Serious change
Hello, all. Tony Cuseo here.
As many of you know, I am a poet. So unsurprisingly, this week’s blog is inspired by one of my all-time favorite poets Rainer Maria Rilke, and his poem: “Go to the Limits of Your Longing.”
About halfway through the poem, Rilke drops a line that seems like it ought to be scrawled on a Radical Honesty billboard somewhere:
“No feeling is final.”
We in the Radical Honesty world are fond of a phrase that I imagine holds a similar meaning, and that is, “The truth changes.”
Naturally, when those who are new to RH hear these words they tend to question what is “truth,” and if there’s such a thing as “Big T Truth,” and so on. When they do, I usually launch into a spiel about how we define truth as what you notice right now, in this moment – your current thoughts, feelings, sensations, and so on.
More often than not, people seem to buy that story without too much resistance and after a brief discussion, the conversation moves on. No big deal. The truth is (my truth is) that I believe acknowledging that the truth changes is a big fucking deal. In fact, I believe it’s the most important concept in all of Radical Honesty.
I think getting that the truth changes – knowing that in your bones – can change your whole damn life. And, that’s my agenda with this newsletter. I want to show you how important this concept is, get you to buy into it, and change your whole damn life as a result. Let’s see how I do.
First thing’s first, and that’s that the truth changing comes with some good news and some bad news:
The good news? Well, if how we think, how we feel, and how we are, doesn’t and/or can’t change, then what’s the point? Why read this newsletter? Why practice Radical Honesty, or anything else for that matter? There’s no use. You’re stuck. However you are right, you will be that way forever. Tough shit.
We who have taken the plunge and expressed our anger directly to the person we’re mad at while staying in touch with our bodies, along with the other person, know this isn’t the case. We experienced the truth changing.
Eventually, with enough expression, and enough noticing, we weren’t as mad anymore. And some of us even made it all the way to forgiveness. So there you have it! The truth changes. This is the good news.
The bad news? The bad news is that the truth changes. That means you can’t count on jack shit. Fall in love today, fall out of love tomorrow. Feel joyful in the morning, feel suicidal by the afternoon. Decide you want to eat Thai food for dinner, then change your mind by the time you get to the restaurant. Oops! There goes the truth, changing again.
This is scary shit, ain’t it? How do I get anything done when what I think and feel and want is in constant flux? Not to mention the fact that everybody else is the same damn way! Those who love me now could despise me this time next year, or next month, or sooner! You’re changing, I’m changing, the truth is changing. Everywhere we turn, change, change, change.
And so an obvious question arises: What the hell do we do? How do we live when everything is changing all the time?
I’m biased here, but I propose we turn to Rilke once more, who offers a solution in the sentence just before the line I quoted above: “Just keep going,” he writes. “Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
I know what you’re thinking, “That’s it? That’s your big sales pitch? Just keep going?” Yep. That’s basically it. “Just keep going” won’t earn a bunch of views on YouTube, and it won’t get millions of likes on Instagram, but it may just be the only advice you’ll read on a screen today that isn’t utter bullshit.
If no feeling is final, and if the truth is constantly changing, then all you’ve got to do is hang in there.
To borrow another classical RH adage, “When you experience your experience, it comes and goes.” Put another way, if you stick with yourself long enough, change just happens. There’s nothing you can do about it.
All you’ve ever done in your whole damn life up until this point is change. I’d bet good money that you’ll be changing for the rest of your life as well.
Toward the end of the poem, Rilke wrote these lines:
“Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness.”
It is simultaneously tragic and hysterical to me that we take life, feelings, and the truth – things that are constantly changing, very seriously, as though they are unbelievably important and significant. But maybe this too, can change.
Who knows? Perhaps living with the knowledge that all feelings are temporary, and that nothing stays the same, will let us lighten up a bit.
If you would like to experiment with this idea, I invite you to come to the upcoming Radical Honesty Weekend Workshop in Seattle led by Lindsay and me this April 28-30. You can sign up here:
If you feel like coming to another workshop I’m co-leading, you could sign up for our upcoming Weekend Workshop in New York City this month on March 24-26:
If you want to come to a workshop that isn’t led by me, sign up for one of these on our Upcoming Events page.
Lastly, if you’d like to read Rilke’s full poem, follow this link.
Love,
Tony
Tony Cuseo is a Radical Honesty Trainer Candidate who co-leads workshops and practice groups. He also holds certifications in Embodied Counseling and Sexological Bodywork. Tony is passionate about creating art, music, and love.
Upcoming Workshops Co-led by Tony: