Read an Excerpt
Opening Love
Intentional Relationships and the Evolution Consciousness
By Anya John Hunt Publishing Ltd.
Copyright © 2014 Heather Trahan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78279-951-1
CHAPTER 1
Dust and Dissatisfaction
Most of us will arrive at some point in our lives when the world with which we are most familiar no longer works for us. For some people, it happens more than once. We are meant to outgrow ourselves; indeed, we can no more avoid this development than we can stop the aging process. The only question is how gracefully — and healthily — we will handle the transition. Sometimes the catalyst is an emotional or inner crisis, and sometimes it is a simple life choice that ultimately leads us in a direction we didn't anticipate. Inevitably, each of us will reach the moment when the place where we have felt most comfortable becomes so uncomfortable that we feel as if we are suffocating in the stale air of our own history. — Caroline Myss
Slowing Down and Brushing Off
Humans are trained to let the years race by. Always one foot on the gas: faster, faster, go, go, go. Our daily lives are too often a blur of obligations and appointments, and it can be difficult to enjoy what we are doing simply because there is so much to do. But if we intentionally slow down, if we intentionally calm the hectic pace, what might we observe?
In A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle writes, "The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness ... To recognize one's own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence." To slow down, even briefly, reveals to us the insanity of human relating. To slow down helps us realize that we have often been unwittingly repeating a paradigm that does not bring joy, does not bring peace, does not bring love. Rather, we have been engaged in a system that keeps us isolated and afraid, always running faster, never slowing down to reflect on the depths of the potential for transformative, unconditional love. When we are slow, when we can be still, we see.
You have been handed the belief that love, sex, and relationships are a scarce commodity. You have been told to compete: to fight for what you want and fight to keep what you have. You have been handed many lies. To slow down brings presence. Awareness. Clarity. By breaking the normative fast pace, we can begin to peer behind the curtain of lies. Slowing down may involve meditation, solitary walking, quiet times of reflective journaling, a dialogue with a loved one, or anything else that removes you from the hectic pace. Slowing down gives you moments where insights have the chance to shine through.
It is likely that you have already begun to see the existence of the cultural lies surrounding relationships and the impact that those lies have had upon your life. You don't exactly need me to inform you of them, because your own inner knowing is strong and has already begun to speak. What I can offer, however, are pointers that I hope will serve as comfort for you, as well as stimulate further reflection, as you go about your journey of slowing down and brushing off the dust of cultural conditioning.
Indeed, your heart is absolutely capable of recognizing the myths inherent in cultural conditioning, all on its own. Yet, this kind of recognition often leads to confusion, despair, and a need for support. Not many people, as of yet, are asking the hard questions, and fewer still are taking active steps to change the course of their lives. Perhaps you have felt outright dissatisfaction in your relationships, or maybe what you have felt is only a slight discomfort, a vague knowing that your life isn't quite as wonderful as it could be. These feelings have prompted your initial realizations, your initial dawnings — but where do you go from there? More and more questions come. Am I alone in these feelings and thoughts? Who else has realized these truths? Why is the current paradigm of relating in place? Which of my relationships hold negative energy and how can they be transformed? What kind of relationships would bring me peace in the future? What sorts of personal characteristics must I cultivate, as I slow down and brush off? What are the next steps I might take? These are some of the questions I will address in the following chapters.
The World of the Normal
We live in the world of the normal.
We live in a world that, for the most part, is dominated by the terror of making a social mistake. This terror is very real, and almost all of us, to some degree, worry and fret about what others may think. We base our actions on the possible reactions of others, rather than on what actions will bring us peace and joy.
Sexuality and relationships are areas, in particular, that are heavily — if not almost fully — prescribed for us by our culture. A mentor of mine, Jonathan Alexander, professor of English and expert in the rhetoric of sexuality, writes about how "narratives, stories, representations, legal codes, and ways of speaking" make certain ways of being sexual or in relationship with others seem either normal or abnormal, moral or immoral. This creates a false divide, as well as a hierarchy of options. Further, there really aren't many options at all, if one wants to avoid gossip and other forms of social censure! Teachers such as Alexander have dedicated their lives to exposing how relationships, desire, and intimacy are dominated not by our true hearts but by culture(s) that constrain us.
Much of my personal understanding has come from engaging with the work of Michael Warner, a literary critic and social theorist. Warner's ideas have been a touchstone for myself, as well as many other thinkers inside and outside of higher education for the past two decades. In one of his most popular books, The Trouble with Normal, he urges us to wake up to the fact that sexuality is still, in our institutions, in our public places, in our media, and in our overall culture, very confined. We may think that we are free to make choices ... but, really, we are not so free. He points out that, by and large, the Western world is a very sexphobic world; we are so scared of sex that anything that hints of deviation to "normal" sexuality is scorned.
The world of the normal is a world that exists not in itself (and certainly not forever!) but only as a result of billions of people tacitly agreeing that to be normal is a good thing. And, in this world, there is not much leeway in terms of how you can craft your life. Whether or not you consciously realize it, many of your past decisions have been based not upon your actual desires, but rather upon guessing what "they" would say: "they" being relatives, friends, neighbors, coworkers, religious leaders, politicians, and journalists. Just as you probably have, I have gotten very good over the years at guessing what they would say. It has become an almost instinctual, knee-jerk evaluation I can call up in an instant. Even now, at the times in my life when I am feeling off-balance, I still sometimes find myself sizing up a situation to figure out how much "trouble" a certain action might cost me. Even though this behavior — of weighing the pros and cons of behaving normally — is something I am actively trying to heal, I still sometimes catch myself engaging in this negative habit. Acquiring conditioning takes years, and so I remind myself that deconditioning habitual thought patterns takes time, too. Patience is paramount. (It is a huge point of contention for philosophers whether acting in the normal way is automatically the wrong choice, or whether, with careful reflection, some actions that are considered normal might actually be the ethical or superior choice. On this point, I remain open, not wanting to draw a conclusion. Suffice it to say, however, that anything that is considered normal is, in my opinion, to be held with great suspicion and reflected upon with extra care.)
Even just two years ago, I hid under the jacket of conformity. It was winter. Andrew was unemployed; our savings account dwindling. After a number of attempts at acquiring funds had failed, I did what was, to me, a last and dreaded resort. I asked my parents to borrow money. In a series of tense e-mails and even tenser phone calls, my parents did not readily agree. Instead of offering me the money, as they had done in the past in similar situations, they questioned me on the content of what I taught in my university classrooms as well as what I was writing about in my doctoral dissertation. They asked if my academic work "promoted homosexuality." Knowing that my parents believed homosexuality a sin, I lied about my dissertation topic and I told them I never discussed sexuality in the classroom. I engaged in such lies because I predicted that being honest would mean they would not give me the money that I felt I so desperately needed. I chose money over honesty.
In the ensuing weeks, however, I felt mounting guilt, and told my parents the truth. Soon after, I began the process of forgiving them for their conditional love. However, cleansing those moments of deception did not prove to be something simple, and I am still sorting through the aftermath. If I could so easily deny my deepest ethical values, my deepest passions and drives, then what does that mean about who I am? Am I truly living a life of intention? If I wanted to seem normal to my parents, for fear that to be found otherwise would mean negative material consequences, then what kind of character do I really possess?
These questions have no easy answers, and they are in my mind and heart daily, as I walk through the world, now, as an openly polyamorous and queer person. (When I use the term queer, I mean it in the proud, reclaiming sense of the word, and not in the derogatory sense. More about the term queer in Chapter 2.) I have made the decision to no longer lie. I will no longer hide in the closet of any circumstance. My daily practice is to make choices without the fear of what "they" will say. I have made a solemn vow to no longer live by the norm of the normal — and this means that I will no longer engage in lying, a practice that, in many cultures around the world, is actually more accepted than telling the truth.
Lying as a Cultural Norm
Love is blocked by the act of lying. If we do not show our true selves to others, then no real connection is possible. Therefore, telling the truth is never optional, whether we are speaking about why we are declining an invitation to a party or calling up our employer to tell them why we won't be at work today or telling our family that we are gay. All situations, big or small, require honesty.
In All About Love, the radical visionary bell hooks writes, "Commitment to knowing love can protect us by keeping us wedded to a life of truth, willing to share ourselves openly and fully in both private and public life." I agree with hooks. We have been told it's okay to lie to our employer but that it's not okay to lie to our spouse. Or that it's okay to lie to our neighbor but not to our best friend. Why? We cannot pretend a lie is wrong in one sphere and acceptable in another. Dust, dissatisfaction, and entropy in relationships happen when the social pressure to conform rules us — and this conformity often calls for lies, for the mouth to deny what it knows.
That's what the world of the normal does. And, understand, it is not a conspiracy ... it is only the result of billions of people on this planet being asleep to other ways of being. The world of the normal still seems to "work" for many simply because it sneaks in so gently, so unassumingly. It nudges, planting seemingly reassuring words in our minds: I can hide. I can even bend a bit for them, but it won't affect my happiness. I'll be fine.
Lying may seem a necessary evil in this world, and it may seem like something tangential to the issues of this book. But to lead lives of intention, to engage in relationships that nourish our spiritual growth, the consequences of lying can no longer be dismissed. As hooks teaches:
Widespread cultural acceptance of lying is a primary reason many of us will never know love. It is impossible to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth when the core of one's being and identity is shrouded in secrecy and lies. Trusting that another person always intends your good, having a core foundation of loving practice, cannot exist within the context of deception. It is this truism that makes all acts of judicious withholding major moral dilemmas. More than ever before we, as a society, need to renew a commitment to truth telling. Such a commitment is difficult when lying is deemed more acceptable than telling the truth. Lying has become so much the accepted norm that people lie even when it would be simpler to tell the truth.
Our core happiness depends on whether or not we have peace in our lives. Peace is freedom from anxiety and fear. Happiness is impossible without peace. And peace depends upon whether or not we are able to be honest about the decisions we make as well as the ethical values we use to make those decisions. If we are not honest, there is always the underlying fear and anxiety that someone will find us out, or that there could have been a better choice to make.
Remember that a system of ethics is not created in isolation, but rather ethics is a term that describes how people create an honor code for working with others, for being a member of a community. Although each person's honor code is, ultimately, going to be different in what it contains and how it is acted out, the question of honesty versus deception is not a grey area. If we want happiness, peace, and freedom in our lives, then honesty will be the only possible choice. Granted, there will be, sometimes, certain situations where the levels of explanation needed may vary. There is no sense in being cruel. For example, when a colleague whom you find difficult asks you to collaborate on a project, simply saying, "No, thank you," may be ethically preferable to stating, "No, thank you — because I find you egotistical, controlling, loud, and obnoxious." If you simply say "No, thank you," and your colleague presses you on why you are saying no, then it may make sense to give a bit more information. This information can be done in a non-violent way, such as, "No, thank you. I think our work styles are too different to be able to effectively complete the project." An attempt to be "nice" and soften the blow by responding with, "No, thank you, I'm just too busy with these other projects," may indeed soften the blow, but it is also a lie. Such a statement makes it seem as though you really do want to participate, but other circumstances that are out of your control prevent you from doing so. The key, in sum, is to be honest without being unnecessarily cruel, while simultaneously not giving a false impression of your true self.
In offering a lie, you are — whether consciously or not — buying into the cultural norm of deception as a necessary part of everyday life. By lying, you participate in strengthening a broken human culture, a system where everyone feels pressured to wear a mask ... and, since most of what we see of others are the masks (and not the people themselves), we don't even know how to begin to see, let alone love, each other — or ourselves. The mask becomes the reality.
* * *
Practice: Unlearning the Bends
When small children begin to speak, they do not begin with lies. They begin with truths, albeit simple truths. Mommy, daddy, doggy, no. They say what they see and they say what they feel.
As time passes, however, children learn about lying. They see that lying is easy; they see it is ubiquitous. Even though the adults try to teach them "lying is bad," children are smart — they see that the adults are lying every day. So the children begin to make adjustments; they begin to bend, using speech as a way to gain control over what is beginning to seem a very tenuous, strange, and even painful existence on planet Earth.
You, my dear reader, are an adult, and your schooling in the art of lying has been occurring for many years. While it is not inconceivable that your transformation to truth-elling might be rapid, it is also possible that the transformation will be an ongoing process, and that you will need to start small.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Opening Love by Anya. Copyright © 2014 Heather Trahan. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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