Version-Aversion Aversion Practice
I’m finding him annoying and gross. Too loud, swearing too much, eating with his mouth open. His sandwich smells and now he’s sitting too close to me on the bus. Everything about him is becoming annoying, and for some reason I need to keep mentioning this to my friend. I can’t just remove my attention from this man.
My aversion is almost obsession-like.
I remember a good friend of mine, who in this situation would have said ”you should have sex with him” – as a way of working through the aversion (an aversion practice). I know exactly how that conversation with her would have gone, so I play it out in my head, and laugh at my own predictability. My preferences.
And then it hits me. All sex is, is a way of surrendering to the energy and tension that has been created. No, I have no desire to sleep with this man, and clearly, I DO have a desire to move through (surrender to) the friction/the tension he is causing in me (actually, co-creating with me). That’s why he’s affecting me. That’s why I’m now obsessing over every little thing he does.
Lately I’ve been practicing dissolving into love. So far it’s much easier to let my heart dissolve into love, than my entire body (that’s where sex becomes an intuitive option) and so much easier when it’s within my preferences.
And it’s infinitely harder to choose love, when all we feel is aversion (actually, it can be so difficult to choose love in any circumstance). To find the human and the humanness underneath it all. And to realize that what we’re feeling actually has nothing to do with the particular human we are confronted by. Absolutely nothing to do with them. They are merely reflecting back to us our preferences, beliefs, conditions. This still blows my mind. The disgust – aversion – that I am feeling is actually not towards him. He’s merely giving me the opportunity to see another side of myself. And to work through that tension, if I choose to accept that opportunity.
Finding the human in the annoying, loud, open-mouthed-chewer. Accepting my aversion, becoming aware of my preferences and allowing my heart (and body) to dissolve into love. Love of me, of him and of the moment. Oneness and all that is.
How are you dissolving into love?
