The Void, the Fear, and the Choice
El vacío, el miedo y la elección
A wide-ranging dialogue touching on how to navigate the unknown when old paradigms fall away, how to move toward fear with discernment, and how to find inner integrity when facing a genuine relational paradox.
The Void, the Fear, and the Choice
A wide-ranging dialogue touching on how to navigate the unknown when old paradigms fall away, how to move toward fear with discernment, and how to find inner integrity when facing a genuine relational paradox.
I like this idea of stepping away from the old paradigm without there being another paradigm to replace it. That void: is it a conscious awareness? Someone once called it the "fertile void." There's something there, but because you can't see it or understand it, you have to trust that something will appear.
Exactly. My teacher called it the void of all possibility, which is this fertile void.
And there's this dance between letting go, surrendering, and waiting on the one hand, and planning and structuring on the other. But I suppose, as you say, it's all about what's happening right now. Perhaps right now the thing to do is plan, and perhaps right now the thing to do is wait and allow.
The planning is also a spontaneous arising
Yes, and the planning is not really a choice between one option and another. It's more that you begin to see the planning itself as a spontaneous arising. The less you try to fit things into a paradigm, the more you realize: it's not about planning or not planning. Because "I don't plan" is itself a paradigm.
So often when we come to this void, we can't see it and integrate it fully all at once. It's too much. Instead, we upgrade our paradigm to align it more closely with what we've glimpsed, but in a way that's manageable. We keep upgrading stepwise, so that we can gradually touch that voidness and be with it. It's appropriate to say, "I'm tuning my paradigm so that it's more in service of, and aligned with, what I've understood of myself and reality." Because it's pretty hard to just throw out all paradigms, look straight into the void, and come out on the other side. It happens to people, but it's very challenging. It can be very shattering.
That's not what you're describing. You're describing a movement into the unknown. So regarding planning and not planning, see it as: in this moment, what feels right? What should I plan? What should I not? Look at the old habits, the world's way of functioning, and make room for something new. If in a certain situation you're used to heavy planning, you can look at it and ask, "Is it really needed? What if I plan less here?" If that feels scary, go into that. Vice versa: if you're used to not planning, because that too is a habit, ask yourself, "What if I plan this?" If that feels uncomfortable and not like your type of thing, go into it. Try it out.
So what feels right in the moment might actually be the default, comfortable thing, not the right thing. You might end up doing the habitual thing just because the alternative feels scary.
Moving toward fear with discernment
Yes. Moving toward fear, with discernment, is often most likely the right thing. Where we realize there's fear in a direction, go in that direction, but always with discernment. Discernment will tell you when something is an unnecessary risk. The obvious example: "I'm afraid to jump in front of a moving bus." Discernment says, "Do not go toward that fear. That's not the right thing." But then there's another classic example: "I like this person. I've liked them for a long time. I feel there's a connection. Should I approach them? Should I say something?" There's fear of rejection. But am I going to die if I say something? No. Then yes, move toward that fear.
Those are two obvious examples. But most of our life is in the gray zone, where it's harder to figure out what the right thing is. That's where we develop discernment. You could think of discernment as aligning with a kind of universal note, a deep desire of the heart, which whispers its truth and guides you in alignment with your deepest self. Some people call it the universe. Some people call it God. Whatever resonates with you.
Discernment is this open looking: using the mind and its information to consider options, but with an openness and a listening to something deeper, something that refuses to treat the fear voice as an absolute truth. Fear says, "Don't do this. Do what I say and I will disappear. I'll stop bugging you." And so what we do is: "I hate fear. I'll do whatever you say just so you'll leave." That keeps us trapped in the known. Everything this work is about, its entire purpose, is to break free from that trap.
Fear howls, the heart whispers
My teacher once gave a talk and spontaneously said a phrase that became the title of a book. In English the translation is less poetic, but the essence is: "Fear howls. The heart whispers." That's the work: to realize how much we are listening to fear, and to recognize that listening to the heart requires far more attention.
Thank you.
I'm currently in a relationship that's the healthiest one I've ever been in. It's with someone who is very securely attached and grounded in herself. We have really good communication and chemistry. It's been a vehicle for a lot of personal growth, and it's challenged many of my avoidant tendencies. By and large, I feel happy. There's a stability to it that feels refreshing, and it's not stale; it's growthful. And yet I sometimes have a feeling that I don't know if this is quite the thing that will endure. That feeling comes and goes.
Do you think it's going to endure?
It's more like a worry that it's going to end. There was a lot of divorce in my family growing up, so I think I have a fear of relationships ending and the pain of that. And simultaneously a guilt: if I'm part of that process, then I'm doing something wrong or being bad. I feel like that fear and guilt on my part can play into the corresponding fear of whoever I'm dating. The beauty of this relationship is that we can talk about all of that. I've had the experience multiple times of being scared to bring something up, and because of our relational capacity, it ends up resulting in increased intimacy and joy and seeds the next phase of the relationship. So it feels like a good thing.
But a few months ago I met someone else. We've hung out in person twice, had a couple of phone calls, and there was an immediate ease and attraction. It came with this spontaneous sense of opening into the unknown. It feels like we're already meditating when we hang out. There's a physical attraction, but I'm really interested in the spiritual resonance I feel we have. We haven't acted on any of the physical attraction, and in fact she just moved to another country. But we hung out before she left, and I had this worry: it feels like a catch-22. I'm worried that maybe, even though my relationship is really great, on some level it's not quite the right one, and that I'm staying in an old paradigm and closing myself off to a relationship that might be more deeply aligned.
You've already shared a lot, and there's a lot to unpack. Let me ask: what's your commitment to the first relationship? This kind of question, even though it's personal and relational, is always connected to the work on waking up. Both have to happen in parallel. But right now we're focusing on the personal side, and there's a matter of ethics here. What's the commitment to your current relationship? Is it open? Is it not? How is it open?
It's lightly open, but it's partnered and committed. It's just under a year long.
What's the verbal agreement, if any, around the openness?
It mostly has to do with sexual openness, with outside sexual experiences.
And those experiences are required to be communicated to your partner?
They are.
And only if there's a sexual experience, or also if, for example, you've gone on a few dates with someone else? Is that something you should communicate to your primary partner?
I have been communicating. They haven't exactly been dates. There have been some cuddles. It hasn't gone further than that.
Inner integrity and the gray zone
I would say that if you're cuddling with another woman, that is a date. How is it not?
The first time was a date, but since then we basically agreed we're just friends. The cuddling stopped, but the attraction remained. We talked about that attraction, and I talked about it with my partner. It's all communicated.
Then what needs work is what I would call your inner integrity: knowing what you are actually, truly experiencing, what you actually, truly want, what your fears and desires really are, more and more deeply and honestly. If you're saying "it wasn't a date, we're friends, but we're cuddling and there's sexual attraction," that's an unclear narrative. Communicating it to yourself in that way, and to your partner or to the other person, is very unclear. It's just stepping into something with a narrative that isn't very accurate. You're bringing this up as someone you're considering leaving a current partner for, and yet you're calling it a friendship.
Well, she moved away, and we really did decide after that first time to just be friends and deescalate. And yet the feelings remained. We talked about the feelings, and I talked about some of them with my partner. I feel overall like I'm trying to exercise discernment. But you're right: it is an ethical question, and it requires deeper introspection.
If you really challenge yourself to have a thousand times more clarity, a thousand times more inner integrity, more honesty, more courage with the situation, you will clarify the whole thing. And it's going to help you walk through it in a way you'll be a lot happier with. Because if you start giving yourself these permissions to be a little gray on this, a little gray on that, you start walking into confusion. You lose your clarity about what you want. That, to me, is the underlying issue that needs to be looked at.
Question (from another participant): What I hear is: "I'm afraid of missing out," and that's a fear. The spiritual resonance you feel: is that something you'll lose if you commit to your current partner? How you interpret that resonance is a good question.
The paradox as an opportunity
Exactly. That's the core of the issue. But in order to address it, a lot needs to be unpacked, more time needs to be spent, and you need to clarify what I was pointing out first. Only then can you approach the question of "this person or that person" and the FOMO that comes with it.
The spiritual resonance you feel with this other person could very likely be something you are opening up outside of your relationship because that feels safe, because you're afraid to commit. I don't want to resolve that prematurely, because it's also possible that there is a true resonance with this other person and that she's the better match. But it's so likely that it's an avoidance mechanism within your current relationship.
I'm fully aware of both possibilities.
I know you see the view. But I can't read into you and tell you which one it is. That would be completely robbing you of your responsibility, and it would be a betrayal of everything I'd want to teach. It's your call. We can work through the issue so that you gain clarity. Hopefully I can support and assist in that process, and others can too: a therapist, for instance. But it's a matter of you gaining the clarity and the integrity and the courage to see more deeply what your real fears are, what your real pains are, what's really motivating all of this.
In a sense, this is one of those great enigmas of life: you're stuck in a genuinely clear paradox with no obvious indication of the right answer. That is actually one of the best places to be in order to deepen and open up, both in consciousness and in the growing-up aspect of being a human being. It's also an opening into the seeing of our true nature, which, in a sense, is required for us to make deeper, more aligned choices, so that our previous conditioning, our emotional pains and fears, don't automatically dictate our behavior.
So the situation and the paradox itself present an opportunity to work with fear and conditioning.
Exactly. Look more. Be more honest. It's not that you're being dishonest; it's that the volume can always be turned up. Raise the meter on inner integrity, authenticity, and honesty with yourself first. What are your fears, truly? That naturally translates into clarity about what to communicate to others around you, and to whom.
Thank you.