Thursday, April 21, 2011

LIFE-TRANSFORMING THINGS I LEARNED FROM MEN-Part 7

This is the 7th post in a series I began on April 15. Feel free to scroll down to see the other 6 parts. This is about the 3rd of 4 men who taught me important lessons during my post-divorce dating years...

3. Rich: A few weeks after the breakup with John, I was exploring various ways to become more centered, self-aware, and at peace with myself. So I was thinking seriously about learning to meditate. And, at a singles event I had organized, I ran into a man named Rich who I knew was a facilitator for men’s personal growth groups and a meditator himself. We chatted a bit about his meditation practice, and I emailed him a couple days later to ask if we could get together for coffee so I could pick his brain about it. Part of me was also attracted to him and thinking that perhaps he’d be someone I’d like to date, but I wasn’t sure I was healed from the breakup with John.

Nonetheless, after that first meeting went well, one thing led to another, and I found myself dating Rich. He was a few years older than me, intelligent and well read, interesting to talk to, high energy like me, and into some of the same hobbies, including travel, hiking, and eating healthy. So we had enough in common to make the first few months of dating fun. But soon it became obvious to me that we were very different in terms of sense of humor, personality, temperament, outlook on life, and desire to socialize outside the house. And not long after that, I noticed the fatal flaw in our relationship: we were both controlling individuals who didn’t like being told what to do, and we both had some unrevealed, deep-seated anger and shame that needed to be released before either of us was ready for a healthy partnership.

Because Rich was an experienced facilitator who’d helped many men uncover and release pent-up anger, I believe my psyche attracted me to him so I could do the inner work I still needed to do to get over the pain of breaking up with John and to come to terms with negative feelings toward men from my past. With his help, both intentionally and then as a result of the many arguments we had, he made it possible for me to detoxify my heart and soul by exposing and eliminating years of self-hate, shame, guilt, and rage. It was cleansing and life-changing, but it was also the death knell for the relationship. Again, I’d set up a teacher-student dynamic that killed the joy and passion. However, I learned an invaluable lesson: Buried anger and shame will sabotage any relationship and must be released.

No comments:

Post a Comment