Acts of Surrender 11: The Adam I Am
I've mentioned Adam so often in these excerpts from Acts of Surrender, my memoir-in-progress, that it finally came time to for me to explore at least some of what our relationship is all about.
"Are you going to the bank today," Adam asked me Wednesday morning. I had offered him a largely token hundred dollars the previous week when the security-deposit refund on my Albuquerque rental had arrived. He'd turned me down then, but I'd renewed the offer on Tuesday when I learned that he was down to the baggie of quarters he keeps in his car.
"I can," I said.
He handed me back the check I'd written him. "If I deposit this, it'll get eaten up in overdraft fees. Can you do cash?"
"Sure," I replied. Whether cash or check, that hundred dollars was less than 25 percent of what I still had. I'd had some anxiety about making the initial offer, was relieved when it was turned down and knew, when I made it again, that I could not take "no" for an answer. It wasn't even about trusting I'd be taken care of. It was about knowing that sharing what I had left was the right thing to do, just as Adam had been so generously sharing with me since my arrival.
Like me, Adam has let go mountains of possessions and even bigger mountains of ways of being. He's also let go sources of income that brought him no joy. In the six weeks I've lived with him, his bank account has also shrunk. At this writing, it's below zero because checks he's deposited from a friend have bounced. And while he continues to receive a monthly disability check from his negotiated retirement from the Huntington Beach police department a few years ago, this month's hadn't come in yet...nor would it fully cover his expenses when it did. (It was his book about his police experience, Friendly Fire: The Illusion of Justice, that first connected us — months before he unwittingly found himself inviting me to stay with him.)
"Wait," he said. "The only thing I need money for is gas. Do you want to just give me your debit card to use at the gas station? I've got enough quarters for coffee."
We were on our way to Starbucks for our daily writing ritual — he on his new book, me on one or the other of mine. We were going to take separate cars so I could stop at a favorite park on the way. I met him in the kitchen on my way out and tossed my debit card onto the counter. Then I pulled my Starbucks card from my wallet and handed it to him.
"Don't mess with the quarters," I said. "There's got to be enough left on this card for two coffees."
He laughed. "Now you're supporting me!"
As I drove onto Bear Street toward the freeway, a thought struck me that was so obvious that it shouldn't have shocked me: Adam and I are in intimate relationship.
I've thought about this fleetingly in past weeks. And at the beginning of my time here, I actively fantasized about some happily-ever-after fairy-tale version of it. But until the naturalness of this morning's exchange, I didn't spend any time with it.
The irony is that the previous day, I'd suggested he write something about what intimate relationship might look like in a post-neediness, post-codependent era. Now I'm doing it.
"It wouldn't exist," he retorted at the time.
I think he's wrong. But I think it would look radically different from anything most people have experienced. I think it might look something like what he and I are currently experiencing.
No, we haven't been physically intimate. There's a good chance we never will be. We've barely even hugged. Even so, this time with Adam has proven to be the most authentic relationship I've ever experienced.
In 2005, a few months after my wife left me for what would turn out to be an emotionally and physically volatile relationship with the father of one of my daughter's school friends, she asked about the possibility of us getting back together again.
"I won't rule anything out," I replied, even though I had largely ruled it out. "But until we can come together as two independent, empowered individuals, I just don't think there's anything to talk about."
Back then, I hadn't yet acknowledged the crippling codependence of our six-year marriage. (Not that ours was singularly codependent; I'm increasingly aware that most relationships, intimate and otherwise, carry some of that energy.) Regardless, some high inner wisdom found and expressed precisely how I now view the evolution of my relationship with Adam and how I now view the potential for other evolved relationships.
After having addressed some of our individual codependent tendencies early on in our time together, Adam and I seem to be living some version of precisely what I expressed to my ex: Two largely independent, increasingly empowered individuals who have come together for as long as it serves us, not from a place of need or neediness but from a place of profound respect and in a place of love that has nothing to do with adolescence, romance and valentines and everything to do with seeing the other both in and as ourselves.
A few weeks ago, after a particularly impassioned conversation about some spiritual topic, I turned to Adam, in shock, and said, "It feels like we're the same person." Then I added, "It's kind of freaky."
It's not freaky anymore. Why would it be when you and I are also the same person, when we're all individual expressions of the same God or unified field or whatever phrase we use to describe an ultimate truth our minds may never be able to grasp.
What made it freaky that evening was that it was my first emotional experience of unity consciousness.
I believe in oneness. I know it intellectually. I've even had glimmerings of it while making love, though in retrospect, those have been cluttered by neediness.
This was different. This was an innate knowingness that transcended the mind and required no physical union to experience.
This was oneness.
Take that oneness, which, of course, everyone shares (even if we don't feel it), add the many hours Adam and I spend in each other's company and the fact that we live under the same roof, toss in a deepening connection over time (itself an expression of realized oneness) along with a love largely devoid of neediness, mix in a commitment to authentic interaction...et voilà: intimate relationship.
I say largely devoid of neediness because I still catch mercifully diminishing and increasingly infrequent glimpses of it in my own thoughts around Adam. The same is true around codependence: I may not be done with it, but when the old patterns emerge, I'm now able to notice and neutralize them far more quickly than in the past.
Strangely, I can't say that I'm "in love with" Adam. I don't see that as a bad thing. I'm beginning to view the in-love-with paradigm as inherently needy, insecure and codependent, premised on a romance-novel perspective that is largely unhealthy and patently unrealistic.
Even when I tell you that there are moments when I love him from a place of astonishing (to me) depth, I have to add that it's the me in him I'm discovering that I love. In the same way, when I marvel at the dizzying acceleration and formidable fearlessness of his forward movement, it's my own I'm seeing — through him because I've not let myself see it directly in me.
Of course, the same applies when he says or does something that makes me want to slug him. It's me I'm seeing. It's me I want to slug. He's just there to mirror my stuff back at me — the good, the bad and, most definitely, the ugly.
Everyone in my life presents that same mirror to me. When my daughter acts overwhelmed and needy, I must ask myself where that's going on in me. When a client refuses to let go of an old way of being, the same question comes up. When a colleague is stuck in an outmoded way of seeing, same question again. When, like Adam, a friend is doing magnificently, I also owe it to myself to acknowledge and celebrate my own magnificence.
While none of this mirroring is new, Adam's constant presence and the astounding similarities we share at this stage of our journey push it up to my nose multiple times a day.
Our deepening connection has also shown up in our writing. More often than not, even though we're writing different books that involve different experiences, we find out at day's end that we've tackled the identical theme. That's also largely true in the life issues that have come up for us. If something surfaces for Adam, some version of it nearly always surfaces within 24 hours for me, as well.
Of course, there have been challenging moments between us. You've read about enough of them here that you probably think that Adam is some kind of monster.
He's anything but that.
Rather, he's the most evolved, authentic spiritual journeyer I know...also the most fearless and committed. He's been one of my most valuable and valued teachers on the road to my own fearless authenticity, and one of the least gentle...which is a good thing. I require that in-your-face energy in my life right now. Adam provides it. He's forceful and does his excellent best to accept no bullshit — not in himself and not in anyone else.
And, possibly without knowing it, he's shown me what authentic relationship can look like.
I mentioned earlier that we haven't been physically intimate. While a sexual component might be a pleasing bonus for me in all of this, I'm probably still needy enough for that to be more hindrance than help. My goal is lovemaking with passion but no charge. I'm certain it's possible. I'm not certain I'm there yet.
At the same time, I'm no longer convinced that an intimate relationship requires a sexual component (as engaging a component as it can be). What it does require is what I expressed earlier: Two independent, empowered individuals who live their relationship as they live their lives, in the moment, and who stay together for as long as it serves them both — from a place of loving detachment and from a place of oneness experienced and expressed.
From my perspective, and to my great surprise, I seem to be living that with Adam.
He might not agree with any of this. He might still say, of the potential for evolved relationship, "It doesn't exist."
I don't know because we haven't discussed "us."
What would there be to talk about? Of course, we talk through what needs to be talked through (communication was a bit shaky at the beginning, but it's improved). But it strikes me that the moment two people start talking about The Relationship, there isn't much left to talk about, whatever kind of relationship it is.
Regardless, I don't need Adam to agree with me in order to have the experience I'm having. I simply have to have the experience. From it, I believe that evolved, authentic relationships are possible, if still rare.
I'm grateful for this one.
A postscript: Adam and I often share our writing. This is one piece, though, that I'm reluctant to share. The codependent place in me worries about rejection, fears abandonment.
The codependent place in me will have to move aside. An authentic relationship has no room for that kind of bullshit.
By the time you read this, Adam will have heard it, will have called me on any part of it that doesn't ring true and will have begun to process any part of it that pushes his buttons.
That's a good things, because his buttons are also mine.
Adapted from Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Journey Beyond Faith, my memoir-in-progress. Please share as you feel called to. But please, also, include a link back to this post.
Previous excerpts:
• April 28
• July 30
• August 25
• September 1
• September 9
• September 10
• September 12
• September 24
• September 27
• September 29
• If you're in the San Diego area, please join me at the Mind Body Spirit Expo at the Doubletree Mission Valley this Saturday, October 2. I'll be speaking at 2pm on Answering the Call to Write and will spend most of the rest of the day at the Lighted Bridge booth.
Oneness image by Sarafina420
"Are you going to the bank today," Adam asked me Wednesday morning. I had offered him a largely token hundred dollars the previous week when the security-deposit refund on my Albuquerque rental had arrived. He'd turned me down then, but I'd renewed the offer on Tuesday when I learned that he was down to the baggie of quarters he keeps in his car."I can," I said.
He handed me back the check I'd written him. "If I deposit this, it'll get eaten up in overdraft fees. Can you do cash?"
"Sure," I replied. Whether cash or check, that hundred dollars was less than 25 percent of what I still had. I'd had some anxiety about making the initial offer, was relieved when it was turned down and knew, when I made it again, that I could not take "no" for an answer. It wasn't even about trusting I'd be taken care of. It was about knowing that sharing what I had left was the right thing to do, just as Adam had been so generously sharing with me since my arrival.
Like me, Adam has let go mountains of possessions and even bigger mountains of ways of being. He's also let go sources of income that brought him no joy. In the six weeks I've lived with him, his bank account has also shrunk. At this writing, it's below zero because checks he's deposited from a friend have bounced. And while he continues to receive a monthly disability check from his negotiated retirement from the Huntington Beach police department a few years ago, this month's hadn't come in yet...nor would it fully cover his expenses when it did. (It was his book about his police experience, Friendly Fire: The Illusion of Justice, that first connected us — months before he unwittingly found himself inviting me to stay with him.)"Wait," he said. "The only thing I need money for is gas. Do you want to just give me your debit card to use at the gas station? I've got enough quarters for coffee."
We were on our way to Starbucks for our daily writing ritual — he on his new book, me on one or the other of mine. We were going to take separate cars so I could stop at a favorite park on the way. I met him in the kitchen on my way out and tossed my debit card onto the counter. Then I pulled my Starbucks card from my wallet and handed it to him.
"Don't mess with the quarters," I said. "There's got to be enough left on this card for two coffees." He laughed. "Now you're supporting me!"
As I drove onto Bear Street toward the freeway, a thought struck me that was so obvious that it shouldn't have shocked me: Adam and I are in intimate relationship.
I've thought about this fleetingly in past weeks. And at the beginning of my time here, I actively fantasized about some happily-ever-after fairy-tale version of it. But until the naturalness of this morning's exchange, I didn't spend any time with it.
The irony is that the previous day, I'd suggested he write something about what intimate relationship might look like in a post-neediness, post-codependent era. Now I'm doing it.
"It wouldn't exist," he retorted at the time.
I think he's wrong. But I think it would look radically different from anything most people have experienced. I think it might look something like what he and I are currently experiencing.
No, we haven't been physically intimate. There's a good chance we never will be. We've barely even hugged. Even so, this time with Adam has proven to be the most authentic relationship I've ever experienced.
In 2005, a few months after my wife left me for what would turn out to be an emotionally and physically volatile relationship with the father of one of my daughter's school friends, she asked about the possibility of us getting back together again.
"I won't rule anything out," I replied, even though I had largely ruled it out. "But until we can come together as two independent, empowered individuals, I just don't think there's anything to talk about."
Back then, I hadn't yet acknowledged the crippling codependence of our six-year marriage. (Not that ours was singularly codependent; I'm increasingly aware that most relationships, intimate and otherwise, carry some of that energy.) Regardless, some high inner wisdom found and expressed precisely how I now view the evolution of my relationship with Adam and how I now view the potential for other evolved relationships.
After having addressed some of our individual codependent tendencies early on in our time together, Adam and I seem to be living some version of precisely what I expressed to my ex: Two largely independent, increasingly empowered individuals who have come together for as long as it serves us, not from a place of need or neediness but from a place of profound respect and in a place of love that has nothing to do with adolescence, romance and valentines and everything to do with seeing the other both in and as ourselves.A few weeks ago, after a particularly impassioned conversation about some spiritual topic, I turned to Adam, in shock, and said, "It feels like we're the same person." Then I added, "It's kind of freaky."
It's not freaky anymore. Why would it be when you and I are also the same person, when we're all individual expressions of the same God or unified field or whatever phrase we use to describe an ultimate truth our minds may never be able to grasp.
What made it freaky that evening was that it was my first emotional experience of unity consciousness.
I believe in oneness. I know it intellectually. I've even had glimmerings of it while making love, though in retrospect, those have been cluttered by neediness.
This was different. This was an innate knowingness that transcended the mind and required no physical union to experience.
This was oneness. Take that oneness, which, of course, everyone shares (even if we don't feel it), add the many hours Adam and I spend in each other's company and the fact that we live under the same roof, toss in a deepening connection over time (itself an expression of realized oneness) along with a love largely devoid of neediness, mix in a commitment to authentic interaction...et voilà: intimate relationship.
I say largely devoid of neediness because I still catch mercifully diminishing and increasingly infrequent glimpses of it in my own thoughts around Adam. The same is true around codependence: I may not be done with it, but when the old patterns emerge, I'm now able to notice and neutralize them far more quickly than in the past.
Strangely, I can't say that I'm "in love with" Adam. I don't see that as a bad thing. I'm beginning to view the in-love-with paradigm as inherently needy, insecure and codependent, premised on a romance-novel perspective that is largely unhealthy and patently unrealistic.
Even when I tell you that there are moments when I love him from a place of astonishing (to me) depth, I have to add that it's the me in him I'm discovering that I love. In the same way, when I marvel at the dizzying acceleration and formidable fearlessness of his forward movement, it's my own I'm seeing — through him because I've not let myself see it directly in me.
Of course, the same applies when he says or does something that makes me want to slug him. It's me I'm seeing. It's me I want to slug. He's just there to mirror my stuff back at me — the good, the bad and, most definitely, the ugly.
Everyone in my life presents that same mirror to me. When my daughter acts overwhelmed and needy, I must ask myself where that's going on in me. When a client refuses to let go of an old way of being, the same question comes up. When a colleague is stuck in an outmoded way of seeing, same question again. When, like Adam, a friend is doing magnificently, I also owe it to myself to acknowledge and celebrate my own magnificence.While none of this mirroring is new, Adam's constant presence and the astounding similarities we share at this stage of our journey push it up to my nose multiple times a day.
Our deepening connection has also shown up in our writing. More often than not, even though we're writing different books that involve different experiences, we find out at day's end that we've tackled the identical theme. That's also largely true in the life issues that have come up for us. If something surfaces for Adam, some version of it nearly always surfaces within 24 hours for me, as well.
Of course, there have been challenging moments between us. You've read about enough of them here that you probably think that Adam is some kind of monster.
He's anything but that.
Rather, he's the most evolved, authentic spiritual journeyer I know...also the most fearless and committed. He's been one of my most valuable and valued teachers on the road to my own fearless authenticity, and one of the least gentle...which is a good thing. I require that in-your-face energy in my life right now. Adam provides it. He's forceful and does his excellent best to accept no bullshit — not in himself and not in anyone else.
And, possibly without knowing it, he's shown me what authentic relationship can look like.
I mentioned earlier that we haven't been physically intimate. While a sexual component might be a pleasing bonus for me in all of this, I'm probably still needy enough for that to be more hindrance than help. My goal is lovemaking with passion but no charge. I'm certain it's possible. I'm not certain I'm there yet.
At the same time, I'm no longer convinced that an intimate relationship requires a sexual component (as engaging a component as it can be). What it does require is what I expressed earlier: Two independent, empowered individuals who live their relationship as they live their lives, in the moment, and who stay together for as long as it serves them both — from a place of loving detachment and from a place of oneness experienced and expressed.
From my perspective, and to my great surprise, I seem to be living that with Adam.
He might not agree with any of this. He might still say, of the potential for evolved relationship, "It doesn't exist."
I don't know because we haven't discussed "us."
What would there be to talk about? Of course, we talk through what needs to be talked through (communication was a bit shaky at the beginning, but it's improved). But it strikes me that the moment two people start talking about The Relationship, there isn't much left to talk about, whatever kind of relationship it is.
Regardless, I don't need Adam to agree with me in order to have the experience I'm having. I simply have to have the experience. From it, I believe that evolved, authentic relationships are possible, if still rare.
I'm grateful for this one.
A postscript: Adam and I often share our writing. This is one piece, though, that I'm reluctant to share. The codependent place in me worries about rejection, fears abandonment. The codependent place in me will have to move aside. An authentic relationship has no room for that kind of bullshit.
By the time you read this, Adam will have heard it, will have called me on any part of it that doesn't ring true and will have begun to process any part of it that pushes his buttons.
That's a good things, because his buttons are also mine.
Adapted from Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Journey Beyond Faith, my memoir-in-progress. Please share as you feel called to. But please, also, include a link back to this post.
Previous excerpts:
• April 28
• July 30
• August 25
• September 1
• September 9
• September 10
• September 12
• September 24
• September 27
• September 29
• If you're in the San Diego area, please join me at the Mind Body Spirit Expo at the Doubletree Mission Valley this Saturday, October 2. I'll be speaking at 2pm on Answering the Call to Write and will spend most of the rest of the day at the Lighted Bridge booth.
Oneness image by Sarafina420
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