A Female Companion

I mentioned in a previous post that I had met a female friend who I was becoming close to. Over the months of October and November we grew very close to each other. A sense of safeness allowed us to open up and share our deepest experiences. I had been in need of a friend for just this purpose.  On the other hand, I didn't feel ready for a love relationship and I communicated that to her from the very beginning.  However the relationship was complicated by a powerful sexual energy that would manifest frequently. My plan had been to wait for inner guidance for a solution to this mutual strong craving. Time was not healing this one or providing a solution. In November I decided I had to either invest in the relationship wholly or leave it completely. I can honestly say at that stage I could have followed either direction. Logically I could not come up with a solution. Part of me felt that I was not emotionally or spiritually mature enough for a relationship. Another part of me recognized many positive developments that had occurred since we had become friends. One night I asked for some guidance from my heart. Then next morning the answer was clearly to invest in this relationship.
Over the next three months I grew even closer to this person. We entered the relationship with three main agreements:

1) The primary purpose of the relationship was to grow our individual self-awareness. We would learn from the partnership more about Who We Really Are. And for that reason personal transformation was embraced and endorsed.
2) We were both individually responsible for our own emotional states. Happiness was not going to be something our partner gave us, it was something we would learn to foster on our own. In other words we were both accountable for our own life experiences.
3) Because our focus was directed inward, acceptance of the other would come natural. We would do our best to allow each other to be free to make their own decisions in life. We are all responsible for our individual consequences.

In late January something started stirring in me. I realized that I had drifted from my simple spiritual path. A variety of factors may have contributed to this. For example in researching Mind Body Medicine I encountered other spiritual concepts and was applying them to my daily perceptions. Before the relationship started, I had communicated with my spiritual teacher and was instructed to follow my own heart more and stop relying on him for answers. Those factors had allowed me to create exceptions in some very simple teachings. For example an individual practicing this path of Kriya Yoga should accomplish freedom before starting a relationship. This means becoming debt free and free of ongoing obligations (such as raising kids to an age of 18). The chosen partner should also share a spiritual path as their number one priority in addition to being free themselves. It was clear to me at this point that I needed to re-devote myself to my path. There is no "one" correct path, and many people longing to evolve spiritually struggle to find one that they can trust (there is no worldly way to validate a path). I'm fortunate to have one fall into my lap. Although there is no logical way for me to describe why it is the path for me... there is a deep feeling or knowing or certainty that has guided me strongly through the occasional ego created doubts. I did not want to look at the truth staring in my face... this relationship needed to change. This all developed over the course of 12 hours, and it was impossible to ignore. With much reluctance I finally communicated this to my female friend.
We both experienced deep emotional pain as a result of this break up. I felt anger towards my path, sadness due to this loss, regrets for having started the relationship and guilt for having hurt her so deeply. But the one quote remained in my mind throughout this period was:
Know whatever comes to you UNEXPECTED to be a gift from God, which will surely serve you if you use it to the fullest. It is only that which you strive for out of your own imagination, that gives you trouble.
I kept diligently applying some of the tools for digesting emotions which I have developed for my Mind Body Program. I avoided any distractions. I focused on the physical feeling of the emotions and labeled them as opposed to analyzing the "why" of the situation. And I kept returning to the concept that everything happens for a reason and there was a deep purpose for this.
After about three days of intense emotions a thought occurred to me: if we both entered this relationship consciously NOT relying on each other as a source of happiness... why does this hurt so much? At that point I realized that I had unconsciously attached an expectation of happiness to our relationship in many ways. At moments that I felt funky during this relationship my thoughts would immediately resort to imagining our time together. Or I would imagine future activities which I would anticipate would bring happiness. I had inadvertently stopped accepting the moment of "Now" and was putting all my "happiness eggs in one basket" the imagined relationship. This might seem harmless but in some ways this is the cause of all suffering. We attach our mental energy to the future to bring a fake mentally constructed happiness to the present moment, instead of reconciling with what is actually there to cultivate real inner happiness.
During this same time in my life the Universe brought three other sources of information which all had the same message... live in the moment of now. With this renewed enthusiasm I began to lift from the pain of the experience. I also found myself living in the moment with more and more ease than I had ever before.
My female friend despite the break up actually remained a close friend. We are still learning to grow our self-awareness and are learning to reconcile.
A powerful tool that has come to me at this time is the book: The Presence Process written by Michael Brown. This author also reinforces the importance of the moment of "Now" and provides an 11 week tool that helps grow this connection. His program actually mirrored the concepts that underlie my own Mind Body Medicine program and has helped fill in some of the "puzzle pieces". At the time of this writing, I'm on week 3 of this process and plan to share my experience later.
Ironically many of the people in my life and in my friend's life disapproved of both the initiation of the relationship and the break up. It seems that our culture has a tendency to resist change. Despite this reflex reaction it is clear to me that my heart led me into this relationship and that it also led me through a change in the status of the relationship for a very specific reason. It was humbling, opened me to experiencing my own emotions more intimately, led to deep insights about the cause of suffering and there are probably many other reasons.
So as my life experiences continue, I find myself trusting my heart more and my conventional logic less. As long as my intentions are pure I can rest comfortably that my life experiences, painful or not, are collaborating to gently expand my self-awareness.