3/13/10 – Break up

I found myself needing to break off a relationship with someone who I had gone out with on a few dates. The regarding of it as a ‘relationship’ was really necessitated by the fact that he had come on extremely strong and desired a far bigger commitment than I was willing to give – while deciding to call me his boyfriend on the second date. For him it was a relationship, for me it was a few dates. For me the dates where a whirlwind of intense amounts of warmth and intimate conversations exchanged between two Fire elements where the intensity and depth of conversation had gone from 0 to 100 mph in no time. Per my prior post, this is a great example of the fantasy of a huge blaze which can be created in the mind of a Fire constitution from what in reality is just a stick, a few leaves and perhaps a little smoke – very boring and underwhelming.

By the third date, however (which was a full month apart due to travels) I found myself smothered and burnt-out by the amounts of phone calls and messages that were on my phone. I knew that ultimately I needed to end future encounters and return back to reality.

Ending a relationship for me is akin to withdrawing the warmth of my Fire from someone. I don't like withdrawing warmth - it seems counter to my nature. A fellow Fire constitution friend at school told me "The way we break up with people is - I'm breaking up with you, but please continue to love me even though I don’t want you in my life anymore". Another way of saying that is “Lets just be friends”. Its such a foundational need - the need to be loved, liked, and understood that comes out of the Fire CF, its ridiculous - the alternative is rejection, misunderstanding and loneliness which causes sadness and lifelessness.

My friend Suzy noted that there seems to be a fundamental assumption for the Fire constitution that they will be unloved, uncared for and unrecognized unless they continue to pour all this warmth all over everything and make everyone feel better about decisions, actions and needs.

I can see that since the very early formative years of my childhood, most of what I remember occurred in three homes in Poland (paternal grandparents, maternal grandparents, and parent’s home in Warsaw). The fundamental ‘story’ I created from a very early age is that I must provide joy, laughter and entertainment if I am to be loved and noticed. Though I had plenty of evidence that my parents and my maternal grandparents always loved me as a child, I did not feel the same way in my paternal grandparents’ home.

In that home there was a perceived scarcity of love and attention and unless I was warm and pleasing, put smiles on people's faces and did exactly what I was told, I was ignored and in short – unloved and rejected. There were many things which my grandfather in particular did which I remember scared me into line as a child, and no matter what warmth I gave, it was never enough.

What causes the constitution in a person is unknown, and whether various incidents in those years ‘created’ the constitutional imbalance, or whether the imbalance was created far earlier, or was born into me is unknown. What I do know is that the lens of my childhood and my years to come centered around the conviction of being misunderstood, unloved, and ignored unless I behaved. It is because of those years that I never grew close to the family in Warsaw and have to this day remained cold and unemotional in response to those times.

My constitutional Fire element seeks to create love and joy in everyone as an imperative to create that which I perceived as being insufficient in my environment and insufficient in my heart. The Fire pathology I’m describing here is a Small Intestine/Heart Fire pathology versus a Pericardium/Triple Heater Fire pathology which is slightly different.

In learning how to behave in those years, I bring into all my relationships a fundamental fear of being rejected. I project that this same set of feelings that accompany rejection will be made in another if I don’t shield them from my rejection of them. I either don’t reject anyone and let friendships and relationships persist long after their natural end should have come, or I reject people first and shut them out of my life at the earliest hint of being rejected or the perceived notion that I will be rejected by them. This has me write overly discriminate between who I will pursue in friendship/relationship and who I won’t. It may have very little with whatever virtues the person has or hasn’t but instead has mostly to do with how I will be perceived by them. The grip of this belief structure has weakened over the years and I no longer care as much about what people think of me as I used to.

It is through this need to always end up looking like ‘Mr. Nice guy’ and never making anyone feel bad that I developed the tools of being politically correct and understanding of where all people are coming from. When I attempt to end conversations, I only feel like I have succeeded if I have created warmth in another and ensured that they didn’t feel rejected by me but felt embraced and heard in the time we spent together. This mechanism is extremely tiring and again no longer has the same grip on me it once used to.

This need to prevent myself from being rejected is what prevents me from rejecting what isn’t wholesome in others. Its what has me attempt to transform any perceived negative into a positive. This core belief is so fundamental to my constitution. Rejecting someone rather than embracing them in understanding fundamentally has me commit the worst thing a person can do to another - to reject, and close off from the warmth of being in connection with, and understanding someone fully. The Small Intestine portion of the constitution also believes that anything can be transformed from impure to pure substance - any relationship, any negativity - its all subject to the possibility of transformation. This has me be gullible and accept anyone no matter how potentially unwholesome because of the belief that there is fundamental good in them that I can always see and seek to excavate.

So for fire - the deepest need is to be understood - therefore understanding and warmth is what the fire constitution gives. The Small Intestine component transforms impure into pure by shining light on only the good, the possible, the potential of what can be, while ignoring the mud. The problem is, this can mean a lack of discrimination when there is so much mud, because only the fundamental potential for good and wholeness is seen as the end goal to the alchemical process of relationship.

Suzy asked what would happen if I break up with someone, and they say “oh yeah? you don't want to be with me? Screw you then!". I’d be perfectly ok for a while, perhaps even happy that they didn’t want to still remain with me and I’d have to find other ways to let them down easy. Then I’d probably attempt to ruminate why I pissed them off so much, and how I can still be friends with them, because I don’t want them to perceive that I rejected them. I refuse to be the ‘perpetrator of rejection’. Unless I remember that the other person is an adult and does not have the same pathology as I do, then I can let them be who they are without trying to shield them from the perceived rejection which I’m ‘inflicting on them’. One of the life themes to balance in the Fire element is the feeling of being a victim and imagining that others are your victim unless you love them unconditionally and constantly turn the other cheek. It's a disgustingly disturbing thought process. Luckily there is enough self-awareness enough of the time where this doesn’t play itself out completely subconsciously.

The Small Intestine has a hard time realizing when out of balance that it doesn't have to sort through something that is 80% crap to extract 2% good. This is what I attempted to do with my prior two year relationship. He was a Metal Large Intestine constitution and was constantly shitting on everyone. The only thing that tempered and controlled that behavior was unconditional love and Fire that melted his rigidity and saw through his shit into the gold. Unfortunately the consequence was that I fell in love with who he could have been, and not who he was. I fell in love with the 2% good and decided it was worth holding onto the remaining dysfunctional 80% for the 2% that I had found.

There seems to be a constitutional theme to every element. The very thing that is deficient in a person that creates their constitutional imbalance is the very thing that they attempt to create externally in the world as a gift for those who are deficient in it. So - doing something 'for someone' is an expression of the recognition of authentic need of that in the world. So - I make things better or okay for people, because it gives them warmth and light in times when they need that and don't have it themselves. When others have rejected them, I bring them warmth and attention. In the same way I come to believe that it exists in the world and I get that emotional need and warmth fulfilled in myself.

Fundamental Themes of this Small Intestine Fire Constitution:

• I deserve nothing and therefore must work for it by being as warm, loving and compassionate as I can so as to have unconditional love in my life (so goes the story).
• I must transform negative into positive and always look to find the good in a person because I’m ‘supposed to’ at all costs love someone despite them being an asshole.
• Complements wash off me like water off a duck’s back, because no matter how nice I am now and how much I have listened to and understood you till now, I will one day disappoint you. I will not be able to keep up with the bar I’ve set, and you’ll reject me eventually anyway.
• I’m not worthy of love. So I accept anything that looks similar, close, or a good enough substitute.
• I'm unlovable, and will be rejected for [insert reason here].

Therefore…

• I will love and find things in everyone that is lovable, and reject noone
• I will reject love if I see it as threatening, luck luster, and capable of breaking my heart
• I will also prefer to feel alone and lonely by avoiding content so as not to be rejected, then to connect and then suffer the potential of rejection

What now?

I'm told that one never ‘gets rid of’ one’s constitutional imbalance – one can only bring it more into balance within itself and with the remainder of the elements and mitigate its impact on one’s life through Five Element acupuncture treatment. In meditation one can watch it and observe its skewed thought processes and belief patterns and one may even seek to remain more conscious of it in the everyday walk of life so that it becomes a source of potential amusement.

At the core of my Fire there is a sense of accomplishment when I'm able to create, harness, or hold onto the warmth of being in relation with someone - this presence of warmth is intoxicating and deeply nourishing. I'm mediocre at being able to create that for myself where I am whole and complete needing nothing - because needing nothing implies for me - needing noone. Isolation is a theme in my life. I felt isolated in my childhood all the time and this isolation became a core issue of my life.

The only times when I am able to convent loneliness into solitude (a state of being content and whole while alone) is when I am in communion with nature and my studies of medicine and of what separates people from people (the Small Intestine Fire imperative for processing life). When I'm not busy studying the arts of transformation of pure into impure, and the separation of pure from impure through the study and observation of the human condition, I crave people - attention & warmth. When that's not there, I feel cold and alone. I don’t need to be surrounded with people as much as the Pericardium / Triple Heater constitution does, as for me the alchemical process of transformation of relationships is more personal and transpersonal rather than interpersonal and social.

This is my most current understanding of my Small Intestine Fire constitution and my fundamental state. I know nothing beyond operating on my basic imperative. Ultimately its what I will be bringing into clinic.

The Heart component of my constitution (The Supreme Controller and unifying ruler for all the Officials) expressed itself most vividly in my prior profession. In my professional capacity as a project manager my job was to sort through complicated problems and relationships that prevented people from getting along and then offering an understanding and solutions for them where all were valued equally. Through streamlining communications between them and instructing each group on how important it is individually to the operation of the whole organism, I would be unifying all their needs by creating interdependence between them that was based on mutual warmth and understanding. Ultimately this would result in a fulfillment of needs with everyone expressing joy and warmth in contributing to each other’s success and the success of the whole. Political aptitude arises out of the Supreme Controller’s imperative to keep the kingdom at peace – learning to say that needs to be said so that everyone gets along.

In my acupuncture practice this translates to my creating an energy of understanding in my clients that eliminates the boundaries of separation from their loved ones and from joy in life so that love for their whole being can be expressed and can go into the world and affect their families and friends.

Learning to soften the blow of telling someone what they don’t want to hear was and will continue to be a source of contention for me because of my desire to stay out of direct confrontation. This fundamentally robs me of the balls to say what needs to be said to confront people where they are not at cause in the matter of their health for fear of them rejecting me as their practitioner.

I’m reminded by a 74 year old Jewish Greek grandmother who attended my Zero Balancing II class in Chicago a few weeks ago. She said “I realized a year ago that I no longer need to do anything for nobody. So screw you all. You’re all adults and can all take care of yourselves just fine. And if you can’t, too bad. And boy do I feel free to be myself and just live. Now if someone wants a ZB session, sure I’ll give you one, I wouldn’t mind getting one either”.

Hmmm ... :)