The Conscious Heart (26 page)

“During my first year with Kathlyn, I would find myself thinking about my previous lover during our times of intimacy. Sometimes these were sexual thoughts and feelings; other times I would feel anger or sadness come up. I began to notice, though, that they would frequently come up when I was moving closer to Kathlyn. I realized that I was using the unfinished business from the previous relationship as a distancing mechanism with Kathlyn. I began to ask myself an important healing question: ‘What do I need to do to complete that relationship so I can be fully available to Kathlyn?’ After I began living with that question, a flood of insights came.

“One big insight was that I had a number of withheld feelings and secrets that I had never shared with my previous lover. The idea came to me that I could be free of her only when I became willing to tell the full truth to her. So I swallowed hard, picked up the phone, and called her. First, I told her about my insight, then I asked her if she would be willing to meet with me for the purpose of completing our relationship so both of us could be free to move on. She said she would, so we got together over three different meetings and poured out all the stuff, trivial and significant, that we had withheld from each other. This included sexual flirtations, money secrets, and everything else we could dredge up from five years of a stormy relationship.

“I found these meetings helpful in reducing the number of thoughts and feelings about her, but after a couple of months, I still found them running through my mind and body from time to time. I called a friend of mine and asked his advice. Since he is a fellow psychologist, I expected him to perform some mental move on me that made me feel better. Instead, he asked: ‘Do you own any real estate together?’ I burst out laughing, because I had completely overlooked the obvious place we were still entangled. She
and I owned a house together, and as soon as he asked about real estate, I could see that this was a source of a lot of strain. I had never liked the house in the first place and did not like owning it now. She didn’t like my owning a part of it either. It was a security thing for her; she liked the idea of owning the house outright. But we were both attached to it for all the wrong reasons. I didn’t want to let go of the equity (my share being about $25,000), and she didn’t have money enough to buy me out. In fact, she had lamented that she only had $3,000 of the needed money to buy me out, so we had dropped the subject long ago. I had resigned myself to owning a house I didn’t want with someone I didn’t want to be in partnership with. She felt the same way, so it was a setup for misery all the way around.

“I asked my friend for his advice. ‘Walk away,’ he said. Take the $3,000 or whatever she’s comfortable with, give her the house, and move on. You’ll make a contribution to her happiness and well-being, and you’ll collect at least $22,000 worth of psychic energy out of the deal.’ I found myself holding my breath when he said all this. One part of me thought it was the most ridiculous idea I’d ever heard. I had about four hundred dollars to my name, and it was hard to conceive of giving away what seemed like a fortune. Another part of me knew he was absolutely right. After I hung up, I went downstairs and tried the idea out on Kathlyn. I was afraid she would go into contraction with the idea of giving away what constituted my only tangible asset. Instead, she lit up and immediately agreed that it was the best thing to do. I called my previous lover and told her I would be willing to give her the house free and clear for $3,000. She was dumbfounded: ‘What’s the catch?’ ‘No catch,’ I said, and explained the shifts that had led up to the decision. There was a long pause, during which I could almost hear the implications sinking in, then she agreed.

“Kathlyn and I both see this decision as a crucial turning point in our becoming close. With this energy-drain out of the way, we had much more energy to focus on building what we wanted to create. The principles I drew on were authenticity, generosity,
and gratitude, I used authenticity to clear out the debris from my closet of unexpressed withholds, then expressed my gratitude to my previous partner by giving her much more than she asked for. In practical reality, this move created an enormous ‘backdraft’ of abundance. Within a year I had bounced back financially from the schism with my previous partner and was well on my way to an expanding life of material well-being with Kathlyn.”

Kathlyn had her own money entanglements to clear up. At the beginning of our relationship, one of the big struggles on a monthly basis was whether or not her ex-husband was going to send the $125 a month he was supposed to send in support of Chris, age twelve. He came through less than half the time, and often it required many phone calls, broken agreements, and promises to do better next time. It was an enormous inconvenience, because we really relied on that extra bit of money each month to make ends meet.

Kathlyn tells the story: “I grew up during the fifties and sixties in the Betty Crocker era, where clean sheets and sparkling dinner-ware signaled the apex of feminine achievement. Although I had read
The Feminine Mystique
and
The Second Sex
, the forces of the surrounding culture loomed like the skyscrapers of true womanly identity.

“I mention this as a prelude to the situation I faced in 1981, when my son was twelve. I had been divorced from his father for eleven years and had run through the child-support maze, finally getting an award of $100 a month. To secure this sum (which I felt lucky to negotiate in 1969), I often had to make several calls to my ex-husband each month, cajoling and threatening. At one point I triumphed in a court appearance and had the monthly amount raised to $125. In spite of my efforts, he actually made the payments on an average of three months out of twelve.

“During the Battle for Child Support, I had completed my bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees, while practicing many years of work as a movement therapist. I had designed in-service
presentations for hospitals and conferences, conducted workshops and trainings, and taught on the faculty of my graduate school. Those accomplishments seemed to exist in another, more benign world from the Battle, which had a separate set of beliefs and ground rules. Although I was very successful in the rest of my life, I seemed completely disempowered in the area of getting child support, and it became a chronic irritating feature of my life.

“I discovered this parallel world one day when Gay suggested that I fire Chris’s father from his apparently reluctant role as provider. When I considered not asking for or expecting child support from him, I immediately became rather light-headed and started coughing. In my professional work and in my own commitment to growth, I had discovered that deeply honoring my experience was the most effective path to change and problem solving. But it was often much easier to see where clients were stuck than to hold up the mirror to my own life. In this moment I surrendered my mind to let my body speak directly. I breathed consciously, moved freely, and let the awarenesses pour forth. Rather than defending my point of view, I actively inquired into what my body was telling me.

“As I let my awareness rest on these symptoms and started wondering what they might mean, I uncovered a moth-eaten but entrenched set of beliefs. Here’s a sample of the motley assortment that spilled out of the recesses of my mind:

• Women aren’t supposed to provide; men are.

• I’m supposed to support the relationship between my son and his father, even if neither of them does.

• He means well—give him another chance.

• He’s the only father Chris has.

• If you can’t say something nice …

• On the other hand, life is hard work, and you should be grateful for any money that he provides out of his goodwill for his son.

• If I provide for Chris, it means that I’m outdoing his father,
which then means that I am shaming him and setting a bad example for the next generation of providers—that is, Chris.

“As I actually looked at my beliefs and feelings, I realized that I had been angry for years: not only at having to grovel for a below-subsistence level of financial support, but at the system of beliefs and blinders that had shaped my dependence. As I scythed through the ancient thicket of these vines, I uncovered a very painful truth. Years before, I had confused my anger at Chris’s father with my seeing and supporting of Chris. I had accumulated a stack of grievances that had slowly clouded my ability to see Chris clearly and separately from his father, whose mannerisms he echoed with precision even though they had been separate for eleven years. When I saw his father’s gait and expressions in Chris’s body, I felt more respect for genetics in the nature-versus-nurture debate.

“I also reluctantly saw that I maintained a stance of victim in relationship to the whole battle. My view that his father didn’t really care for Chis seemed verified at several points over the years. For example, on the one occasion that I had sent Chris to visit for a week, he returned with a broken wrist, a souvenir of a fall while hiking. I entered another notch on my victim chart.

“It was very difficult to look at the payoffs for continuing to expect that monthly check. I did not want to let go of the anger tickets I would regularly cash in by yelling at Chris about some shiftless and irresponsible behavior. I did not want to admit that I got additional martyr status on the occasions that I would let my women friends know that I was only receiving $125 a month and never more than a few times a year. ‘You’re a wonder and a saint,’ they would exclaim, while referring to him as ‘that bastard,’ as I tucked my head humbly. And most difficult, I didn’t want to see that I had limited Chris’s possibilities by confining him in my belief box. Given my anger, he really couldn’t have a relationship with his father. He had to be loyal to his father as long as I held the position that he was a jerk (never verbally, of course). And he
couldn’t form a bond with his stepfather, Gay, without resolving his relationship with his father. Above all, I got to be in
control
of my dismal little fiefdom, holding Chris’s affections hostage with my anger and righteousness.

“To make matters juicier, I had my own stack of financial myths. Our family, like many, had Great Depression stories that I had heard many times while growing up and that had shaped my views about abundance and resources. The specter of scarcity, although never physically present in my childhood, continued to haunt my psyche. My brain immediately translated any fluctuation in my therapy practice as a straight slide to the gutter and starvation. I would be foolish to let go of my one stable source of income. (Oh, how the mind works!) Only with days of conscious facing and accepting could I begin to see that I was hanging Chris’s and my future on this slender thread.

“After wading and hacking through these emotional brambles for several days, I decided to take a leap into the unknown. I took a deep breath and sat down to write a letter in which I fired Chris’s father from any further financial responsibility, including monthly checks, medical insurance, and educational support. I edited the letter carefully to be sure that I did not speak from blame or burden and to actually release his father from any unwilling obligation he might hold toward Chris. I added that I was stepping out of the role of mediator and controller in their relationship. Any contact and relationship was up to them.

“When I mailed the letter, I felt both exhilarated and blank. What would take the place of the large swamp I had just emptied? Could I really take full responsibility for our financial well-being (and still be feminine)? I realized that I had continued the struggle rather than step into the unknown. The familiarity of feeling like a victim was comfortable. The possibility of creating abundance was not, and I was surprised by my inner roiling sensations. I spent many days breathing and opening up to a new version of myself where responsibility could engender flow and joy rather than burden and worry. I think now that the key was dreaming up a larger
version of myself than I had thought either possible or realistic. To do that, I needed to jettison the anchor of the past. There’s an old saying that in order to become who you really are, you need to let go of the old version.

“Over the next several weeks, I became aware of a sense of ownership that I hadn’t experienced in my adult life up until then, a spacious peacefulness that may have been the beginning of self-respect. One vibrant memory stands out from the first few months. When I had enough money to get health insurance for Chris and me, I called my best friend with great excitement. I could begin to understand the satisfaction of the provider, and the balance that owning my resourcefulness was accessing.

“During a walk one day, I realized that I had attached my abundance hose to a small outlet and then spent years complaining about the amount of flow. When I let go of that small version of possibility, I began to open to the magical resources of the universe and the rivers and oceans of flow that could carry me toward my deepest dreams.

“The next year my income doubled; the year after it tripled. Ever since I made the decision to take responsibility for Chris’s and my financial well-being, I have had the means to do exactly what I want and need to do and to provide for Chris to explore his martial arts passion and his university education without going into debt.

“The renewal of Chris’s relationship with his biological father would have been a great happy ending. What actually occurred over ten years was both painful and freeing. To the best of my knowledge, Chris has never received as much as a phone call or a postcard from his father since 1981. Finally, after years of reaching out, Chris finally closed the door and went on with life.

“A much sweeter result was the flowering of Chris’s relationship with Gay. Chris and he became best buddies, and Gay formally adopted him a few years later. Freed from my unconscious requirement that he continue to echo his father’s beliefs and lifestyle, he began to reach out to Gay in touching ways. He could
finally see that Gay was available for him and deeply interested in his life and what he wanted. Many times I would come home and find them deep in discussion about some philosophical point, or making fart jokes while playing croquet. This filled me with enormous gratitude. People meeting them for the first time now say, ‘Chris, you look so much like your father.’ ”