I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

I don't know how this is going to turn out, so bear with me, but some things are rambling around in my brain this morning, and I feel a need to work them a little. Doing this stuff openly is always dangerous, right? because one is working on one's own issues, so to speak, in full view of others one knows both virtually and personally.

So this is always a little scary. I mean, no one likes being vulnerable, with all their flaws hanging out, right in the line of sight of others, do they? That's why nakedness in front of a crowd is such a bad dream for many.....

But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Doesn't mean I am not afraid, because I am actually really afraid. But I am going to do this anyway.

Rumi wrote, and I can't find it, but I remember it (cursed airhead brain!), that people often are confronted in life with a situation in which they can make a choice: either step into the burning hot fire, or into a cool stream of water. Now this is metaphorical, but if you've lived longer than, oh, about 20 years, you've done this at least once or twice in your life in a personal situation. So, what to do? Step into the fire, where pain surely awaits? Or take the easy route and go into the stream where it's nice and cool and shady?

Nearly everyeone opts for the stream and then they are shocked to find their head pop up in the middle of the fire!

The people who chose the fire are equally surprised to find that they emerge from the middle of the cool stream unharmed! How to explain this?

Rumi meant that in life, if you would choose to embrace the flame, choose to burn away your impureties in that fire of love, then your pain is immense but terribly brief, and before you know it, you are the one who is really safe in the cool stream, the place of peace. I am interpreting here - Rumi was an ecstatic Sufi poet, so his work focused on Divine love, but also the love he personally felt in his relationships, which he also saw as divine.

Now if you chose the path of the cool stream, and sought to avoid facing your pain, well, you went in the fire anyway, but by the far more painful route because now you have to be burned unconsciously, bit by bit, since you didn't consciously choose it.

Think about it. The truth always sets you free, and makes everything so clear. But when we are flailing about in a river of pain, the last thing we ever want is the one thing that would free us - the truth. The river of pain is our illusions dissolving away from us, but oh - the amount of time it took to construct those! We cling to them for dear life when the truth waits quietly for our acknowledgement.

So why am I writing this right now? This is always the salient question.

Because I am pretty sure I am hanging out in the stream at the moment. Or, my ego is. And I am hanging out there with someone else who is daily getting parts of themselves burned away. This is most excruciating to watch, and yet somehow, I think I am getting parts of myself burned too. Not because their situation is spilling over into my nest, per se, but because a certain facet of their situation led me right to my own demon, who was waiting here patiently all the time, tapping its foot, checking its watch. 'Hey, how you doing? The hair looks good, you've put on a couple of pounds..tsk tsk tsk...ok, come on, let's get to work here....'

See these kinds of relationships in life are never accidental, and we are fools if we think life is a series of random events. We are even bigger fools if we think we are in control. By trying to help a friend navigate their road of pain, I have unwittingly invited my own pain in for a long afternoon of tea.

Side note: If the word demon offends you, please don't get hung up on the etymology. I can call it a demon, or a point of emotional pain, or a psychological issue - these are, at the end of the day, quite interchangeable. Science deals with this by seeking and expunging the point of pain, surgically or chemically. Religion takes another route by externalizing the struggle and then arming one for it, but in the end, that which torments mankind boils down to the same primal stuff.

Now I have to ask myself, well, since you are being burned already, and it already hurts, do you open up all the way....and self-immolate? Do I consciously choose to cast all the rags of my ego into the flame and let myself be freed of what is constraining and containing me? Or do I hang out here in the illusion of the cool water and let little pieces of me get burned away as needed, unconsciously?

The first option is more gutsy, the second inevitable...but far more painful and long-term.

What to do what to do what to do....the answer seems so clear, and yet so difficult to carry out in real life, as these things always are.

I always find this part of navigating any relationship the most difficult. Actually, that would be my demon speaking. Here, quit whispering in my ear - you take the mike.

Thank you very much. You know, you really need to scoop the catbox - it's getting a little out of control there, and I could use more coffee. Thanks, hon. You're too good to me...

Ok, hi everybody out there. This is Sharon's daemon speaking. Demons are bad, daemons are parts of the soul that point the way. The problem she struggles with is this. When a relationship presents itself to her, she hems and haws for like, a hundred years, because she doesn't trust that the outcome will be anything less than excruciatingly painful. If she can't see a clear road to happiness, well she just isn't about to put her feet on that path. See, there's been so few - well hey, come to think of it - actually no happy endings, that she doesn't even want to risk it. But the thing is, in relationship, you can't control for the outcome. The whole point is to open up, become vulnerable, for whatever the gift is being offered in the relationship and to quit trying to write the scripted ending.

You know she's a playwright and fledgling filmmaker, right? So of course she always tries for a Hollywood ending. But the whole point is that you don't get to the happy ending by trying to control it from the starting line. You have to trust in the journey, take the curveballs with panache cause they might lead you to where you really want to go, and realize that life is all about the experiences, not the endings.

So come on folks, help her open up, and accept all the good stuff that's trying to come in.

Whew, I think she needs help on that cat box, so I am off to supervise.

Thank you very much. I am leaving the building. Over an out.