Assumptions Consumption
Are they Ruining Your Love Life?
by Melissa Balmer
"Never assume the obvious is true" - William Safire
"We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these
assumptions." - Steven Covey
The past eight years for me have been a pretty radical journey of learning to question my assumptions about myself and the world at large. The fascinating thing is that the more I become aware of my assumptions (and they as vast and deep and many layered, I meet new ones each day) the more freedom I realize that I have to become who I truly want to be, and to spend time with those who make me happy to be with - whether it's work, friendship or love.
Like many aspects of life that can spin out of control and take over our lives, assumptions start innocently enough and serve a purpose. They are a sort of shortcut to our "flight or fight" response. In some cases they certainly have value; a baby learns to assume that a stove can be hot and harmful after burning a finger, and as adults we can safely assume that a person we see on the street bleeding heavily needs a doctor now.
But we humans are a bit lazy (surprise surprise), so instead of using assumptions only for our personal safety we tend to use them automatically to categorize and limit just about everything we come across in life - most especially ourselves. We frequently decide we are too old, too young, too poor, to out of shape, too stupid, untalented, or ugly to have/do/be something that secretly makes our heart sing without any further investigation into the possibilities. We don't even try, or we give it the most fitful pathetic half-hearted attempt, simply because we've pre-judged a situation and decided "nope" it won't work.
The very tricky thing about assumptions, especially when it comes to being open to love (and no, long time couples and married people you're not safe and off the hook here, assumptions are alive and kicking with you too) is that we usually don't even realize we're making them, we actually kid ourselves into believing they're a well reasoned response after careful consideration. We decide we can't go on vacation by ourselves because the other single travelers we meet will be "weird," that only losers look for love online, that there simply aren't enough decent single people still available (there are more now than ever in history dear readers, we are coming close to the numbers of the married), or that our spouse or lover will laugh at or scorn the deepest longings of our heart if we ever get up the courage to share them.
Using Feelings as Your Guidepost
One of my favorite assumptions, the one I've had the hardest time overcoming personally, is the fact that I 've dealt with chronic pain for the past eight years in a major way in the form of migraines, and that this will keep me from finding true love. I'll let go of the idea for quite awhile, and then I'll have some kind of set back, usually a bad few pain days, and I'll decide nope, no one I'm really going to be into is going to be able to deal with the fact that I deal with migraines and the fatigue that sometimes accompanies them. This is in spite of the fact that I have made tremendous progress in feeling better over the past two years, and that I've have actually dated some incredibly cool men during this time, and had a boyfriend, and neither the migraines or the fatigue were the reason things didn't work out. The truth is that overall my romantic life has been on a constantly improving upward trend even before my health began to improve.
But whenever we're tired or down or insecure, because things don't seem to quite be going our way, is the very time when our assumptions (especially the negative ones) come roaring in to "make things simple" and keep us frozen on the couch of life or painted into a very small corner - all under the guise of safety.
When I look back on my life what I regret are those desires and gifts I didn't fully contemplate the possibilities of - too many times I wrote off following my heart because I just assumed what I wanted couldn't really happen, I decided in advance to be bummed about things I didn't even really try for.
Now whenever any of these fears raise their head (and the myriad of others I can create) I do my best to hang out with them and try to be really curious. I do my best to assume nothing. What exactly am I so afraid of about having less than perfect health? Seeming pathetic? Weak? Old before my time? (on this of late I've learned to get over myself, and that at 44, on occasion, I hold allure for men much younger than I imagined possible - I'm not acting on it yet, but I'm not freaking out about it either).
If I hang out with the questions long enough I begin to wonder if anyone has perfect health, or more specifically do the people I truly admire have perfect health? The answer to the latter is no, the very talented writers of two of my favorite books Seabiscuit by Lauren Hillenbrand and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Susannah Clarke both suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, and both are in long-term romantic relationships.
I find if I can name the particular monster of fear that has me making myself less by assumption it loses much of its teeth, especially if I can figure out where this assumption originally started from. I have learned from reading the marvelous writing of Buddhist nun Pema Chodron (who also suffers from CFS) that these assumptions along with their churning fearful emotions are truly flighty things - they tend to pass or dissipate when we just hang out with them for awhile, when we sit with their uncomfortableness and judgment, and then we can open up to imagine far more positive possibilities.
Using Your Intentions to Create Your Path
There was a time that I truly believed I could make happen exactly what I wanted to make happen if I just affirmed and prayed enough to make it so, if I had exactly the right attitude and right mindedness. I no longer believe this - there are too many variables at play in the universe, and too many things to think about to want to make happen, and this way of thinking can lead to the feeling that you either personally caused yourself great harm if bad things happen to you, or others are totally responsible when bad things befall them. It doesn't leave much space for true compassion for ourselves and others, and it can easily turn into a way of viewing the world that makes you right and everyone else wrong (or vice versa).
That being said, I do believe that intentions still have tremendous power. Good, kind ones can create a path for you even when it feels like you're in the middle of the darkest wilderness. When you know what you want to create in your life you have a beacon to shine on the negative assumptions when they start to sound too much like raw and righteous truth. Even if you fall into an old, well known, negative behavior you can far more easily right yourself with your intention set out clearly before you. And yes, you can make good things happen for yourself (just perhaps not perfection 24/7).
My romantic life has seen dramatic improvement because I've made both learning about what makes romantic relationships happy and successful, and allowing romance to be a journey for myself rather than a final destination, to be two of the most important intentions in my life. Find an intention that fascinates and captivates you and you might already be halfway there.