Larry opened his talk to sharing with us his first experience of being in love. It was the summer of his first year in college and even though they connected deeply and spent a very powerful summer together, by August his love had to return to college. They shared new heights of happiness and engagement of one another, beyond what friendship brings. And then after a brief summer, just like that he was gone... As Larry talked about the pain he experienced, it quickly brought to mind my own first experience of being in love and having that person disappear from my life. Like Larry, my first experience of being in love was in college. And I cherish it fully these days. There is nothing quite like having grown to love a person, the beauty and creativity you see in their mind and heart, the qualities of their voice and expressions, the way that they engage you in conversation. The way that their presence pulls on you, grasping you, tugging gently at your hips or yanking you by the ankles and making you dance toward them. Equally fulfilling, perchance you get to see them loving you back and embracing your qualities. The relationship becomes a celebration of your mutual support and shared energy each day. It's all about the heavy magnetism of two kindred souls being drawn together and saying "this I can get with." It's unlike any other experience in its distinct imprint on your personal universe. It builds something up inside you that makes you always look forward to moments as simple as eye contact or a smile with that person. And add to that a deep romantic attraction and, most importantly, the unfamiliarity of that experience to a young person with a sensitive body and soul. A vortex of feeling awaits...
Unlike, Larry, I made the choice myself to detach from this person. However, making that choice was not without severe, heartrending, pain. I remember the conversation that led to us going our separate ways, and I remember closing the door behind him and involuntarily, in the most cinematic of ways, having my back fall against the door, sinking to the ground, clutching my stomach, and bursting into tears. The pain was unreal, unforgettable, and instantaneous. I've thankfully not experienced anything like it since. I think that getting suddenly pushed off a building might be the only thing comparable. Because I have never been quite so attached as that since, nothing has ever been the same. But at the time there was a sharp sense of loss deep in my stomach and a feeling like my lungs had collapsed and something about my very essence had been torn from some strange region between my heart and my throat...
Unlike, Larry, I made the choice myself to detach from this person. However, making that choice was not without severe, heartrending, pain. I remember the conversation that led to us going our separate ways, and I remember closing the door behind him and involuntarily, in the most cinematic of ways, having my back fall against the door, sinking to the ground, clutching my stomach, and bursting into tears. The pain was unreal, unforgettable, and instantaneous. I've thankfully not experienced anything like it since. I think that getting suddenly pushed off a building might be the only thing comparable. Because I have never been quite so attached as that since, nothing has ever been the same. But at the time there was a sharp sense of loss deep in my stomach and a feeling like my lungs had collapsed and something about my very essence had been torn from some strange region between my heart and my throat...
The gut twisting and throat tearing of that cold winter day in 2010 in Chicago for me was the pain of "attachment to outcomes." Larry once witnessed a very young girl being rejected by her crush. He could see how "The pain was real for her." And he explained the nature of the pain she was feeling and the pain he felt when his first love went back to college. He talked about how we often spend a lot of time "wishing that something could be what it's not or wishing it could never end." "When things are going well we want to make it permanent." Not just in love, in our jobs, in our financial lives, in our friendships and social sphere. I can't help but think of how I feel in Portland right now. I am so enamored with so many facets of my life that I do in a way hope that nothing will change. But luckily, I am present. Unlike in college, when I was so head over heels upside down in love. Each experience and memory I have taken from my time with that person, retrospectively speaking, is glowing and warm in isolation to all others. But in my early years of adulthood, because of my immaturity and controlling nature, I was always looking ever forward to the next time, from the moment each time together had ended. So I got deeply attached to my experience of a particular person, and I would say honestly that I even closed myself off to other experiences that I could have been having as a result of that attachment. I was no longer present in other areas of my life that he was not involved in. I became so attached to the form that was choosing to receive my love and I focused it so outwardly that I think I lost much of myself in it--which is dangerous for relationships because it is hard to continue loving someone once there is no longer a whole and balanced person still there to love...
Even more so, when I lost that relationship, did I become limited in my ability to form new attachments and share new intimacies. It was as if just the simple fact of having been loved by that person at that time in my life was not a great enough gift. I somehow had developed such a narrow perspective on my future that it had all but dissipated completely without him in it. But why was I thinking this way? After all, I saw him as smart, vibrant, funny, lively, beautiful, and kind. To have such a person choose to share love with me ought to be viewed as a precious gem of experience and ought to feed your sense of wholeness and worth. But I could not take that and move forward with it. I felt I had lost something irreplaceable and I not only feared new connections in my life because of the outcome, I also withheld myself from giving to them fully. And it was the fullness of giving in the previous experience that had for no short amount of time allowed me to cultivate a fulfilling sense of love and intimacy in my life.
What I gained from the experience, I never lose, I just carry it with me to a new place, or a new person--a new form. As Larry puts it, we ought to be thinking that "The feeling of knowing that I'm loved...that sense of intimacy is mine." Even if I end up taking it to a new relationship with a new person, I get to keep that always. And that is what I can take away from the experience. And maybe that seems strange to some people. How can you just replace another person? Well, you can't. But at the same time, you cannot control other human beings. And you cannot guarantee the outcomes of your relationships. So why not celebrate the shape that they take, for the time that they exist, and then bring that healthy presence of self into the next phase... And I don't know if you've looked around lately, but there are a lot of cool people out there if you become receptive to new relationships, whether creative, professional, spiritual, romantic or plain ol' friendly fun.
When things are going really well and we feel like we are thriving and being rewarded for our endeavors, we may become anxious to "lock it down." But that is not the way life works. Larry moved the discussion of attachment to form into a discussion of good phases and bad phases of life. And as Larry said, "A good period of time in my life is just a time, a phase, it is not me." If you are really wanting to embrace the fullness of life experience and the magic of the world we live in, you need to acknowledge that your life will not always be easy and rewarding and fluffy and happy in the conventional sense. You will experience very real losses. We all do. You will experience failure and frustration. But these experiences should be met with the same vibrancy and optimism we take to our successes and gains. "You are the sum of what you have taken from your experiences. And at any place, at any time in your life, you are capable of being whole." Love the things that enter your life beyond your control. You never know what they could produce. And opening yourself up to experience, both good and bad, sweet and painful, is the most nourishing way to live life.
Even more so, when I lost that relationship, did I become limited in my ability to form new attachments and share new intimacies. It was as if just the simple fact of having been loved by that person at that time in my life was not a great enough gift. I somehow had developed such a narrow perspective on my future that it had all but dissipated completely without him in it. But why was I thinking this way? After all, I saw him as smart, vibrant, funny, lively, beautiful, and kind. To have such a person choose to share love with me ought to be viewed as a precious gem of experience and ought to feed your sense of wholeness and worth. But I could not take that and move forward with it. I felt I had lost something irreplaceable and I not only feared new connections in my life because of the outcome, I also withheld myself from giving to them fully. And it was the fullness of giving in the previous experience that had for no short amount of time allowed me to cultivate a fulfilling sense of love and intimacy in my life.
What I gained from the experience, I never lose, I just carry it with me to a new place, or a new person--a new form. As Larry puts it, we ought to be thinking that "The feeling of knowing that I'm loved...that sense of intimacy is mine." Even if I end up taking it to a new relationship with a new person, I get to keep that always. And that is what I can take away from the experience. And maybe that seems strange to some people. How can you just replace another person? Well, you can't. But at the same time, you cannot control other human beings. And you cannot guarantee the outcomes of your relationships. So why not celebrate the shape that they take, for the time that they exist, and then bring that healthy presence of self into the next phase... And I don't know if you've looked around lately, but there are a lot of cool people out there if you become receptive to new relationships, whether creative, professional, spiritual, romantic or plain ol' friendly fun.
When things are going really well and we feel like we are thriving and being rewarded for our endeavors, we may become anxious to "lock it down." But that is not the way life works. Larry moved the discussion of attachment to form into a discussion of good phases and bad phases of life. And as Larry said, "A good period of time in my life is just a time, a phase, it is not me." If you are really wanting to embrace the fullness of life experience and the magic of the world we live in, you need to acknowledge that your life will not always be easy and rewarding and fluffy and happy in the conventional sense. You will experience very real losses. We all do. You will experience failure and frustration. But these experiences should be met with the same vibrancy and optimism we take to our successes and gains. "You are the sum of what you have taken from your experiences. And at any place, at any time in your life, you are capable of being whole." Love the things that enter your life beyond your control. You never know what they could produce. And opening yourself up to experience, both good and bad, sweet and painful, is the most nourishing way to live life.
So we can love a person the best we can and that will always be a good thing. But if we get attached to a particular relationship and person, and that person leaves us or changes the form of the relationship we may feel heartache. As Larry put it "Shift happens." The goal is to "be attached to the feelings [an experience] brings but not to its outside form...detach from the form of it and just revel in the experience of it." And of course, you must be in the moment to experience the moment. "Attachment to locking down form" in life only leads to disappointment and heartache. That heartache comes from a desire to keep the form of our love or our relationship exactly the same--which is an aspect of it we cannot control. If instead we are open to change--whether it be a breakup or just a renegotiation of boundaries--and we choose to adapt and continue to love others as much as we can because it feels good, we have a much better chance of avoiding heartache and actually attracting more love than ever before...
Larry once saw a little girl in public doing that happy but painful sounding squeal thing that little girls do sometimes. He appreciated her life and energy. He also happen to notice that in that moment, her father was not appreciating her. Rather, he was talking on his cell phone, probably arguing with a coworker about something job related. And it occurred to Larry that at that particular moment, the father was missing out on his beautiful daughter's powerful expression of self. Now, of course, all of us miss being present for rewarding parts of our lives on a day to day basis. And this certainly doesn't make the man a bad person, or even a bad father. But his daughter will grow fast. She will only be a child for a short time. Then she'll be a teenager. Then an adult. And then she might walk down the aisle. He will blink and before long his baby will be all grown up. Now her father might feel at some point while he watches her grow up that he missed some special part of it by accident. But dwelling on that only causes him to lose out on current moments because the relationship is there and re-connection with his little girl is always possible. She's just in a different form. Just because he can't go back in time to when she was a squealing eight year old and get off the phone to stand witness, doesn't mean he can't look in her beautiful adult eyes and see that same vibrant energy that has always been there. Even if you miss one part, it doesn't mean you have lost the relationship. And dwelling on loss impacts your opportunities to receive in the present.
The real question is whether or not you feel capable of detaching from the forms of good in your life and just embracing the experience of it. According to Henry Ford, "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right." My current poetry project has had me at times totally torn up over the outcomes. Will it turn out the way I intended? Will it be beautiful enough or perfect enough in its form? Will anyone love or receive my art? Will it make any money or push me toward a more prosperous and fulfilling place in life? Will I be competent enough to organize such a large endeavor and share it in a more powerful way than I previously thought myself capable of?
The real question is whether or not you feel capable of detaching from the forms of good in your life and just embracing the experience of it. According to Henry Ford, "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right." My current poetry project has had me at times totally torn up over the outcomes. Will it turn out the way I intended? Will it be beautiful enough or perfect enough in its form? Will anyone love or receive my art? Will it make any money or push me toward a more prosperous and fulfilling place in life? Will I be competent enough to organize such a large endeavor and share it in a more powerful way than I previously thought myself capable of?
Not knowing how to do something but having the will, knowing you will find a way, is a dive into uncertainty and it requires detachment from the outcome. It will bring extraordinary growth no matter what happens. And if you happen to find a way to accomplish something, to be successful in however you choose to define that for yourself, than all the better. But if you only did things you already knew you could do, years could pass and you would never feel different, new, daring, and strong. "Center in on the feelings and experience, rather than the form or the outcome." And the growth that comes from embracing uncertainty and detaching from outcomes will make you feel as if you no longer have to worry about the past or the future. They are not the moments that make the greatest difference to you right now.
"If we really dwell on our enjoyment of life, life will bring us more things to enjoy." --Larry
"If we really dwell on our enjoyment of life, life will bring us more things to enjoy." --Larry
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