Love, 22 minutes to mull this jewel of life

In life we venture out sometimes and bump
up against someone with whom
the sparks fly,
the laughter is easy,
the touch is nice,
the words come straight and true.

Or so we think.
And then, sooner, later, they turn out to be
gasp
just like us
oh, no,
gasp again
imperfect.

As Katie (as in Byron Katie, via thework.com) would say:
Oh, well.

But we don't say, "Oh, well."
we say,  "Oh, hell,
what have we done,
sold our soul
into trouble and damnation."

And then we go about
"fixing" things.

Now in the Feldenkrais work and the Anat Baniel Method,
we don't go about "fixing" people's "bodies."

I refuse even to call what I do there "bodywork."

We are doing whole system upgrading and if that
"fixes" a knee or shoulder or hip or back,
so be it,
but the finished lesson means this:
the person is newer and more true to how they
could best be in life.

And in love,
we forget about whole person upgrading,
especially whole person upgrading of ourselves.

The other person does X
wrong.
This bothers us.

Solution:
get them to stop doing X.

Now, love that isn't "love"
might realize that there are always more than
one solution
and the solution that isn't joyous
and present
isn't a real solution at all.

So, here's another "solution,"
we stop being bothered when the other person
does X.

Another solution,
We are charmed when the other person does X

Another solution,
we are sympathetic to watching more closely
when they do X

Are they in pain

Is this some pattern dropped on them by parents

Are they avoiding expressing something else that is bothering them

And then,
and then,
and then,
the glory of
A. the work of Byron Katie
B. new age slop crap: the other person is the mirror
C. old age Jesus stop about don't get hung up about the
speck in your neighbor's eye
when ya'll gots
a big old log in your own.
(always a tricky metaphor to visualize,
for me,
anyway)

So , in Katie land its called the turn around:

our buddy friend lover love
does
X
and it bugs us

How do we do X?

To ourselves.

To our friend lover mate.

To the world.

So: like this.

Our love is not respectful
in certain circumstances.

Oh My God.
What an awful thing.

Or
Oh, well,
that's the way they are sometimes

Or,
curiosity:
what's really bothering them
and keeping them from being present
when they are being disrespectful?

Or:
the turn around:
when have when been unrespectful and or
disrespectful

to the lover friend person?

to ourselves?

to other people in our lives?


And then,
of course,
the whole boring and always true
family history slop:
when were and how were they/ we
treated dis and or un respectfully when
we were the small dependent creatures
that we are
when we are young?

So,
when the buddy friend love lover
is disrespectful
we have lots of options:

get tweeked

complain to them

complain to our friends

give them ultimatums

give ourselves anger fear depression obsession worry

or

WAKE UP

smell the humanity:

ah, they are imperfect
what's going on

how can I be so present that this behavior
isn't pulling me out of the miracle
joy of
knowing I'm alive

how can I take my tweeking
as a reminder that
I haven't always been treated well
and haven't learned
yet,
that other people just do this and that
sometimes
even though we wish they wouldn't


So,
here's love
here's life:

someone comes along and we get to learn this
about love:

love is an action

the action of loving another person
not only when they are Ms Perfect or Mr Perfect
but when they are
life us:
imperfect



"love is blind"
yeah, yeah:
especially when we think we have finally met the
perfect one

but love should be "blind"
in the sense that
looking at and obsessing on the imperfections
blinds us
to the glory:

we are to miraculous people
together,
for some reason

in this miracle of life


(and that's 22 minutes)

love
Chris