Polyamory + A Nomadic Life and LWB WDS Meetup in Portland, OR
Cheers Sexy People,
I recently wrote a blog post here referencing the book I Need Your Love: Is That True, which is an amazingly fabulous book by Byron Katie. Her teachings can change your life and your overall happiness if you let it. Definitely worth checking out. I wanted to eventually show you her work in action on something related to polyamory. So I will share with you the excerpt below with a little back story…
My boyfriend very often dates other women since he identifies as polyamorous also, as I do. He does an excellent job of informing any new potential dates about his relationship with me, and is very upfront and honest about everything with them. I greatly appreciate this, and it helps build trust between us. It also helps reduce any jealousy I might feel as I know that his dates are familiar with who I am and know that I am important to him, and am a part of his life.
In our recent past, he dated a woman who said that she was poly-friendly and was familiar with the setup that we have. And she was still interested in dating him. He had introduced her to me early on, and we were welcoming to her in our life. However, as time wore on, her feelings for him deepened, and she had trouble reconciling that he was still continuing to see me, even though he had explained his relationship style and who I was to him, right from the beginning. Over time, she eventually began asking repeatedly for him to break up with me, and for him to stop coming over and stop having “sleepovers” at my house. From what I understand, many painful arguments ensued. Also, even peripherally from the outside (she no longer wanted to be in my presence, so there was virtually no communication between us), this was a very painful time for me as well. I saw the stress that my love was under, watched him as he tried to please two women and to lessen their pain. I tried my best to gulp down the fear that he would leave me to be monogamous with her to appease her requests, though I always kept in mind that he has his freedom to do as he pleases. Nothing in this life is permanent. Change is the only thing that we can count on (besides death and taxes of course). Better learn to roll with it, Kitty! Their relationship eventually ended, but not without hurt feelings, dramatic episodes and hours spent TRYING this and TRYING that to make it all right. I think we all learned a lot going through that experience, and in the end, I feel that my boyfriend and I are much closer, and better at handling conflicts of any kind, as we know that we have the mutual desire to be there for each other, we love each other deeply, and want each other to be happy, whether together or apart – happily, it is still together and we are celebrating our third anniversary this weekend! Whoot! Whoot!
As I read this excerpt from I Need Your Love: Is That True?, it definitely reminded me of the above experience. I wonder how many people’s lives can be changed by questioning their thoughts? How much more happiness can we bring ourselves if we realize that we are helping form our emotions by our own thoughts? If we find that we are suffering, do we question what thoughts are making us suffer?
Excerpt:
I Should Be His One and Only
Client: I’m angry with my husband because he didn’t dump his other woman and choose me as his one and only.
Byron Katie: “Your life would be much better if he dumped them” – is that true?
Client: Well, it’s pretty obvious to me that it would be better.
Byron Katie: And can you absolutely know that it would be better?
Client: No.
Byron Katie: How do you react when you believe the thought that he should dump the other women?
Client: I try to undermine them. I try to convince him to be monogamous. I’m always jealous. I think of them constantly and of him with them. I constantly compare myself with them. Am I prettier than this one? Am I smarter than that one?
Byron Katie: That’s a very painful way to live, sweetheart. It’s painful to try to manipulate the man you love, to spend your time plotting how you can get rid of people he loves or wondering if you’re as good as they are. Whose business is it whom he sleeps with?
Client: I hate this question.
Byron Katie: You hate it because you’re holding on to your pain for dear life. You’re holding on to your thoughts of “I’m right and he’s wrong. I’m the good one and he’s the villain.” Would you rather be right or free?
Client: I’d rather be free. I really would. I’ve had enough of this misery.
Byron Katie: So whose business is it whom he sleeps with?
Client: It’s his business. I know that. It’s his business, not mine.
Byron Katie: And whose business is it whom you sleep with?
Client: It’s my business.
Byron Katie: “He should sleep with you only” – is that true? What’s the reality of it? He doesn’t. He sleeps with other women. That’s the reality of it. It doesn’t go along with our morality, it doesn’t go along with what society would teach us, it’s what is. It’s an outright lie that he should sleep with you only, when he doesn’t. What happens inside you when you believe the thought that he shouldn’t sleep with other women?
Client: I hate him.
Byron Katie: And how does that feel inside you?
Client: Awful. I just want to die.
Byron Katie: And how do you treat him when you believe the thought that he should be faithful to you?
Client: I rage at him. I cut myself off. I close my heart.
Byron Katie: Is that pretty painful?
Client: It’s horrible.
Byron Katie: The reason you experience pain and loneliness is that you’re mentally in his business, and it doesn’t leave anyone here present with you. Of course you’re lonely! She’s over there with him, you’re over there with him, everyone’s over there with him, and there’s no one here with you. You think he’s supposed to be with you, but you can’t even do it. He leaves you, you leave you – what’s the difference? The way to stay present is to question your thoughts. “He shouldn’t sleep with other women” – is that true? “I would be much better off if he were with me and not her” – can you absolutely know that that’s true? He’s not responsible for your misery, you are. You’re believing a lie, and that’s what is causing your pain. Can you see a reason to drop this thought that argues with reality, “He should sleep with me only”?
Client: Yes, I hate to suffer.
Byron Katie: I see we come from the same school. And please don’t try to drop it. No one can drop a thought. We’re just seeing a reason to drop it. Can you see a reason to believe that thought that doesn’t hurt?
Client: No.
Byron Katie: Who would you be without that thought?
Client: I wouldn’t hate him so much. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so betrayed. I don’t know if I could ever open my heart to him again, but at least I would be more understanding.
Byron Katie: Sweetheart, an open mind is an open heart. Who knows what you would feel or how you would treat him if you didn’t believe your thoughts about him? Who would you be, in his presence, if you didn’t believe the thought that he should get rid of his other women? Close your eyes, picture him with them, look at his face without any belief that he should choose you. Can you see him?
Client: Yes. He’s beautiful. He looks happy.
Byron Katie: That’s unconditional love. That’s who you really are. Now turn it around.
Client: I’m angry with me because I didn’t choose me as my one and only. I carried all those other women around in my head with me.
Byron Katie: Turn it around again.
Client: I’m angry with me because I chose him as my one and only. That makes sense to me.
Byron Katie: Yes, if you want to be monogamous, you can say, “Sweetheart, I love you just the way you are, I love it that you want ten women, I want you to have what you want, and I need to leave you now. I’m monogamous, and I want a monogamous partner.” That’s choosing him as your one and only, the one you love, unchanged: it’s just that you don’t live with him now. But whether you stay with him or leave him, you never have to close your heart. And then you may notice that the next person in front of you is your one and only, in the moment when he’s with you, and that you don’t require him to be anything but what he is. Unconditional love doesn’t need to dictate the form.
_____________________________________________________________
How about you? Do you have any thoughts right now that go against reality that are causing you pain and suffering? Would you like to question those thoughts to see if they are worth holding onto? Or would your life be better if you decided to drop a particularly painful thought, or turned it around to reality and something that is truer for you?
Consider feeling the effect of taking terror out of your relationships. The point is to break the grip of a fearful belief. Meet your terror with something more honest. It may leave you with more love in your heart, and in your relationships. 🙂
Wishing you peace, love and happiness,
(and thrilling, fun sex too!)
Kitty
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This is beautiful. Gave me a lot to think about.
Thank you for your comment. I’m glad you liked it. Her Work is really very powerful, and you can apply it to ANY troubling thought to really dig deep and see if the thought is serving you and if it is indeed true. It really is a “practice”, and I am working on it also in a journaling fashion as time allows. But it can change in a positive way how you look at things. I’d rather be happy and free than struggling and angry. 😉
http://www.miscreantminx.com/2011/12/31/culture/the_one
Love this:
“At what point does a person begin to suspect that there may, in fact, not be The One? That there are only “the ones” – the ones you’d like to sleep with but should never ever marry, the ones you’d like to talk to but the thought of them naked makes you queasy, the ones you could reasonably settle down with as long as you never attempted to procreate with them, the ones you adore who won’t give you the time of day. The ones who help you discover what exactly it is you want after all. The ones who make it clear (sometimes painfully so) just who The Ones are. The Ones who are not perfect, but who are just right. And the best thing is, there is more than one of them out there.”
Wow. While I like the inherent idea behind the book as you describe it, I find the author’s relationship with her client in the example to be offensive on several levels! Calling a client “sweetheart” is just condescending, for one thing, and the way she leads her client by the nose to the solutions the author wants that client to reach, and then forces those choices down her throat is not cool in my book. If a therapist treated me like that, I would leave them, which is a pity because her ideas sound worth listening to.
Thank you for reading my blog and contributing here. While I don’t share your take on the interview, I of course respect your opinion of it. With any therapy, we all have to choose a therapist who works in a way that suits each individual, or the therapy might not be that effective. (It doesn’t personally bother me that she calls her clients “sweetheart” and that she helps guide them through the questions in her own way, but that’s just me). I’ve tried self-guiding myself through the questions or even working with a trusted friend, and that is a great way to still try out the methods on your own, at your own pace. I find it very powerful and useful. My best to you either way!
Byron encourages people to find sex outside the marriage, and it’s currently ruining mine.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. If I may ask some questions, is the sex outside of your marriage consensual within a negotiated open relationship or infidelity? Is it you or your partner who is having sex outside of your marriage?