Love & All the Good Stuff
by Wyatt Webb
 Quite
often, I spend time with people who are extremely critical of themselves for
having multiple failed relationships. The truth is, they're missing the point:
We can't fail, because there's no way to do these things wrong. A failed
relationship, if you put it into its proper context, is a chance to either wake
up or stay asleep, and it's what I refer to as an "AFGE"?or "Another Frigging
Growth Experience."
If I had a dollar for every time I've experienced one of those, I could have
retired 15 years ago!
For all the people I see who have been through horrible breakups, I encourage
them to look at the Big Picture -- which is "heal it or repeat it." Most of the
relationship problems I've seen have been caused by the unhealthy relationships
people have with themselves.
This is a good place for me to share a short, but true, story with you.
A long time ago, a friend of mine told me something that stays with me to
this day. He and I were having coffee when a man walked in who, by his mere
presence, gave me an immediate emotional charge.
I leaned over to my friend and said, "I don't know what it is about that
SOB, but I don't like him."
"How long have you known him?" my friend asked.
"I've never seen him before in my life," I spat, "but I don't like him."
He laughed and said, "Well then, Wyatt, it can't be about him. You have no
history with this man. It has to be about you."
In other words, if you spot it, you got it. (It took me a few more years to
figure out that this includes good qualities, too.)
Okay, back to the AFGEs. Marriage can certainly be an example of one of
these. Let's look at what most people's idea of marriage is. Again and again,
I've had married people say to me, "I thought my spouse was going to solve my
problems."
The truth is, they're going to give you the opportunity to solve your
problems. What a mate usually does is bring your problems right up in your face.
They'll offer you the necessary discomfort so that you might wake up and become
conscious, which will give you the opportunity to start the process of
self-discovery. One of the things I can assure you of is simple: If a marriage
is going to be successful, there's always going to be some work involved.
We seem to have bought into a generalized idea of what love means and how it
plays out. Did you know that most people have no problems in the first three
months of a relationship? There's even a select group who can only do the first
three months. They're actually experts at it.
Well, who wouldn't want to be a specialist in this area? Anybody can do those
first three months -- after all, it's the warm and fuzzy, fresh and nice time
known as the "honeymoon stage." This is where we get lost in each other's eyes
and it's all roses and candlelight, as we maintain the illusion of a fairy-tale
romance.
Then 'round about month four, somebody burps or farts. Oops! This thing
starts to get real. Of course, that's no big deal in a healthy relationship. But
for fantasy-based relationships, this is a very big deal!
Personally, I have a strong belief that the actual purpose of each and every
union we make in this life is for healing wounds. More often than not, we're
unaware of this, due to the fact that we've been conditioned to be externally
focused in our relationships. This means that we spend the majority of our time
wondering what others are thinking and feeling and making up stories about why
they behave as they do.
But as long as we're doing this, it's impossible to be present in the
relationship, so we really can't examine what's going on inside ourselves.
Instead, we seem to want our relationships to fix whatever we perceive to be
wrong with us.
Now, I have a problem with this whole "fixing" concept. In the first place,
we're not broken -- we're simply human. Of course we've got some sore spots,
bruises, and wounds that haven't healed yet, but if we can just wake up, we can
ultimately become our own doctor in these areas. I'm not talking about slapping
a Band-Aid on the past and letting it fester for another day. I'm talking about
really allowing ourselves to heal from the core of the internal trauma.
The more we can let go of the self-criticism, the higher the degree of
healing will be. Only then will our relationships with each other improve,
because love can't truly exist without self-awareness. Love is a conscious
choice, whose genesis lies in basic respect for one's self.
So when we clean up the unfinished business in ourselves and in our family
history, we can cut down on the AFGEs. Here's an example of this.
One day, Emily, a woman in her 30s who had devoted most of her time to
building a successful career, came out to the ranch. She claimed to not have
any problems . . . other than her inability to find the proper mate. As she
put it, "All the guys out there my age are nuts. They're mama's boys who don't
want to make a commitment, or they're cheaters and liars. Did common decency
just skip an entire generation of men?"
It was obvious that she was looking in the wrong place for the answer to
her dilemma. I asked, "How do you know these guys are nuts? And why do they
keep showing up just for you?"
Well, it turns out that Emily had been engaged to a man in his late 30s who
seemed like a really wonderful guy. But as the wedding date grew close, his
behavior became erratic -- to the point that he cheated on Emily with his
ex-girlfriend, disappeared for two weeks, and then came back to announce that
he was quitting his very lucrative job in advertising and rethinking his
entire life . . . which at that point no longer included marriage.
I wasn't interested in delving into his deal. Instead, I simply
asked her, "Has this happened to you before?"
Emily's eyes welled up with tears. She told me that when she was 12, her
father ran away with another woman, and she didn't see him again until she was
20. From the time she began dating (at age 16), she repeatedly found herself
in relationships with emotionally unavailable guys who would inevitably leave
her.
And so, Emily had attracted someone into her life for reasons both logical
and necessary. He was there so she might see her relationship patterns as an
opportunity for change. Later, after her fiancT abandoned her, he got engaged to
an old girlfriend -- whom he subsequently broke up with a month later. Even then,
Emily wasn't getting that she wasn't defective. But after our work, she had at
least become aware of how her relationship patterns were setups for failure. She
was able to see the work that needed to be done in order to break this vicious
cycle, and to heal. And ultimately, she left us better equipped to at least
cease choosing unavailable partners who would eventually abandon her.
This
article was excerpted from:
 It's Not about the Horse
by Wyatt
Webb.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Hay House Inc. ©2002. http://www.hayhouse.com
Info/Order this book.
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About the Author
Wyatt
Webb survived 15 years in
the music industry as an entertainer, touring the country 30 weeks a year.
Realizing he was practically killing himself due to drug and alcohol addictions,
Wyatt sought help, which eventually led him to quit the entertainment industry.
He began what is now a 20-year career as a therapist. Wyatt has become one of the most creative, unconventional, and
sought-after therapists in the country. He's the founder and leader of the
Equine
Experience at Miraval, one of the world's top
resorts, which is located in Tucson. For info on Wyatt's Equine Experience
programs, call 800-232-3969.
More articles by this author.
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