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The LearningMethods Library
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In Relation to Relationships
A Self-study
by Almut Kraker
Copyright © 1999 by Almut Kraker, all rights reserved world-wide
Happy but unhappy
Having not been happy concerning relationships so far, I am only starting to
be more fully aware of the strength of the forces these things have on me and of the importance
of this side of my life. I seem to have had this idea, that meeting the ‘ideal’ partner is entirely
up to coincidence and that there is nothing I can do about my situation. This, of course, seems
true in a certain sense. But exploring David Gorman’s ideas in the LearningMethods work I am beginning
to see, that there definitely are certain things that I am doing that get in the way of letting
new things happen.
To give a short picture: I always found myself in love with people who were
not available for me or with whom it did not make sense to have a relationship. This I have been
doing since I can remember being in love with anyone at all... until now. Going back a long way,
it happened to me twice that I fell in love with men who both showed clearly that they actually
did want to be together with me. But my responses to them were so unclear and subject to change
that the only reasonable and responsible reaction from their side could have been and has been,
to go their own ways. Knowing I missed the chance by my own behaviour, I still felt hurt. I also
stayed in love with each of them for many years.
I can remember very well having had a certain feeling saying, "You are so
unsure about yourself and you have no idea what life is about... so you would only be a heavy weight
on the other person". I even remember myself thinking exactly these words. It seems that I
thought I’d have to be ‘perfect’ or ‘know everything’ before being able to be with a partner, ignoring
the fact that this, of course, is impossible in any stage of life. Also I hadn’t come across the
thought that it is the other person’s responsibility to decide for himself whether I am a heavy
weight on him. Instead, I took on the job of doing the deciding for him, which probably did some
harm to him, and, as it turned out, got myself stuck in years and years of pain.
Some years ago, I had another experience concerning someone else that was in
no way comparable and a lot stronger than anything so far. Needless to say, this person was not
at all available. I came to see this person almost like an idol, my whole world turning upside
down in a very short time. From then on I lived in a more or less continuous sort of internal imagined
‘dialog’ with this person for... yes again… a few years. Sounds a bit destructive, doesn’t it?
And, I can tell you, it does not feel great. So I eventually decided that exploring this field
might not be such a bad idea.
Feelings about feeling feelings
A first question that showed itself concerned feelings in general, for I noticed
that I have them, strange as this may sound, but also that I have not been aware of them much.
So as I began to catch myself at times when I felt emotions, I wanted to find out what the next
thing was that happened. The more often I found myself at this point, the clearer I got that mostly
I showed a similar reaction to my emotions. I started to 'talk' to my own feelings, saying something
like, "Please go away, this is taking too much time. I must get myself to do something sensible
now", and so on and so forth. And this I did even when my feelings were positive.
It became rather clear where the roots of this came from. Coming from a family
background of engineers and lawyers, etc., I was surrounded by people who did not express their
feelings. And when I tried to do so myself, my father’s reaction for instance was not supportive
for me to go on. Rather I got the feeling that I am wasting my own and other people’s time. My
father was considered very ‘successful’ and I admired him, for he has a lot of good characteristics.
I noticed that he lived a more structured and less chaotic life compared to mine and I thought
that he either had less strong emotions than I did, positive or negative, or at least did not express
them or get disturbed by them much.
From this I seemed to have drawn some weird conclusions. I simply put these
things together and thought there must be something bad about having feelings, and even more so,
to admit to have them or talk about them. The less emotional feelings we have the better, and when
they do appear we need to get rid of them so they do not disturb us, take our time, or create an
imbalance. But of course, I was not conscious enough about having made this link, so I could not
question its relevance.
So there was no chance for me to see that one thing does not necessarily have
to be the cause for the other. Whatever I thought this ‘being successful’ thing was, why did I
think I could guess the reason? Looking at it now, it springs to mind, that the way I see my father
and the way I think about ‘success’ in general, has become so much more differentiated, that it
does not even make sense any more to think about the relevance of this link.
Also, concerning me living a more structured life, I do not see it any more
as something I ‘should be able to do but cannot do’, for this is not what I am now aiming for,
so there is no reason why I should live it. Less structure has seemed to me closely linked with
having felt ‘chaotic’, or more, that I mixed those two up altogether. But now I think of those
two as possibly, but not necessarily, connected. Instead I discovered my feeling chaotic was the
resulting feeling of being unclear about what was going on in, or around, me and of being unclear
about what I wanted. So the reason has not been lacking structure, or feeling too many feelings,
so much as it was my trying to ignore the feelings that stopped me from taking in all that information
about myself.
So the assumptions I have made are not at all what I would assume now—more the
opposite. But in spite of that, the text of my ongoing internal talk clearly shows that I am still
living out these old ideas! This seems to draw some light to a different question: how it was possible
that I lived through all these painful experiences for so long, without myself even being fully
aware of how much I was affected by them? And since I am finding myself in the latest rather irritating
situation concerning relationships right at this moment, it has become impossible for me to overlook
how often I get into reacting along the same lines. At times I still find myself totally stuck
within self-reproach, for I do ‘waste’ so much time with this issue and with wanting to get on
with other things.
I am working on finding out what exactly it is that I think I am taking the
time from, for I must be wasting time from something where it would be ‘better’ spent. But, for
the moment, I want to continue in this narrative in a different direction. There are still times,
even when being fully aware of what is happening, where I feel it as an absolute reality that what
I am doing is a waste of time. These are the very moments for me to see what I do then.
As I looked more closely at these moments, I discovered I start trying to get
rid of the feelings, which I do in a lot of different ways. I remember, when still living with
my parents, I literally tried to run away from my feelings, often to my cello. This seemed rather
practical. My thoughts could go anywhere, but I still felt I was doing something worthwhile—which,
of course, I see a bit different now. These days, the reactions I find myself getting into are,
for instance, moving round a bit or fiddling with something in my room, or else go to the kitchen
and eat something and lots more. But there is a flaw in the thinking behind these actions, for
they do not really help to get rid of the feelings. They actually end up taking me even further
away from what I would otherwise want to do. In turn, I am feeling even worse about wasting time
and try even more to get rid of my feelings... Here I have my wonderful vicious circle.
When I’m conscious of what is happening, I can stop it. Which does break the
chain at this point and suddenly I have the possibility of actually seeing what I am feeling and
what my feelings are about. And this in turn enables me to go about things differently. When I
hear my feelings, maybe there can be something done about what the feelings say. Or other times
I just take in what they tell me, remember their content for the future when it might be relevant,
and in consequence feel okay about it and am able to go on with something else. All these give
me an actual experience that it is not necessary to do anything to get rid of the feelings. Rather
it shows me that my feelings are important information telling me what I want or need—in fact,
just about the very information I need to be able to live my life. So then I don’t do the getting
rid any more, which again helps me see more often what my feelings are about and... finally I am
liberated from my self-made circle.
As I began to understand this, I suddenly realised I had many moments when I
had two contrasting voices in me at the same time. Me telling myself what would be a good idea
to be wanting now, based on different irrelevant thoughts, or based on other people’s likings.
And on the other hand, another voice coming from how I truly felt; what I really wanted. I recognised
the taste of these situations, but in the past I had never been clear about what had been happening.
I had found it very difficult to make decisions about which one of the voices I should listen to.
This became much clearer now.
Is it right to feel wrong?
When being round people who observe their own and other people’s patterns, which
I found for instance in the Alexander world, I started to see my ‘falling in love with people,
who were not available for me’ as a repetitive happening and classified it as an unconstructive
habit pattern. In consequence I thought, there must be some hidden cause for it, which I have to
look out for and find. Also there were times when I thought there was something ‘wrong’ with me,
that I am not ‘able’ to fall in love with someone anymore at all. These I guess must have been
moments where I successfully ignored the feelings I did have for those people I still felt involved
with. And at times, when I did not seem to develop similar feelings for ‘new’ people, I felt that
I had lost this capacity. Not a very nice... feeling.
Not that I consciously decided to think there is something ‘wrong’ about myself,
but the lack of clarity resulted in that sort of taste. There were also other capacities for feeling
that I meant I should ‘have’, but which I thought I had lost or simply never had from the start.
Somewhere I heard this story of kissing the frog and making it into a prince, and I thought I should
be able to be with almost anyone, and how pretentious I am, not to love almost everyone in the
world. Seriously, this really was reality for me at times. Try to go round living with this idea.
Sometimes it can be quite fun, but more often it was not.
There came the time, where I was rather desperate to change something. I had
kept in contact with one of the two friends whom I talked about and who had got engaged with someone
else. But I could not accept this situation any longer and I felt more and more unsatisfied about
it. So eventually I decided to break up the contact with this person which was quite a painful
thing for me to do.
However, a very strange thing indeed happened that brought up a lot of speculation
on my side. For after feeling quite awful for many days I went away for a week. Almost in one go,
all loss and mourning seemed to have been forgotten and I felt my centre of gravity had changed
and moved towards one person in this new place. The strength of the feeling I only had experienced
with one person ever before. There were a lot of things coming up for myself. What was all this
about? Was it just because I had been in such pain before? Was it that for some reason I suddenly
was able to ‘do’ that thing—the ‘feeling something for a new person’ thing? Or was it maybe just
a normal real feeling? Would it have happened if I still had been holding on to this other friend?
At the same time as I realised that I was noticing and watching out for this
new person, I also saw that I was already starting to internally judge and comment on what I was
doing. There I was, having these feelings which I sometimes felt I should ‘have’ but did not have,
and in the same instance already I was trying to get rid of them! Working with David in one of
his workshops, I brought up this situation. I put myself back in this moment and some things sprung
back to mind very realistically, "You should not like this person, he is much too smart for you,
no doubt. He has lots of much more interesting people round himself than me." And immediately my
thoughts turned towards myself and to a whole series of things I do not like about me.
So David asked what these things were and it became clear that some were mere
facts about how I happen to be, like the colour of my skin, just to give one example. So this is
not even something under my conscious influence (except for my blushing red which, of course, is
connected with some of my questionable conscious processes). Another thing that came up was that
I got into this state of thinking I SHOULD know many things that I do NOT know. Bringing it up
showed that I had not even a clear idea about what these things should have been. Also we looked
at this issue about responsibility. Again I seemed to have made an attempt to take on the other
person’s responsibility to decide for himself, whether he would want to come to know to me or not.
Although I have not been aware of these things in this clarity in the actual
situation, I did perceive these moments of hesitation and holding back from going for what my feeling
told me to go for. And comparing it to previous situations, it already felt relatively easy not
to continue to hold back, whereas I would often have done so in the past. This man also turned
out to be an extremely good ‘trainer’ for me, for he was very unclear in his signals for a long
time. So I could catch myself more and more often when I fell back into hesitation. And strangely
enough I ended up doing about the opposite. I was pushing quite a lot. I do see what caused me
to do so, but I do not know what I should think about it now.
Let’s look back to where I came from: ... I thought there was something
‘wrong’ with me and I was not ‘able’ to fall in love with someone any more... ...I felt
I'd lost
this capacity...
Proven wrong. I guess, somewhere in us—either completely covered or not—we always
know that there is nothing wrong with us by nature. It is just that the accumulation of misunderstandings
can make it impossible to live this knowledge. Obviously, I did not really take in that I already
knew that I had felt attracted to quite a number of people before. Also I had not realised that
there was nothing wrong with me for having no feelings in real-life situations when there was no
reason for having them—it was only my expectation that I should have them.
But there was the discovery that I was trying to cut feelings out as soon as
they appeared. Which again makes me believe that I might have had similar feelings more often than
I think. I was just not aware of them as much, for I was busy not wanting to look at them. I was
busy trying to get rid of them or sometimes going off to all these self-negating thoughts about
my self that stopped me acting on my feelings and prevented anything further from happening.
Missing being missed
Very much against my expectations, this man I had just met finally did show
some interest (I will call him Krzysztof here, to make it simple). I had not fallen for an easy
person and as one might guess, he already had a girl friend. He was not sure about his relationship
to her, though. Circumstances were anything but convenient for us, concerning time and distance.
So apart from a few meetings, digital letters became the medium of contact. I could see already
that in some things he was thinking very differently from me and especially he was acting so differently
from what I would have wished for. I was worried, for all the initial impulses to meet up seemed
to have to come from my side. He clearly wanted to stay in contact, but after many months he still
had not started to take me into account for any future plans. Instead, I felt that, for him, seeing
each other was something to be fitted in for a few days or even just for a few hours, several times
a year, somewhere, when there was a small gap in his schedule. So it got very difficult for me
to wait. The warning feeling increased. How did I get myself into something like this again? What
was happening? I found myself on the waiting bench. For how long should I do this? Again for a
few years?
Not seeing what I saw
There was a long period of time when I was in great self-conflict, for internally
I was already moving to where Krzysztof lived. I felt it also took away my interest from my work.
At this point I could perceive something which might be of great importance for my entire life—an
essential step to be seen in how I have been going about things. I wanted to close my eyes again
to what was going on in me... and just wait. Is there a clue in this about previous happenings?
Didn’t I do just exactly that for all those years?
This time, I could eventually open my eyes again. A lot of strange thoughts,
feelings and actions came into play, of which I could not clarify much at the time. I perceived
a resistance in me to bring up between us what was going on in me. Only after quite some time,
I let it come through in a terribly confused letter. Why this resistance? Why did I try to hide
how I felt? What did I want? What did I fear? Up to then, I thought I was rather clear in showing
how I felt. But it seems I have only felt okay with expressing some sorts of feelings, but not
others.
Doing what can’t be done
I am coming up against a very strange thought indeed: it seems I wanted to ‘do’
things in such a way to ‘get’ him to love me (more)(?). Again not as a conscious decision, but
it is the closest I can get to describe what it felt like to do what I was trying to do. My feelings
for Krzysztof were so unusually strong, so this also became particularly pronounced—a good chance
to pay attention to it.
Question after question arose—questions which seem to get to the foundation
of the whole issue. Is there anything at all one can ‘do’ to make another person like oneself more?
I have certainly acted as if I thought this was possible, although looking at it I realise, of
course, I do not think that at all. On the contrary, it seems obvious that acting along these lines
necessarily would bring about a lot of undesired effects.
I noticed that I feared I could do something or say something Krzysztof would
not like. I thought he would not like to hear about my early desire of wanting to live where he
lived, rather than where I lived and I knew that my thoughts of moving were totally unrealistic.
I felt that if I would express this, just in order to deal with my problem and not keep it by myself,
he would feel I am closing down on him. I know the reasons that made me think so, but they were
my own constructs built on top of some facts—how pretentious was it again, to think I could decide
how he would react? And it seems I even made it much bigger than that. I imagined a link that Krzysztof
might then not like me as a person at all anymore. But reflecting on this, I am sure that I would
not make up my mind about whether I like a person or not in such a way. Rather I just happen to
like a person for what he or she is, independent of such individual utterances or feelings.
What would the situation have been if I had kept holding back and trying to
act according to what I thought he would not have minded? Could a relationship ever have become
anything either of us would have wished for on such a basis? However much I would have tried to
pretend, what feeling would I have passed on in the long run? What feeling actually DID I pass
on in the end? How I really felt. And by then, I felt hurt, confused, not loved and in despair!
It feels like I also have been trying to get him to tell me what he was feeling,
or more accurately, to get him to tell me... that he loves me. Again, this does not sound totally
accurate to me, I admit, but that’s the taste it had—whether I like the fact or not. It also seems
to be important to look at the very possible situation that he would just not have liked me as
I naturally happen to be. But what could I have wanted from him, if that would have been the case?
If that were the case, would it really have been my own wish to hold on?
The problem was not the problem
A fundamental question appears by itself: has the problem truly been that he
did not like me enough? It looks like I meant he would have acted more in accordance to what I
would have wished for if he had liked me more. Sure, this even seems to make some sense, but until
now I had not taken in that this is not a known fact, but just an assumption. And as I bring it
up, I see that I would not even assume that. So however much he liked me, if the problem has not
necessarily been that, what has been the real problem? This gets all very weird. But the fact seems,
that the basis I was acting from was a completely destructive construct of what is needed to find
out more about another person and whether a relationship would make sense at all or not.
What did I say? …To find out more about… …whether a relationship would make
sense? Well, did I see it at all as such? Did I see it as a finding out of something? Or have
I been caught in trying to get a certain result? I listen to that once more: ... trying ... to
get ... a result. Oh dear. This sounds like a lot of information to look at in just five words.
Not that this is a new idea. Not after all my training in the Alexander work where the idea to
doing things solely to get a result without looking at the means used is seen as being destructive.
But what does it tell me here? What have I been trying to do? Is there anywhere to get to? What
result?
Fantasy or reality?
I had already felt uneasy about the situation, and there were some things I
did NOT like. I felt the pain, but something kept me from taking it in as what it was. I did not
take in reality as being reality. Rather, I kept acting as if the only things I noticed were the
things I liked. What kept me from being aware of what I didn’t like? What were the things that
kept my mind busy?
Clearly I was out there thinking about those things I did like about him; and
there is an endless number of things, no doubt. And I was out there imagining what I would have
wished for; and there were many things, no doubt. I was trying to get him to love me; I also wished
that, no doubt. I was trying to get him to tell me what he was feeling; and I wished to know that.
But while doing all this imagining and trying, I did not take in that the actual experiences I
had were not always that great. I did not take in that what I wished for was mostly not really
happening or that however much I wished him to love me, it would not have made him love me more.
He doesn’t talk about his emotional feelings and however much I wished for him to, he never might
have done so. Being busy with the things that were fantasy but not reality, I was not engaging
in finding out anything... but in trying to get the result I hoped for.
Good but not good enough
Krzysztof’s reaction to my confused letter really was not what I feared it would
be. He didn’t complain about my thoughts, nor did I feel he liked me less than before. But also,
he still had not talked about his own feelings. The outcome felt relatively good to me though,
and I decided to plot on for the moment. But not surprisingly, another two months later, I found
myself in a similar cycle of things. I felt uneasy, did not feel clear about what was happening
and what I should do and I perceived a holding back of talking about it. So in my uncertainty I
finally managed to say how I felt and to ask about what was going on. The answer took quite a while
coming, so I had enough time to let my trouble become more than I could cope with. I ended up where
I could not bear any light or noise or food. I produced sickness and fever. How could I get as
far as this?
Losing what can not be lost
At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening to me, and there was the
additional threat of not knowing how to interpret what I experienced. The only thing I could come
up with was that it was the resultant state of feeling how hard it was to let go of this person,
and so this represented a sort of reality for me. But a short instance gave me an important clue.
When I wrote a bit about things, I suddenly felt that something in the whole issue looked a bit
more clear to me. And there was another experience: in the very same moment I abruptly felt better!
This brings up a glimpse of light. I must have experienced a total mixture of feelings—the letting
go only having been one part of the mixture. The lack of understanding of the situation, or more
accurately, those things I did not understand, must have been another part! What happened?
When the idea became more real—that the contact to Krzysztof might end—I started
to imagine all sorts of things, "I will never find a person like him again, I will never be able
to love a person like him again." I even got as far as thinking that I will never be able to like
any person ever again. As much as I had thought previously that I had lost the capacity to have
feelings for someone, I now seem to have thought it was Krzysztof who had ‘enabled’ me to feel.
So this was exclusively due to him, and now losing him I would also lose the capacity to feel (again?).
Well, one might be surprised about this chain of thoughts, at least I am. I’m
only slowly grasping that this was part of my underlying assumptions and am waking up to what the
implications were. Being able to put my finger on it now, it seems to make absolute sense. The
above thoughts do sound no less than life threatening to me, and thinking of how in despair I felt,
my state reflected exactly that. It does not surprise me any more that my whole organism refused
to function normally. How could it? Thinking that I thought it was the resulting feeling of how
hard it was to let go of Krzysztof, it adds up, that this was in fact feeding the whole cycle.
It gave me support in thinking, "This is so strong and I never will feel so strongly for any other
man again." Even worse, at times I lived in the reality that the pain itself will also last forever,
never to stop again, never to let any other feelings happen for any other person any other time.
One can imagine that this was not very helpful and it explains the experiences when my state got
worse and worse.
But I had not yet put together that the very feelings for Krzysztof himself
already proved these ideas wrong. I had lived through similar experiences already when letting
go of this previous friend, just shortly before, even if less powerfully. And how could this fit
with what I assumed; with what I felt when I met Krzysztof? Remember, then I was unclear whether
to take my feelings for Krzysztof for my own about him and therefore for real. I queried whether
I have had these feelings just because I had been in such pain before. But other than out
of my own construction, is there any logical reason to doubt one’s own feelings? And how could
one lose the ability to feel by letting go of someone? Who really is doing MY liking here? Who
is feeling MY feelings? Not the other person. What blinded me to that fact? What kept going through
my mind?
I am feeling another crescendo here to the strangeness of thoughts that come
up. The following is a rather special one, and I know this one all too well from my experience.
I was counting the probability of meeting another person again for whom I would feel as much as
for Krzysztof, on the basis that he was only the second person in my life for whom I had developed
a comparable attraction. And additionally, there are all those difficulties of availability, geography
and... time! So my counting was not quite so encouraging. How many years of despair were to come?
It looks pretty clear that these sort of ghosts in my head got a little in the
way of letting me take in the actual perceptions I made, namely: that I have this capacity to feel,
anywhere and any time, that this capacity is mine, and that I would NOT lose it when letting go
of Krzysztof or any other person!
Holding on to what was wrong
I had wanted to hold on, no matter how much it cost. I had said to myself, "I
will never be able to be in a relationship if I am so impatient. I should be able to wait." There
it is again, an ability that I thought I should have, but didn’t seem to have. Let’s go through
it once more.
My feeling told me I did not feel alright. But I thought it was my ‘fault’.
I tried to act as though these feelings were not there. But soon my actions became different from
what I wanted them to be, and in turn I felt even more that there was something wrong with me.
But the fact of not having felt alright about the situation was the actual important information
that was given to me. I had successfully ignored it. Not taking on board this warning, I was not
able to look at what was wrong. Which took away my chance to find out what needed to be done. I
was left without the necessary guidance. No way to explore whether what I was engaging in made
sense. And engaging in something that does not make sense is likely to decrease the openness to
something that would make sense and where a working relationship could develop. The means we are
given by nature to discover are first of all our feelings and second the reasoning to know how
to interpret them. But in my idea of being wrong, I cut out my feelings, which was the very thing
that was WRONG.
No end to feeling wrong. I see Krzysztof as a wonderful example of someone,
who has NOT lost the ability to know what he wants. He lives a hugely interesting life with a clear
and rich perception of the world. He has lots of characteristics and abilities, which I admire
enormously. What does this lead to? I should ‘have’ them as well, but unfortunately...
I remember once saying, "Life is boring without you." Mamma mia! What did I
mean by saying that? Well, in that mode, is it a surprise? I am not what he is. I can not experience
what he experiences, I can not live what he lives. I was caught in imagining what I am lacking.
My own life had to feel boring, how could it have felt otherwise?
But what about my own life in reality? What about the things I do experience?
Am I bored? I can not remember this ever having come up for me. Except at times, when I was forced
to do things that I did not want to do and did not choose by myself. Which, unfortunately, in our
culture happens quite a lot, especially in our educational system. But that is a very different
subject.
My life is very different from his, indeed. But how did I get to where I am?
I was following my own nose, and not his. I’ve come a long way from how I‘ve been brought up. And
the direction was mine. And the life I am living is the one that suits me. Knowing how much I cut
out my own feelings, it’s even surprising I found what I found. Not that it wouldn’t enrich my
life immensely to be with a person who has all these qualities about him. But did it actually enrich
my life? Yes, very much... but for an even higher price.
Reality
Getting clearer about what was going on, I was able to begin to take in what
I actually experienced. I started to catch myself when I entered my elaborate labyrinth of thoughts
and soon I caught myself more and more often: "I will never experience certain things with anyone
else." But how often did I experience them even with him? I doubted the sense of life, for I will
never find a person like him again. But why would I want to? I would find the same things I love,
but wouldn’t I also find the same things that would not work for me? So what was there to fear
in not finding a similar person? I was brought back to realise where I was and what I felt at the
moment. Reality started to become reality.
Krzysztof’s profession is almost all-important to him, which seems to work brilliantly…
for him. Bad luck though for me. That is a different thing. I was not getting support when in pain.
He did not talk about how he felt. He did not want to know how I feel. He wanted me near him a
few days a year... What did I want? NOT what I got. How does it feel, to leave a place where one
does not want to be? Is it difficult? I did not want to be there anymore and I did not have to
let go anymore... for I did not keep holding on. I like Krzysztof, or rather, I like to remember
him as much as I did before, just that I do not wish for more. Amazing, how quickly I recovered
since I started to see the maze from a perspective above it. For weeks my state has been subject
to continuous change, but the falling back has stopped by now, for I can see when I go off again
into fantasy. I am back to normal ALREADY. This is a lot more than what I thought I could wish
for.
Conclusions
A time-lapse picture could look like this: me loving Krzysztof; Krzysztof seeming
not to hate me either—at first anyway; some time passes; I see myself starting to hurt him and
soon we are entangled in hurting each other; Krzysztof now seeing me as being selfish. Great story...
and what a charming outcome! Obviously all my efforts to get a certain result have not exactly
resulted in... the sort of result I had wished for! I was trying to get something he was not willing
to give. Of course he is right. How selfish!
In reviewing my ‘falling in love with people who were not available for me or
who it did not make sense to have a relationship with’ as a pattern with a hidden cause, I ask,
"have I unconsciously looked for this?" Have I unconsciously kept away from people who would have
been available because I might have got claustrophobic by the thought of being with someone? I
was asked these questions and in turn I asked them of myself. But now I wonder why I wondered about
them, for I can not remember having looked out for this or having kept away from certain people.
Rather, what got in my way were exactly these things: the taste that there is something not quite
alright with me, my idea that I should look out for a something I do not know or that I should
be able to do something which I can’t do. It prevented me from taking in what I did know already
and from finding out what would make SENSE FOR ME to do. How could I have acted... sensibly? Feeling
wrong made it impossible for me to take in the very feelings about the situations I did feel wrong
about. And I lost this important information to guide... my life.
It seems that when I couldn’t make sense of a situation I used to think, "I
don’t know myself, what I do or what I don’t do." I mentioned that vague spinning before, "was
I suddenly able to "do" that thing, the "feeling something for a new person" thing?" But reality
was simple. I was... feeling. A natural ability—not to be lost by stopping the contact to a friend.
Why then did I always find myself in these destructive situations? I did not
take in the very information about what they were. How could I not have found myself in them all
the time, when I was holding on to them... continuously. How could I have moved on? There were
many reasons for what I did. Concepts which have been proven wrong! Where did I start from? ...Meeting
the "ideal" partner is entirely up to coincidence and there is nothing I can do about my situation.
What a paralysing thought! Not a good ground for growing. It certainly made my life difficult.
Maybe sometime, after having lived a period without acting on what I have been acting on so far,
my idea of the probability of finding myself in a working relationship will look a bit different.
Even the "maybe" is not quite honest any more, because... already my counting has changed.
I am not a wizard and I cannot predict the future, but in that short time since
the wish to be with Krzysztof has gone, there have already been other men become important in my
life. I wonder what I will run up against now? I better not try to do the same things again and
I hope dearly not to create as much damage or violently to destroy the contact with any more people
who are so valuable to me.
~~~~~~
There is small biography of personal details about
the author below.
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About the Author
 Almut Kraker comes to the LearningMethods
work from a background in music, as an instrumentalist playing the cello. Her musical education
was in Austria (in Graz and Salzburg) and later in London where she first discovered the Alexander
Technique at the Royal College of Music in October 1993. She began training to become an Alexander
teacher three months later and qualified in December 1996. During this period she continued with
music lessons and had many rich musical experiences playing in a string quartet which performed
at established venues and festivals such as St. Martin in the Fields in London and the Tippett
International Festival in Berlin.
Half a year before finishing her Alexander training, she came across David Gorman
and his teaching as it was in the process of developing into the LearningMethods work. Her on-going
study of David’s work and the application of this new approach to her daily life profoundly changed
her teaching.
Almut has since moved back to Austria to settle in Vienna where she continues
developing her performance skills on the cello. She is building up her teaching through private
lessons and various workshops.
For instance she has recently given a number of workshops for physiotherapists
as well as other therapists, non-medical practitioners and school teachers. In 1998 she gave a
talk at the University of Music in Vienna as well as conducting a successful two month course for
the University’s students. This year she taught a workshop at the University of Arts in Graz, where
she has been invited back to do another workshop next term. In July and August 1999 she was asked
to lead a three week project at the large Orchestral Academy of the internationally known Schleswig-Holstein
Musik Festival in northern Germany. The project was very well received and as a result she was
invited to give a workshop for the trumpet class of the University of Mainz in Germany.
She is now in the final stages of becoming a fully qualified LearningMethods
Teacher.
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