When to End It (Or Begin It)

Seeing and Being Seen

We’re emotional capitalists now. Often, ironically, those of us who suppose they’re not capitalists at all.

Emotional capitalism: we see ourselves as “owners” of our lives who “make investments” in people, that then somehow pay us off. It’s false. There’s no little greedy capitalist in our souls counting emotional coins. Genuine happiness comes from giving, creating, bestowing, not having, possessing, taking. You can’t own an emotion (you can’t even control yours, can you?), therefore it’s not a payoff you can pile away in a bank vault of the human soul. That way lies numbness, not happiness, and that’s what I’d bet emotional capitalism does to us.

The biggest trap of emotional capitalism, and there are many, is that it leaves us unable to end or begin relationships wisely. To know when to move on, who to choose, and why. Of any kind. Romantic, professional, collegial.

We think: “I’ve invested so much! I’d better wait for the payoff!”. So we begin to become beancounters of the soul. We say: “well this relationship is beneficial in this way, though costly in this way. I guess I’ll stick with it”. But that’s not love, is it? It’s not: “my heart explodes every time I’m with you”. So, performing these cost/benefit analyses, love eludes us, and we grow baffled at our arid lives. Why? Because love isn’t about just benefit, pleasure, at all.

Love is beautiful suffering. There’s terrible suffering, sure. But love is this: me suffering with you, all the wounds you have ever been hurt with, and accepting them with gratitude as my own.

In this way, love cannot just be pleasure, the “payoff” of emotional “investments”. It is something more subtle and profound and true.

Make sense? Good. Here then are two really simple rules for knowing when to end or begin relationships.

Can they see you? Just ask both your mind and you heart. Does this person really see me? All my hurt and longing and fragility?

Now. When I say see, I don’t mean intellectually. Do they catalog your suffering in a database. LOL. No! I mean emotionally. Can they feel your broken heart? If they can’t feel it, how can they ever hold it?

So just ask gently. Ask your mind: has this person seen my pain and my joy – or do they resist it, mock it, deny it, fight with it? Ask your heart: do you feel seen when you are with this person, or ignored, minimised, reduced, belittled? A heart that isn’t seen is like a flower without sunlight: it shrinks away. Ask and yours will tell you.

Maybe the reason they can’t see you is…you’re not showing yourself to them. It happens. You’re afraid of rejection, hurt, humiliation. But who can love you if they can’t see you? So before you ask “can this person really see me”, ask “am I brave and true enough to really show myself to them?”

Can you see them? The second test of ending of beginning is just the reverse. Can you see them?

Maybe you can’t. That’s OK. In this tiny life, we only really see what we are ready to see. Maybe you aren’t ready to see people, the truth in their broken hearts, yet. What does that suggest? It means you shouldn’t chase relationships at all right now.

It’s a sign from you that you must learn how to see. What teaches us to see? Not being in failing, tumultuous relationships. But solitude. First we learn to really see ourselves. Then we extend that to others.

A relationship is two hearts seeing each other. Not in a superficial way. Not admiring each other. Not idealising each other. But each seeing the wounds and scars and suffering etched upon the other. And thus recognising, with gratitude and joy, that each heart is really all hearts.

Then and only then can there be love.

So. Can you see them? Can they see you? When the answer is no to either, it’s time to end it. When the answer is yes, it’s time to begin it.

Happiness in this tiny life is just this: being surrounded with hearts who can really see us. Then they can hold us. When, every day, you can say, “they really see me”, then every moment of that day will be beautiful, even when there is suffering.

Love is awareness. Ask every day.

Umair

April 2017