I don’t want a lover. The fact that I do not want a lover makes me angry. And as I review some past would-be lovers—people who threatened me with intimacy in addition to sex—I see that this has always been the case. In the past, I have pursued sex with extremely attractive young men to the exclusion of intimacy. Sex—the pretense of intimacy—took the place of the genuine article. Intimacy? Who needs it? I don’t want a lover.
This state of affairs (no pun intended) does not immunize me against loneliness. Indeed, considering all the risks involved in intimacy, if we could discard loneliness, then we would have no motivation to risk intimacy. Loneliness is a gift. Like hunger. Without hunger, we would starve to death without ever knowing what was wrong. And so it is with loneliness; it drives us to the essential.
We can survive on very little. I learned this when I first abstained from overeating thirty years ago. Then, I achieved a balance between a little hunger and a little food. Hunger, like loneliness, can never be banished. They both are ever-present, as they should be. They are not negative. They are not our enemy. But it is folly to pander to them. Excess is just another means of avoidance. If a child complains to his overwhelmed mother that he is too hot, throwing him overboard into the sea a thousand feet deep is excessive, and constitutes avoidance. On the other hand, finding a shady place on deck for him to rest, and gently mopping his brow with a cool cloth is far less extreme, and far more intimate.
I have discovered that the opposite of intimacy is avoidance. Therefore, like hunger urges me to eat, loneliness urges me to stop avoiding. Now, this idea of pursuing non-avoidance can be as slippery as a peeled grape. For example, confronting strangers in the street would be a type of non-avoidance, but it is, at best, a clumsy way to approach intimacy. Rather like attempting a tooth extraction using a baseball bat.
Long ago, I was told, and recognized intuitively, that a significant part of loneliness is isolation from oneself. If one is fragmented and alienated from oneself, one has no route to the other. This gets very existential-ey and bullshit-ey sounding, but experience bears it out as truth; it is only through the self that we touch another. Likewise, self is the conduit through which others touch us. Therefore, isolation from others, for whatever reason—past trauma, anxiety, fear—is most effectively accomplished by isolation from self. Cut-off the conduit, and I cut off all the perceived threats from others. I am as safe as a bug in a rug. Only I’m lonely.
Now, I can examine you quite closely. I can inhale your scent from the surface of your skin. I can explore the texture of your lips with my own. I can count your eyelashes from an inch away. Focusing on you is easy, but this focal point on the self is making me kind of cross-eyed. I can get close to you, but how do I get close to me?
Robert Ericson, a therapist who conducts a recovery group in Worcester for male survivors of sexual child abuse, says “In order to survive, the child has this sort of vertical splitting in the ego where they compartmentalize and seal off aspects of the self.” This fracturing in the self-structure is probably the most difficult damage to heal, says Ericson, and continues to cripple the survivor decades after the abuse has ended. He lists some problems which typically affect victims, “…a predisposition to all kinds of substance abuse, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, inability to trust, problems in relationships and intimacy, sexual dysfunction…” Victims are not only unable to trust others, he says, but unable to trust themselves – their own judgments and instincts.
That’s from an article I wrote, published fifteen years ago. What I have been doing since then is ignoring what I wrote.
Avoidance is an unrelenting erosion of awareness, like the sea against the shore. Giving in is easy. Fighting that tide is infinitely difficult, but the reward is great. The entire world has been lost to me because my contact to everything, through the self, has been broken. Reuniting with this thing I call ‘the self’ will result in nothing less than saving the entire world.
Hi Joe,
I happened across your site a few hours ago and have been reading through your articles. They are beautifully and intelligently written. I can see how your soul is stuck behind your thinking mind.
You wondered what depression truely is. I think depression comes from seeing life as it really is, while feeling unable to do anything to change it. I had one period of depression in my life, and it was as if my entire life was on mute.
I hope you dont mind but I really want to share with you some of the things I have learnt in the last few months. I am writing a book that looks at psychology from a unified perspective that unites the spiritual with the intellectual. I have been on a very amazing evolutionary journey in the last six months, during which I saw the human mind in a new way. I was able to understand the bigger picture behind life on Earth and beyond, and as such I have a perspective that is now free of fear. I am aware of greater truths than I ever thought possible. The best thing about this drastic change I have gone through is that now I know how to help other people to go through it too.
Your main battle in life appears to be your ego. “We are our own worst enemy.” I really loved the teachings of Eckhart Toille early on in my evolution. The wonderful stillness in his voice did so much to quieten my mind.
When he talked of the necessary death, I always took him to mean that the ego must die in order to maintain presence. I took this idea on board and thought about it. My ego was not going to settle for death, it would not stop fighting to survive. Eventually I had a moment of clarity and realised that the ego is not meant to die or be supressed. Instead the ego has to be developed and allowed to evolve and grow. Of course when the ego is full of fear the last thing you or the world needs is for it to grow stronger. It is necessary to change the outlook of your ego so that it supports your life instead of damaging it. Easier said than done?
The human mind is divided into two poles. The male side is like a computer. When it seems to have a life of its own then it is called the ego. It is programmed by the beliefs that you hold about life. The computing mind works very efficiently supporting your beliefs. It will pick out information from the environment that suits your beliefs, and will manipulate this information to suit your mental framework. So your ego is simply doing what it is programmed to do. It wants to maintain power over you because, to the ego, it has been the dominant power in your life so far. The ego thinks it keeps you alive, but in truth the ego does not know what is good for you, because it doesnt know all the facts. It thinks it does. So this is one side of the human mind, and it is the side that has dominated life on Earth since man came into the picture. Einstein said that man only used 10% of his brain. I think this 10% is the ego.
The right side of the mind is female and intuitive. This is the part that senses things rather than analyse and interpret them. This side of the mind is often hidden behind the strength of the ego. The ego will often override the intuitive response. The ego is great at making excuses and will find a way to justify all of your choices. That is its programming. To support your beliefs.
The left and right brain are designed to work together as a team. Imagine that the mind is a yin yang. One side is logic and the other is intuition When the two sides are focused on a shared goal then the division that exists between them starts to break down.
Your instinctive natural drive is to learn more about who you truely are. By doing this your replace the false beliefs that keep your ego boxed off from the rest of your mind. Basically, in order for your ego to change your should start to understand why it is as it is. What beliefs do you have which program your ego to be your enemy?
I will stop writing now because I have gone on for quite a while. I have lots more to say that will really help you to sort out your ego. The amazing thing is that when you are able to gain control over the direction of your thinking mind and have it working for you rather than against you, amazing things can happen. I am almost finished the third draft of my book, and would really love for you to read it. You are a great writer and I love your analogies. They are very descriptive. My own writing leaves a lot to be desired at the moment but I am getting better as I move through the drafts.
So if you would like to have a look at my book, hear some more about how to evolve the ego or anything else then please email me at laura@thinkandgrowpublishing.com If anyone else reads this and is interested then please send me an email.
Thanks for your time!
Laura xox
my mind works against me…