Men and Women, Part 1: Crying it on through and out, on purpose.
Posted by John on 08/04/2003 16:22:04

In reply to Re: sad, very sad posted by Deirdre on 08/03/2003 19:08:10

Ahhh! It's a good sign when I'm posting here in class, I notice, because
I tend to have moments of great inspiration and love, really, at certain
times when I might least expect it. And those are the times when I
actually get up and come over here to Classroom Talk and start jamming on
some of the ideas and experiences that are passing through this old head
and body of mine.

And so it is here now, and I feel a glow of it.

Rob and Deirdre have just gotten to the very heart of it here, in their
poignant exchange, when our hearts break completely open and we cry and
cry with the sadness of lost love. Experiencing the inward bodily
sensations of the feelable feelings of the pain of sadness with
awareness, and letting it all out in awarely crying and crying, and
feeling throughout the body as one is crying—this is the great healing
mechanism that is built into these human bodies of ours, when this
seeming calamity comes upon us of the broken relationship of two people
who once were so deeply in love.

Lost love. That is what we humans cry for. And, as authenticity is the
name of the awareness game (that is, being aware of whatever one is, in a
present moment, in simply being there, awake and alive) being awake and
honest in the experience of the bodily phenomenon of sadness and crying
over lost love . . . that is the healing measure that I coach for this
situation.

Ha! Just the other day, Student John was inviting you women who may be
in the class now to step up and participate in the conversation. It
stood out for me, too, then, that—simply as it was—the authentic reality
of it at the time, we seemed to be being a "men's group" during that
time.

I never saw that happen before in Classroom Talk. I remember a few times
when, for awhile, we were a "women's group," but never a time when only
men were contributing to the conversation.

For a long time now I've been thinking we were just around the corner in
this class from getting into sharing our impressions of how the
information and strategies of the awareness game might apply to our
respective experiences about relationships between men and women (and gay
relationships, as well, so far as I know). Surely this topic is near
the top of the list of "most unfathomable mysteries on the planet." No
one know how to explain this.

And yet, I thought it would be interesting and fun—as well as healing, to
me at least—if our class might undertake to explore the realities of the
intimate relationships of homo sapiens . . . from the point of view of
fellow practitioners of mindful awareness, and indeed, sharing to some
degree the knowledge that is taught in this school and other such schools
that practically all of you are personally familiar with.

At some point, Rob, if this turns out that you and she split (and I know
your wife, of course, and I'm crying these days for both of you, for each
of you), you may be able to choose a path of quick recovery from this
massively painful calamity. At least, there will be opportunities for
you to try out some ideas and exercises that may help you return to peace
and harmony in your life.

Deirdre is right, and anything I might coach in this regard might fall on
deaf ears for awhile. I was crazy and out of commission (though I went
on walking through my life) for a whole year after Huna's Mom and I
split. You're familiar with some of what I was going through in those
days, old friend. I have grown a lot since those days. It seems I've
done most of the growing I've done in these years since that break-up.

But any thinking and planning now, for you, would be "ahead of the game,"
so to speak. You are already exactly right at the heart of where you
ought to be now as a mindful warrior, Rob—at least in my sense of it.
Way to go! And that is feeling your sadness and crying and crying, and
awarely shepherding all those palpable tensions of sadness on through and
out of your body that way. That's the first thing to take care of in a
catastrophe like this.

Even if things were to change—and this ought to be understood—that is,
even if the "impossible reconciliation" were to come about, after all—the
authentic reality of it is that your physical body has already become
clutched up with these powerful tension of sadness in your body. And
even if you two could miraculously reconcile at this point, "It's too
late to not hurt and not have that stuff on your body to process on
through," as my Teacher Mits puts it, "the brick has already hit your
foot."


(I am talking here about using your mindful awareness in feeling the
palpable sensations of sadness in the heart area, on up into the throat,
and on up into the face in the mouth and the eyes and between the eyes,
the wetness in tear-ing up—the feelable feelings of sadness, the "wanna
cry" feelings, the beginning of a sob, and the carrying on through in
letting your body free in the crying and sobbing, watching this healing
process in awareness along the way . . . . . . until heavy sighs finally
come and the crying stops. (In the beginning just do brief episodes of
crying, and stop, and rest from it. Later, as you get used to it, cry
all the way on through to the deep sighs.) That is a natural healing
capacity of our bodies. . . . . . This is *the first thing* for a mindful
warrior to experience and assimilate and let go of, so to speak—the
tensions of sadness when we are carrying them around. When we are
divested of these powerful emotional feelings, we are freer and stronger
to give life our best. Doing the whole job of processing such massive
reactive sadness (from a break-up, for instance, or a parting or death),
moving this stuff all on through may take weeks, or months. (Naturally,
I'd love to see you do a better job than I was able to do some years ago
when I was in the same situation—heh-heh. Yes, I do recover much, much
faster now than I did then!).

Keep on crying. I know that may sound like the ol' Coach has lost some
marbles, but that's what I'm coaching. Keep on crying, when you feel the
sadness is in you, and, literally, cry it all out. And when it comes up
again later that day, or the next day, wake up on it and awarely cry it
on through again. A day will come that way, if soon, or in weeks or
months, when you will discover there is no more of those familiar
sensations of the pain of sadness in you. When you realize this, you
will see that you couldn't cry at that moment if you wanted to. The
stuff for it just isn't there in your body to do it. And probably—even
with everything in your life the way it is at that time—you will realize
that you are really happy again for awhile.

Well, that's an exercise for you to reflect on, Rob . . . . . and any of
the rest of you in Classroom Talk as well, if you have sadness on your
body these days and that wanna cry feeling over lost love.

My love to you all,

Coach

Nobody knows why we are these ways. At least we can see some of these
ways as they simply are, vividly and in awareness, and embrace their
authenticity in our enlightened discoveries of the truths of it All.
People fall in love. People lose love. People become very sad, and
healing crying happens.

There can be more wonderfulness of life after that. I've seen it in my
own experience. And again and again, at intervals, as here now, I can
feel a tear here in my eye.

There's always room for both sides in this life. Anyway, that's how I've
seen it. On the faith of that, I say that in playing the awareness game,
we can get through many deeply troubling times more quickly by catching
on to skillful ways that we can flow with things the way tht they
actually are.

Today's point is merely about flowing with sadness, the way sadness
actually is, in your own direct experience of it.

Archived 09/22/2003