Relationships & Believing In Thoughts
A friend asked me a while back about long term relationships. Doesn't it get boring? Doesn't it feel confining?
And one answer is that it all depends on whether you believe in thoughts or not.
If you don't believe in thoughts, it is always new.
If you believe in thoughts, anything could happen depending on what those thoughts are.
As closely as this may (and does) reflect my experience, it can also be seen as a quite unsatisfactory and arrogant answer.
If it doesn't match the experience of the recipient, and they don't experience a choice in believing in thoughts or not, then this answer is in a way useless and arrogant. But if it is given along with a way for the recipient to explore this for themselves, through for instance Byron Katie's inquiry process, and the recipient is receptive to this exploration, then it can indeed be (or at least appear) quite helpful.
For me, after exploring the inquiry process since last spring, I see how I sometimes do believe in thoughts about the relationship - and anything, any experience, can come out of that, both pleasant and unpleasant. And when I just rest in/as what is, then it is always fresh, always surprising, always a gift.
And the believing phases now seem briefer and briefer, and don't have much substance even when they do appear. They seem to be quite transitory guests.
Of course, these are the more gross and obvious beliefs, through which I create obvious drama for myself. There are most likely still plenty of subtle beliefs there, which do not show up in the same way in everyday life. (These includes a belief in the thought "I" - as an "agent" or pure formless awareness, etc. which seems to come and go, more as an old habit.)