*

From the time I was a wee slip of a girl, I’ve suffered from searing jealousies so powerful they seemed to bring with them the threat of annihilation. Perhaps there was originally an instinctual element at play: to be neglected or forgotten by one’s caretakers as a completely dependent child, after all, can mean one really doesn’t survive. The underlying fear, anyway, feels that deep and primal. It’s not just run-of-the-mill fear, it’s visceral terror. Inspiring some uneasy nausea to boot. Over this nearly intolerable baseline emotion there’s an equally painful acquired overlay of shame, of self-blame: Why am I not deserving? What fatal flaw do I have that prevents me from mattering?

I can look over my elementary and secondary school years and see how having these emotions percolating in my young psyche created an infinite regress of reactivity, a heightened propensity to take every instance (and later every intimation) of not being the chosen one as a fundamental threat as well as a core criticism. Having my little playmate Caitlin decide she wanted to play with Laura, for instance, rather than with me, felt tantamount at the time to taking out a big eraser and rubbing me off the planet. And that barely even approaches the degree of pain and humiliation I experienced in my teens when my friend Katie was perennially preferred to me by our clean-cut church cohorts. So when my first love started spending quality time with one of my best friends, I looked the other way — dreading but at the same time refusing to entertain the worst. The mere thought was intolerable to me. Of course the inevitable happened, anyway, and I was in such an agony and felt so worthless I wanted to throw myself in the river and drown.

Time and time again I found myself confronting these same overpowering emotions as an adult. Granted, I could have decided to actively avoid situations and people that would bring them up; this is often considered the healthy thing to do. Find friends and lovers who don’t evoke your jealousies or will never do anything that threatens your sense of security. This is what my mother did, I think, in marrying my father. She wanted none of the drama of her parents’ endlessly painful marriage; she longed for safety, and she found it in a partner who would never even do anything unpredictable.

But transcendence can’t come from avoidance. Safety doesn’t necessarily bring about growth. My soul, at least, knew what it wanted. It wanted to face down and even befriend its dreadful green-eyed monster, not lock it in the closet.

I didn’t consciously figure this out until recently. For a long time I blamed myself (as is the trend) for gravitating toward everything and everyone “wrong.” When in fact everything was all right.
*

“If you do not love too much, you do not love enough,” said Blaise Pascal (or so quoth Rob Brezsny), a man so sour on human relations I would have thought him incapable of making such a statement. Women Who Love Too Much: that was a bestseller by Robin Norwood full of cautionary finger-wagging about catering to The Wrong Men. What does it mean to love too much? And are these two talking about the same thing?

I doubt it. Obsessive behavior, groveling, desperation, and tolerance of abuse may be considered manifestations of “love,” as well as misguided efforts to change the other person, but I don’t think that’s what Pascal was talking about. No, it’s something other than the compulsive enslavement to one’s own unresolved emotional dramas and residue that can act as the golden thread, leading one out of the labyrinth of neurosis.

But it takes spools and spools of it.

Byron Katie spins out the gold simply and beautifully in one of her workshops with a participant upset by the interest the man she’s been dating has in another woman.

*

Woman: I want Roger to break up with Francesca…
Katie: Is that true? Go there (laughs). Just a question.
Woman: (Pause) I don’t know.
Katie: Do you care about him?
Woman: (Long pause) Only if he does what I want. (Audience laughter; Katie and the woman start laughing too)
Katie: Is it beginning to make sense why he wants another relationship? (Everyone laughs uproariously)
Woman: (Laughing) No!
Katie: (Laughing) Not at all! You want him to break up with this woman. Is that true? Is that what you want?
Woman: No…I don’t think so.
Katie: So how do you react when you pretend to believe that thought?
Woman: Um…pretty hysterically, pretty dramatically.
Kate: Isn’t it juicy? Don’t you love it? (They laugh)
…

Woman: Roger shouldn’t fall in love with another woman….
Katie: Is that true?
Woman: (Long pause) Mmm…that’s a hard one…(sighs)..God…
Katie: He shouldn’t fall in love with another woman. Can you really know that that’s true?
Woman: No.
Katie: So how do react when you believe that thought?
Woman: Oh…God…I want to kill him. I want to kill myself, actually. (Starts crying softly.)
Katie: (Gently) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I really understand this. You know, that’s why I’m a lover of what-is. It’s so painful when I’m not. How do I know he should fall in love with someone else? He does if he does. There’s nothing we can do about it. It is what it is. And where the pain really comes in is, we’re all lovers of reality, we’re just not aware of it yet. We want what is. And the term is unconditional love, you know. I call it just “sanity.”

*
We tell tales, we write stories (often based on our past), and leave out at least half the truth. Radical honesty like Katie’s dismantles that frame, dissipates the plot, allows us to see without those superimposed interpretations. Can we really say we know what’s best? Would we honestly want someone to be with us if it weren’t the right thing for them, or for us?

Freed up, we become more generous with each other. We recover that initial “too-much” love that led us into a full confrontation with our vulnerabilities.

*

When you dive fully into a feeling that’s unpleasant and fear-based, like jealousy, surrendering to the waves, at first it seems like a vast ocean that will drown you. Who would want to swim in that cold, cold water?
‘
But when you don’t actually die, you become curious: what is this I’m feeling, and where did it come from? The emotional reaction always has, for me, had its source in those vulnerabilities from a much earlier time — episodes of humiliation or of being left out (e.g. by Caitlin). Once I’ve really let myself feel the original dramas, the ancient terror and the shame, I find that the present becomes much less overwhelming and much clearer. Now is not then, and you are not my daddy. What I am so desperate for is back there, on the playground. The nightmare fades in the light of day, and I see you for the first time.

Taking the emotional charge off whatever is happening, de-personalizing it, I can look at everyone involved as themselves rather than as characters in my tragic story. I can better see their own fears and their own needs, and feel compassion toward their own situations. Seeing them, I can relate to them as something other than my highly charged and unresolved projections.

Like anyone, they just want happiness, after all, an end to fear, and to be loved. Single mothers may worry whether they’ll be able to provide for their children, and if they’ll grow old alone. Other women may struggle with their weight and a cultural image of beauty that largely excludes them. Still others may hide beneath independence and a brassy exterior a deep woundedness. A man, for his part, may fear for his freedom and yearn for a greater purpose — unsure, perhaps, what any further entanglements will cost him (emotionally and otherwise) and whether he is viewed as a mere commodity.

Relieved of my intense vulnerability, I find that I want them all to be happy, not to be afraid, and to feel loved.

I want the man to feel free…as free as my overwhelming love for him is. I want him to live his adventure, whether or not I ever get to caress his beautiful loins again. How do I know he should fall in love with someone else? He does if he does. There’s nothing I can do about it. I can only bless him, and wish for the best outcome for everyone. This “sublime generosity” (Rumi) wells me up until I’m full from the inside out.

The next time I dive into jealousy, I find that I am only swimming in a pond.

*
The common wisdom is to contract rather than to expand, to protect against further triggering of old pain. Reject those who seem so much as inclined to reject you. Don’t go there! Don’t let it happen again! But I consider turning around and walking toward my demons to be a spiritual practice. Once again I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Rainer Maria Rilke:

And if we only arrange our life in accordance with the principle that tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

My green-eyed monster is only a very scared and hurt little girl inside me who needs my love and compassion. And the wolves and sirens and pirates that appear to threaten me in others are, at heart, just other small girls and boys trying to find their way the best way they know how. There is no dragon. There are no bad guys. There is only us.

Happy New Year, everyone. May you transform all your dragons.

I am no longer alone in my apartment.

This new companion of mine has followed me around for the last week like a puppy. He comes to find me as soon as I come home.

He doesn’t seem all that interested in stray bits of food in the kitchen, like others of his kind; he’s interested in me. He wants to be where I am; he’s all over me, unabashed and inexplicably unafraid. Right now he’s on my left thumb.

I think this fly is in love with me.

**

At first I was annoyed and distracted, swiping and swatting at him as he buzzed loudly around my ears and landed at random places on my body while I was trying to eat, read, or work on the computer. Oddly, he rarely went for my plate. What kind of fly doesn’t go straight for the plate?

Then at some point I suddenly remembered everything I’d been saying about nonresistance, allowing, and presence.

I stopped reflexively swatting, and started paying attention.

**

That’s when I noticed how attentive and attached this tiny creature seemed to be to me, for whatever reason. He was like some microscopic Marcie to my Peppermint Patty.

**

And it occurred to me that I’d be rid of him soon enough. How long do flies live, especially indoors? One day, I knew, I’d find his dried-up little exoskeleton in the corner of a windowsill.

Maybe I should appreciate the company while it lasted.

It’s been years, after all, since I’ve had a pet. Or a significant other for that matter.

**

My insect friend lands on my eyebrow, or nose, and it tickles; I snort with laughter and he momentarily hovers, only to land again somewhere equally ticklish. It really is a disclipline, not to react with a swipe of the hand.

Yesterday morning he landed on my bare back and took a little walk. It felt like a feather-light caress on my suddenly keenly sensitized skin. It was pleasant; I would never have noticed that before.

**

I thought of Byron Katie, and how she awakened one morning without concepts, with a cockroach crawling across her foot. She watched it, fascinated, felt the brush of its threadlike legs. This is perhaps a perfect instance of what is meant by beginner’s mind. There is no more “icky bug;” there is only another living presence in the room with you. Or on you.

**

I held out my hand; he landed there, as if discerning my intention, and proceeded to rub his front legs together and perform what appeared to be some sort of repetitive grooming ritual upon his pin-sized, goggle-eyed head.

I wondered then: do I know you?

**

Just for a moment, that thought flashed through my head; most of the people with whom I spend my time these days believe in reincarnation, and some days I believe in it too.

Could this be someone I once knew, someone who was very fond of me, who died and got busted down to the insect kingdom for some massive karmic infraction?

(It’s embarassing to think, in that light, what this miniscule entity has seen me do in the week we’ve been together. This is intimacy of an order I doubt most live-in couples experience. He sits on my head while I sit on the pot.)

**

Like many humans, this fly likes lips.

Maybe mine are salty, or sweet, or smell like food; whatever the reason, he’ll go there and stay if I let him. Now there’s a challenge — to sit still while a fly wanders around on your mouth.

If this strikes you as disgusting or unhygenic, remember that dogs have cleaner mouths than humans. And you know where dogs’ mouths have been.

**

I wonder if Emily Dickinson had relationships with the spiders in her room. When your world becomes very small and quiet, the smallest things become larger and more audible.

**

My tiny teacher has told me: take nothing for granted. Look. Listen. Notice. Feel every sensation.

Am I a nuisance?

I am what I am.

Rethink your definitions. Befriend me.

I, like you, will not be here long. Take the opportunity to interact, creature to creature. It might not be as bad as you think.

**

The stillness in the room seems odd. I’ve actually called out, “Where are you, fly?”

He was repeatedly kissing my face goodnight before I went to sleep last night. Maybe he knew something I didn’t.

In the corner of my eye, the shadow from a fly or bee outside dances in the bright square of sunlight on the bed; my head whips around.

Nothing. I am the only motion in the apartment.

A quick sweep of the window areas and under the radiators is inconclusive. I check the corners and beneath furniture and find only dust bunnies.

I am most definitely alone.

Again.

**

The dripping of the kitchen faucet into the cup beneath it is making a syncopated music.

I remember when the book Loving What Is by Byron Katie came out. My coworker at the bookstore where I worked at the time, a fellow classics major, scoffed loudly at what he took to be its thesis — that if you didn’t like an unpleasant fact you could dispense with it by calling its truth into question. He had no patience for such nonsense. I thought it was a little subtler than that, and perhaps closer to the Eastern idea that we perceive the world through a veil of illusion, colored by our limited prejudices, but I kept my mouth shut. I believed he was smarter than I was.

It wasn’t until years later that, in the midst of deep personal suffering, I listened to the introductory CD a well-meaning friend of my former roommate had given me. Hearing a young man whose family disapproved of him (familiar territory, for me) going through Katie’s questions made me stop in my tracks. The next participant, who was ready to give her noncommittal boyfriend an ultimatum, had me weeping openly by the end of her inquiry. Somehow the shift in perception that Katie facilitated made everyone see their own folly as well as experience more directly the love that existed within themselves, both toward their own misguided, suffering selves, and toward the loved ones they had been blaming for their pain.

It was a revelation.

What Katie does is have you vent your grievances on paper: “I am saddened and angered by X because he or she does/is/thinks Y…” and then go on to say what you would like the other person (or in the case of self-criticism, yourself) to do/be/think differently. She then takes each statement’s underlying assumptions one by one and deconstructs them thus:

• Is it true?
• Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
• How do you feel when you think that thought?
• Who would you be without that thought?

Then she has you “turn it around,” which can mean either switching the pronouns, adding a negative or opposing term to negate the statement, or making the statement about oneself only (also, when criticizing oneself, substituting “my thoughts about” for “I” or “my”).

For example: I could say, “I am saddened and angered by my mother because she judges me and wants to control what I believe.”

The assumption is “my mother shouldn’t judge me.”

Is it true? Unquestionably true?

Maybe it would be nicer for me, but what’s actually happening? She’s a born-again Christian. And a parent. It’s practically her function to judge. (Actually, it’s an explicit part of the modern evangelical job description. Check the website.) She’s going to do it whether I want her to or not. As Katie says, “When you argue with reality, you lose — but only one hundred percent of the time.”

And how do I feel when I think “she shouldn’t judge me?”

Resentful, resistant, not wanting to have anything to do with her or the rest of my family. Bitter. Angry.

Who would I be without that thought?

It takes a minute to imagine, to pretend I’m constitutionally incapable of thinking “my mother shouldn’t judge me.” It brings me into the present, rather than into the disappointments of the past or anxieties about the future. It helps me see my mother as she is, without the filter of anger or aversion or fear. Suddenly I’m no longer trying to control her. She will do whatever she does; it’s not up to me. I can simply relax and stop obsessing about it. I’m free to be however I want to be. If I blurt out “holy shit!” in front of her for some reason, well, she may frown, but the world won’t come to an end.

Then comes the turnaround.

My mother should judge me.
I shouldn’t judge my mother.
I shouldn’t judge me.

The second speaks most powerfully to me at the moment, because as any good Freudian psychologist will point out, what bothers me most in you is usually something I’m unconsciously doing myself.

Now I can turn around my beginning statement to read “I am saddened and angered by me because I judge my mother and want to control what she believes.” In demanding that she not judge me, I’m doing just that to her! Bwahahaha!

It’s empowering to actually take responsibility for your own part in the difficulty.

(A note about the self-criticism turnaround and how it works: say your statement is “I hate my fat butt.” One turnaround would be “I hate my thoughts about my butt.” Or maybe even “I hate my fat thoughts about my butt!”)

Questions Katie often asks, in workshops, of parents who want their daughter to choose a different career, or spouses whose partner has strayed, or people who otherwise have some pain around the actions and choices of loved ones, are: Do you love them? Do you want them to be happy? Do you get to dictate what makes them happy? This often proves to be a radical reality check, and gets people back in touch with what it means to love.

Believing that Jesus is the One Way is what makes my mother happy. Would I really want to take that away from her? Can I honestly know what’s best for her?

As I may have mentioned last time, I spend a lot of time wishing things were different. Byron Katie’s method has helped me, many times, to shift, and to reconcile with the Way Things Are. So I feel a little less insane, and a lot more generous.

Now if I could just do something about my butt.