying. And thank God for this, for without it and the discomfort it provides, we would very likely stay stuck, too cozily snuggled into our daily life’s automatic acts to awaken from the entrapping dreams we so readily occupy.
This use of discomfort — this willingness to allow our suffering to be a form of grace —sooner or later generates gratitude in the revelatory raw (especially as we experience being-centered relationship), gratitude for what we “normally” do not feel any gratitude, gratitude for simply being alive, and gratitude for having the capacity to make wise use of difficult conditions.
And what gets us back on track? Sometimes making and taking enough time to let what has happened settle; sometimes letting another’s pain really touch us; sometimes remembering what really matters. Mostly, though, it simply is a matter of becoming more fully present, including emotionally — waking up in the midst of our reactivity. Even if we are in a seriously endarkened state, we can be present in it and to it, and we can also remember to love, regardless of how stony or numb or reactive we may feel.
This does not mean that our heart will necessarily open very easily, but it does mean that a seed of awakening and care is being deliberately nourished. What else can we do when we are off track, and recognize that this is so, other than to locate, nourish, and fuel our intention to get back on track? As we lift our head from the mud, we are akin to the first creatures that left the sea and found themselves on land, wriggling free enough of their past to take in the sky.
So many clouds, shapeshifting in multiple speeds, coming and going, long-lasting and short-lived, silver and black and creamy and drenched in fiery splendor, cloud after cloud, all passing through an achingly immense purity of sky.... We fundamentally are that sky, that unbound effortlessly sentient presence, home to every one of our qualities, containing both thunderbolt and ethereal wisp, already having room for all, already beyond whatever we take ourselves to be, yet also always right here, exactly here, remembering when we are clouded by difficulties that whatever is happening is only part of what is really happening.
This we cannot truly figure out or explain but only embrace, letting it remind us of who and what we are. Thus do we expand our love. Thus do we touch what has always touched us. Thus do we go on, gradually lessening our demand that our path be straight, until we are not only walking Freedom’s pathless path but in a very real sense are that path. This is not the end but the beginning of a truly human life—and what a joy, what grace, what a miracle of mutuality, what a sacred privilege, to do and share this with another!
ABOUT TRANSFORMATION THROUGH INTIMACY: THE JOURNEY TOWARD MATURE MONOGAMY
Intimate relationship has long been viewed and lived as a lesser alternative to spiritual life. More recently, the need to integrate our spiritual and intimate lives, rather than maintaining separate spheres and relationships on autopilot, has become increasingly apparent. Given the high rates of infidelity and divorce, it would seem that the possibilities of freedom through intimacy have not been explored in much depth. Too often we pull away when relationships become difficult, missing out on the rewards of connecting more profoundly.
The passage from immature to mature monogamy is not only a journey of ripening intimacy with a partner, but also a journey into and through zones of ourselves that may be very difficult to accept and integrate with the rest of our being. Transformation through Intimacy explores intimate relationships through a four-stage lens: me-centered, we-centered codependent, we-centered coindependent, and being-centered. Bringing his many years of experience as a psychotherapist and spiritual practitioner to the subject, Masters shows readers not only how to navigate the thickets of reactivity, conflict, shame, anger, fear, and doubt, but how to understand them in a new light so that a deeper level of relating to oneself and one's partner becomes possible, opening new levels of trust, commitment, and love.
"This is an important and tremendously useful book, packed with wisdom and insight. Highly recommended!" –Ken Wilber, author of Integral Spirituality
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