I was playing cards with some friends last night and catching up- I don’t know what it is about card games, but they often turn into mini therapy sessions. Maybe it’s that everyone is a bit preoccupied so it’s easier to just throw something out there. But that was kind of the format- a spontaneous offering of problems and advice. Not surprisingly, many of the issues up for discussion had to do with romantic relationships. One friend had blurted something out that caused her boyfriend to cry and afterwards wasn’t sure why she even said it. We talked about family history, patterns and sabotaging relationships. One friend said that she had received the advice to “stop, drop and roll” recently from another of her friends. The basic goal is to pause when you’re about to say something you might later regret- the “stop, drop and roll” can be practiced mentally or literally (the literal “stop, drop and roll” has the added bonus of helping to lighten a tense situation-ha). I liked this idea.
This conversation led me to thinking about something I read recently in Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse’s What Makes You Not a Buddhist. In discussing the impermanence of relationships he says how liberating it would be if one partner had a terminal illness- how the impossibility of a “forever” would heighten our appreciation of the causes and conditions that brought that relationship to us. He then reminds us that we all have a terminal illness and asks what it would mean for us to really understand that- for ourselves and others. How would that impact our relationships? Would we continue to sabotage relationships and hurt people out of or own fears and insecurities, or would we treasure every moment? In any case, I think it’s a good point, something I’ll try to remember during my next “stop, drop, and roll.”