FINISHING A FAILED RELATIONSHIP RIGHT

By Bill Cottringer

     There is no doubt about it. Relationships are the greatest test to see how good or bad we can be as human beings. And ending a failed relationship—either by prematurely preventing a new one from even happening because of perceived deal-breakers or fears, or ending a 30-year marriage—is the ultimate test of our character. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to step up to the plate and hit a grand slam home-run to win the game or strike out and lose it. But you have to learn a positive lesson from the negative failure to win the next time.

     Obviously we are living in times where the strike-out column is growing much larger by the moment and so, home-run hitting skills are needed more than ever. This is because the so-called visible Information Age has sneakily snuck in an invisible secondary age transition, unnoticed in the bigger package—we have already gone from a controllable, predictable world of certainty and familiarity to one that is more “un” in being uncontrollable, unpredictable, uncertain and unfamiliar, at least with our old cures and solutions and ways of looking at things.

    This may be the point where we all have to get together to find the 5% sense from the rest of the 95% chaotic nonsense, especially in regards to having a successful relationship.  And this is also where our communications skills have to be greatly improved to help undo all the miscommunication that has created this chaos that keeps us from finding the needle in the haystack.

     As it turns out, we may not actually be looking for the needle as much as the right hemp fiber from life’s knotted rope to thread the needle we already have.  The only way we can do this is to become more whole in listening to the wisdom that converges from four main sources of knowing—our thoughtful minds, feeling hearts, intuitive souls and sensing bodies. The 5% sense we are looking for is probably the uncommon agreement between these four sources of knowing.

    I have often thought that writers have to tip-toe to the edge of reality to experience the dark, painful side of life’s shadow firsthand, so that they can return and offer credible, valuable solutions to life’s most perplexing problems for readers’ applications—In helping either prevent needless pain and discomfort or helping in the acceptance and understanding of inevitable pain and discomfort.  That is an awesome responsibility to not take lightly.

     Maybe this is an unconscious motivation behind most writing? At any rate, I usually approach my own failures by trying to learn a positive lesson that can help me move forward in my growth and improvement, instead of playing it safe and remaining stuck in familiarity or worse yet, going backwards to faded memories. This takes great courage and openness to potential hurt and rejection, but it most often results in realizing something worth passing on from the bruises, broken bones and bleeding.

    I think I have learned two very important realities that effect successful and failed relationships and the ability to move forward in growth.  These insights are:

WE UNDERSTAND LOVE AS WE GO 

     Maybe life is mainly a journey of learning about love so we can meet two basic needs we all have—to love and be loved. Softening our minds and hearts, learning to listen to and hear our soul’s whispers, being open to and letting go to love is what it takes to open the door to potentially great relationships and eventually true love. Oddly, it seems that men and women have generally switched the Venus and Mars leadership roles in this sensitivity to love and ability to let go to it, as opposed to the more rational desire to control and prevent the potential fear, hurt and rejection in doing so. This would certainly fit within the overall transition that is going on in our world today—from certainty-driven rational thinking to uncertainty-tolerating irrational feeling and creative compromises in between.   

     My own conclusion to experiences with love is that love is much bigger and more powerful than all of us combined.  The only sensible choice is to acknowledge it when it happens, trust and let go to it with a leap of faith, and just accept the fact that it might not always work out for one reason or the other. But the failures usually happen when one person’s mind and heart holds back or retreats from the situation, especially when conflicts occur and the vulnerability thermometer breaks,  or when both people do not carefully communicate and sensitively nurture love’s inherent delicate, tentative, and mysterious nature to join its overriding potential goodness with a covenant of faith and commitment, whatever it takes. And towards the end of a failed love experience we learn that deeply wounded and scarred hearts only grow in size and health to embrace love more fully and deeply the next time it comes. 

     It can be a joyful and scary moment when two people approach love’s wonderful power simultaneously and mutually. But isn’t this what we are all after? Why do we fight against or otherwise deny this experience? First we must understand our own worst enemy.  

 WE MUST FACE OUR DARK SHADOW

     The deepest relationship I have ever been involved in has taught me life’s single most important lesson—that we are all quite capable of being our worst self and behaving in totally shameful and disgusting ways, sickening to our minds, hearts and souls. Maybe we each have to experience a certain amount of our own dark shadow and feel the wake of deadly destruction it can leave, to be able to decide it is much better to let go, trust more and grow into our best selves, with the help of love.

     Probably what is most appealing in another person that can jump start a new relationship or even heal a near fatally wounded one, is the open display of our dual nature—to be strong, in control and self-sufficient and to be vulnerable, free, and dependent, but definitely in control of our bad self. We all fear the bad self relationship-killer. That is what many of us spend a lifetime trying to avoid.  But the best war strategy is to get to know the enemy better, rather than running from it.

     The one thing we all have in common is that we are all trying to do two main things that conflict greatly with each other, at least until we figure out which order to proceed in. These simultaneous drives are to accept ourselves and others with unconditional love and to encourage ourselves and others to grow and improve. The key is to accept God’s greatest gift—complete unconditional love of us despite our brokenness—and apply it to heal ourselves first.

     The only way to get to this level of realness and integrity that is magnetically appealing is to experience our worst self firsthand and then accept and understand the forever presence of our own darker shadow and that we are all capable of committing disgusting behavior in reaction to other’s darker self. But you can’t get there by holding back from love, you have to trust and let go to it’s goodness and central purpose in your life—to help you be your best and overcome the rest.   

In summary:

• Relationships are the best arena to help us know our real selves and grow into our best selves.
  
• Failed relationships happen to teach us an important lesson to help us grow from our flawed, broken, fragmented and bad selves to our improved, healed, whole and best selves.
  
• Love is the only force in life that can take us where we want and need to be—to be surprised by the certainty of the power of goodness.
  
• The only way to join love is to slow down and carefully listen to when our minds, hearts, souls and bodies recognize and agree upon its presence. This is something you just “know” when it’s there or not.
  
• It is pure magic when two people approach this same point in space and time.