The end of a relationship tends to be a low point for most of us; it hurts to have something that you believed in and were once so sure about and then lose it, but it doesn’t have to be a referendum on you as a person. Of course we all make mistakes in relationships, but we can dwell on them or ask the question with these new realizations, “how can I use this to be the best partner I can be when the next opportunity arises? how can I get more of the good and less of the bad?” When our walls start collapsing, it’s critical to remember that there’s so much more on the other side. Looking back and reflecting can be a strength as it creates awareness, one of the world’s most valuable currencies.
Relationships are one of the great mysteries to me. As a human oriented towards math & logic (hence my affinity for BTC/sound money), my inherent predisposal is to seek truth through “proofs”, verifiable facts that illuminate the path forward. I often think about Euclid’s first common notion: “things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.” That’s a rule of mathematical reasoning. It’s true because it works and always will; in Euclid’s book he says this is “self-evident.” Relationships have been particularly challenging for me as most aspects are not black and white, there is rarely a “proof” or “self-evident” conclusion. Most of the decisions we make live in the gray zone, often sourced from our heart and our limbic system, and this is part of what makes it tough. People say, “follow your heart” or “trust your gut”, but what do you when your heart and your gut are not in sync, or your heart sends you mixed signals from one day to the next? The answer is, there is no “right” answer, and that can make relationships confounding and amorphous. The meeting of two personalities is like a science experiment with unknown chemical substances and when there’s a reaction, we shift, yet we never know what to expect.
I am learning to find gratitude in this great dance of love that happens between sentient beings. I believe relationships are one of the great vessels for catalyzing self-discovery in this universe. Joseph Campbell said “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” I find this to be a perfect metaphor for relationship “failures.” Although I don’t see them as failures at all (ck out the image below from ‘The Gap and the Gain’ on this subject), rather opportunities for us to pick up what our then-partner was putting down. To listen and receive the lessons from the universe that may come in the form of high pitch melodies or heavy metal, catalyzing our metamorphosis into the person we want to become to attract the partner of our dreams. “You don’t attract what you want, you attract what you are.” Each relationship experience, a perpetrator of our evolution, if we choose to allow it to be. Ten percent of life is what happens “to us” and 90% is how we react to those things. “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” – Pema Chödrön
Historically, I have not been compelled to share details and reflections from intimate relationships, as my natural tendency in moments of heartbreak and suffering is to go inward, be alone, process in isolation, and hold onto my pain for as long as possible—a glutton for punishment. But it seems so many people are experiencing relationship difficulties, sad endings leading to new beginnings, a tabula rasa panacea perhaps, and it seems to be one of the areas of life that most humans struggle to find stability and consistency in, so I thought it would be selfish to keep it all to myself. In the conspirituality capital that is Austin, TX, there is no need for contemplation because the explanation is in the stars—Venus went rogue to retrograde causing chaos in relationships to disrupt the natural order of things. Seriously though, let’s think about this for a second…for just about everything on this planet, we have instruction manuals on how things work, how to use them, how to put them together, etc. But us hominoids don’t come with a user guide (enter metaverse)—we are infinitely complex, the ground beneath us always shifting and changing. So, without our “how to be with me” guides consistently and adequately communicated to each other, we’re operating with blindfolds on and both hands tied behind our back. How can we realistically expect that to allow us to fully love, be happy, committed, in harmony, and fulfilled with a life partner?
Anyway, having recently been through an extremely painful break-up, I have relegated myself to living in a depressive K-hole for the last few months and I’m climbing out of the muck with lots of treasure. I was convinced I would spend the rest of my life with this magical human after making some mistakes and hasty decisions, but we didn’t share that sentiment. Coming out the other side, I’ve learned more about myself and relationships than I ever have in any other period of my life. And while I still carry a heavy burden from time to time, I have so much love and compassion for her despite things not working and am incredibly grateful for all the lessons that have surfaced in losing someone so dear to me. I suppose this is why Carl Jung said, “there’s no coming to consciousness without pain,” and Rumi said, “you have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.” These are my RUMInations…sit, be still, and listen…
1) ACCOUNTABILITY – no matter the circumstances, always be accountable for how you are complicit in creating the conditions you don’t want in a relationship (learning this the hard way). For that thing you’re pointing the finger at your partner that you don’t like, take a step back and acknowledge your role if you want to have a 50-50 healthy partnership. 
2) COMMUNICATION – dedicate time every month to have structured one-on-one time to be together with your phones turned off to check in on your core values, the health of the relationship, and what you’re building. A close friend shared the RADAR method with me, which I believe can dramatically increase the probability of success and keeping each other’s love tanks full in the long run.
3) SELF-WORTH – this can be easy to lose if you get rejected or broken up with; in John Gottman’s ‘The Relationship Cure’, he talks about the idea of “bids” happening all the time throughout relationships and how it can be very damaging when our bids for getting our needs met are dismissed or not even recognized; I was on both sides of this (rejecting my partner and then being rejected) and somewhere in the chaos, my vision became very blurry and I was unable to see the gifts that others purported to see in me. This can become a rapid self-fulfilling prophecy into a downward spiral, so give yourself some grace and acknowledge your gifts. “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” – Carl Gustav Jung
4) ALONE TIME – I have filled a lot of my down time with distractions, sucked into my black hole dopamine machine (iPhone) or needing to be with other people each time there’s a moment of silence vs. being with my thoughts and feelings. As Carl Jung said, “people will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” Even more, I found myself soliciting other’s opinions becoming more confused and questioning myself. Learning how to be alone is one of the foundational elements to having a happy and joyful life; so long as our happiness is attached to anything outside ourselves, we will never be truly free or happy. I’m re-learning how to be okay in isolation by being fun, thoughtful, outrageous, and ridiculous. I can’t help but think that part of our journey is being our own saviors, building a home inside ourselves and embodying the essence of knowing that we already have everything we need inside. “Sometimes being selfish is the most selfless thing you can do, because it’s only when you take care of yourself, can you truly take care of others.”
5) LOVE – I know I am not alone in this…I get to bring awareness to spreading myself way too thin and leaving the scraps of myself for my partner. I’ve referred to this as “pseudo-selfishism”. I have operated as if my partner should just conform to my life and all the things I’m doing without openly communicating or asking. Even worse, it leads to me not showing love, being too busy, and an inability to make my partner feel special, loved, or cared for. Words of affirmation and expressing love are a big surface area that I can focus on expanding. Why is it that it can be easy to not prioritize the most important people in our lives? Burnout or being busy is not a badge of honor. There’s a concept called the ‘Big Rock Theory’, popularized by Steven Covey, in which a teacher picks up an empty jar. She pours in some small pebbles at the bottom. Then she tries to place some larger rocks on top. The problem is they don’t fit. Then she gets a new empty jay of the same size. This time she puts the large rocks in first. Then the small pebbles in second and this time they fit. This is a metaphor. The big rocks represent the most essential responsibilities like health, family, and relationships. The small pebbles are things like work and career that are less important. And the sand are things like social media and doom scrolling. The lesson is that if you prioritize the most important things first, then there will be room in your life not only for what matters most but also for other things too. But if you do the reverse, you’ll spend your time on the trivial things and run out of space for the things that really matter. This is a great metaphor to prescribe prioritizing a life partner and determining what your big rocks are together.
6) ATTACHMENT – focus on detaching from the outcome of relationships since we often don’t have control over what’s going to happen; when we’re attached, we become prone to devastating heartbreak and disappointment when we don’t get what we want. The good news is that experience is what you got when you didn’t get what you were hoping for. ‘The secret to a happy life is low expectations,’ Danish Proverb. I was contemplating how one can cultivate non-attachment and a wise friend shared this idea…only focusing on our ability to continue give, receive, and let love flow, regardless of how long the other person remains the recipient of our love, and even irrespective of having a romantic partner to direct it to at all. One thing that is certain, is that love is ubiquitous and abundant and when I can’t find it, I take a hard look in the mirror at what I’m creating in the world that’s blocking me from being able to see it. It reminds me of this quote, “if you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” – Raylan Givens Justified
7) TRUST – trusting yourself, the process, the universe…just because I didn’t get the outcome I wanted, doesn’t mean I made a bad decision. The question is did I stick to my core values—lovingkindness & courage–being honest/open about my feelings and what I want, even if that leaves me susceptible to bigger heartache. This is what it feels like to operate from our authentic heart center vs. making decisions trying to generate a result—if we don’t ask for what we want how can we ever expect to receive it? In investing, we often say, “it’s about the swing, not the shot,” and that what’s most critical, is your process for making decisions vs. the outcome. I believe a consistent process with regular re-examination rooted in love will help us to avoid making the same mistakes over and over.
8) PLAY & INNER-CHILD – when times are tough, find outlets for play. Channel the spirit of your delicious inner-child…the unencumbered being who is free of society’s conditioning, expectations, generational trauma, and toxic behavior patterns. For me, that has been climbing (everything I can find), dancing, yelling ridiculous sounds, cartwheels, screaming into pillows, handstands, jumping, running, sliding, belly laughing, games, stupid curiosity (even about the odd things), letting go, and being truly present for each moment.
9) SUFFERING – is optional…a friend said to me, “Pain x Resistance = Suffering”. So, if your pain is a 10 and your resistance is a 10, your suffering is 100. But if your pain is a 10 and your resistance is a 2, your suffering is a 20. The Buddha called suffering a holy truth, because our suffering has the capacity of showing us the path to liberation. If you can’t remove your resistance, then embrace the suffering and let it reveal the path forward. I love both of these ideas as mental models for life. What will we choose?
10) COMPLACENCY & INTIMACY – it’s easy to take the big rocks for granted, until we lose them, and then we realize how much they really meant to us. Unfortunately, we don’t always get an opportunity at redemption. It’s also common to let the spark in the relationship fade, to stop planning dates, adventures, experiences, to stop experimenting with each other sexually, and to not plan romantic evenings that help to keep deeper intimacy and desire alive. I’ve got questions and reminders regularly scheduled in my calendar prompting awareness around where I’m being complacent in my life. If you’re being complacent about your partner, your best friend, your business, your job, your mom, your dad, your health, or any of the other obvious ones we tend to take for granted until it’s too late, right now is a moment to pause and make a change.
I hope there are some helpful insights in here that can enhance your relationship and facilitate more love, joy, and openness between you and your partner(s). Thank you for reading with me. Writing is an iterative cathartic process of reflection that helps me to metabolize my life experiences.
SOURCES:
https://lanredahunsi.com/the-big-rock-theory/
https://quozio.com/quote/ed4eb2e6/1025/sometimes-being-selfish-is-the-most-selfless-thing-you-can
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