You Just Need To Do It
This post was going to be about heartbreak. It was that kind of weekend. Tired, blah, too many thoughts, too little joy. I put on my shoes and went for a walk. I ruminated on how much heartbreak is in the world right now. I felt into the subtle pockets of broken heartedness in my own life. I thought of a friend who is going through a particularly rough one, a heartbreak many years deep. I looked at the ocean, even it felt grey and sad. And then I remembered what I said to my friend last time I saw him “you need to let all that love out, cause it’s rotting inside of you”. And it struck me.
Wait. I’m not heart broken. I just need to have sex.
You see, all of that blah, all the ruminating thoughts, all the anxiety, self doubt, agitation, hopelessness. All of that is backed up eros.
Earlier in the week, another friend had messaged me. She’d been asked to give a talk but was drowning in doubt. “I don’t know if i’m the right person for the job... I don’t think I have anything to say on the topic... I wouldn’t even know where to begin”. She had a million reasons why it wouldn’t work. So we met up to talk it through. As soon as I asked her what she would teach about, if she could teach about ANYTHING, she spilled out 30 minutes of ideas. It wasn’t that she didn’t know, it wasn’t that she didn’t have “it”. All of her ideas, all of her creativity had been brooding thick and heavy inside of her. And as soon as it was given an outlet, it poured.
Eros wants to move, it was wants to create, it wants to love, it wants to f*ck. And when it can’t do those things, when we hold it back or stop it up (because of the million fears, attachments, resentments, and years of conditioning we each have), it doesn’t go anywhere. It simply builds inside of us. Rather than fueling connection, creativity and turn on, it fuels self doubt, self pity, depression and anxiety. Think of what happens to anything that is designed to flow, but instead is stopped. Swamps, rust, clots, gridlock.
Now the hook is that we have preferences of how and to where eros flows. We want it our way, according to our ideas and on our terms. That is the buddhist definition of suffering, aka clinging. Desire is the flow of wanting, clinging is attachment to the outcome of that desire. Seng-ts'an, the 3rd zen patriarch said “the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences”. Yeah, cool Seng-ts'an, thanks for that. But he’s right - clinging traps us in our thoughts, in the endless cycle of “trying to work it out”. Eros releases us beyond the contracted mind.
In 12 step programs, a common refrain is “the cure for depression is action”. Eros likes action. I’m old enough to know my preferences (unlike Seng-ts'an’s) aren’t going anywhere. But I’m also experienced enough to know I can take action in spite of them. I can create, I can love, I can serve, I can sex. And in the process access the thing I really want anyway, which is to undo the knots that keep me in the swamp of self and feel the pulse of eros, of life, of god moving through me.
So the next time you start believing you’re broken, ask yourself when you last had sex (*whatever your version of sex is). And see what happens when you stop believing the thoughts, and instead let eros flow.