Getting it, even when you don't want to

There's lots of great advice about "following your intuition" or "listening to your gut," but along with that, sometimes we listen as hard as we can and ignore all of it anyway, because we want to be hearing something different. Our capacity for denial and "yes but" and holding out hope seems nearly infinite. 

It feels especially endless with regard to news that is simply unacceptable. Maybe we're not good at what we wanted to do for a living. Or we have to give up some beloved habit that we feel is the only thing that helps us make it. The love of our life is not available and probably never will be, or at least probably won't be for many years. The love of our life is moving on already, better at dealing with reality than we are, has already forgotten, is much better at moving on than we are. Who wants to hear that?

So, along with the advice about intuition, there ought to be some tools for hearing, digesting and accepting news one doesn't want.

I am pondering exactly what those tools are. I often seem constructed to  listen to what I don't want to hear only when the pain of not listening gets great enough. It's a weird law of growth, it seems, that pain is one of the only things that cuts through denial. But even then, the cry of "I can't do this anymore!" doesn't necessarily lead to lasting change, or deeper acceptance. It's a bare starting place of despair and defeat, but a lot of things can happen after that. 

I think of these bottoms as "step 1 moments." "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable." I sometimes think unbearable, excruciating and utterly miserable would substitute well for "unmanageable." "I admitted I am powerless over others- that my life has become unmanageable." That's the CoDA first person version, and more directly applicable now. 

All I can do is stop. Let go. The fear is that if I let go, there will be nothing but loss. Loss and more loss. I try to recall that you can never lose what is truly yours, but lately it has not been helping. Sometimes I have been hearing my guardian angel saying "Well, you know, when it comes to love, even a love for the ages, sometimes things just don't work out. That's just the way things are, friend." 



I find this oddly comforting but terribly sad. Even when something feels so powerful and weirdly fated, maybe it's also fated to not materialize. Just as much fated to fade, be a set of unforgettable blessings, remembered fondly. It is, after all, one of the archetypal love story endings. Powerful love, yet somehow not possible, and the agreement it is best to part, gratitude for what was, and the long arc of the rest of one's life. 

I resist this so fiercely in this case. I am having a terribly hard time accepting that this is the fate. Is it my intuition telling me that it doesn't have to end that way, or is it my denial? I have been unable to parse it. I suspect it's my denial.  

I know my mind keeps saying "don't make yourself available for an unavailable person." But my mind loves those pat, black and white and totally reasonable propositions. I wish I were capable of living a rational life sometimes. I am not. I am no stoic. My heart always drives decisions much more. 

All I am able to do lately is let go and hold a neutral space for pain. Sadness is a big part of every day. I'm a little ashamed of that, but I'm working on just accepting it. Anger and resentment come up when I push the sadness away, and I don't want anger and resentment. 

I don't want any of this. It's been a long stretch of not wanting a lot of what is happening. Or of having the moments of what I want be countered with long unwanted interludes. Narrow, painful passages, without much air to breathe, and with no apparent way out until a lot farther off in time. 

As I've noted before in posts here, the hardest thing for me to do is nothing. But nothing can be done.