The Journey from Codependent to Liberative Lover
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
—St. Francis of Assisi, a favorite saint of Namgyal Rinpoche and the Namgyal lineage
In 2023, I showed up to Clear Sky, and I realized just how codependent I was doing the spiritual practice. Suddenly, I found myself questioning, for the first time: What are relationships for?
I was told ever since I could remember that I would find my Prince Charming and we’d live… happily ever after. But I’d had a hard time with romance for most of my youth.
And then I moved to New York City when I was 22, and I went on a dating app for a few hours, and I found him. I found Prince Charming. But even though I had found this relationship, this person, who brought me so much joy, I still wasn’t happy. I was, in fact, losing my mind.
I ended up at Clear Sky on the 3-month karma yoga program, and I realized that I wasn’t happy because what I really wanted was something else. I wanted, at the depth, awakening, which I recognized as the spiritual hunger I had had for God since I was a child. And I didn’t want the kind of relationship that my partner and I had. We broke up.
Then, not even two weeks later, I found myself in love with another man—and somehow, sort of in another relationship. That ended in a few months, too. And then…
I was seeing another man… and another man… and another man…
And yet another man.
Finally, (some angels somewhere singing praises), it really landed: I’m just trying to love myself through all of these other people.
I saw this, and I thought… maybe it’s time to practice celibacy.
One Year of Celibacy
I’ll tell you this, from experience, celibacy practice is not just about sexuality, or romance.
Qapel and Catherine Sensei have taught extensively on the shadow, and money, sex, and power, and it is part of their teaching that sexuality has a lot to do with our identity.
I embarked on a year of celibacy, and I studied myself. I studied Erika; her patterns around men, her patterns around women, her patterns around love, needing to be loved, needing to be comforted, needing to be validated, needing to be touched, needing intimacy, all to prove to herself that she is lovable.
I kept looking, and looking, and I realized how most of Erika’s day is spent trying to feel comfortable and loved, generally through other people.
But what if Erika could generate that for herself?
I talked about my practice in Dharma interviews throughout the year. At one point, Catherine Sensei encouraged me that I could generate my own love hormones by my own state of mind. She talked me through how, of course it is wonderful to have relationships, and to enjoy the richness of life with others. And, she reminded me, sometimes in life we need to be alone, and it important that we learn to be with ourselves, to be whole with ourselves so so we are not devastated by our aloneness, or aching for others. And, she shared with me, through wisdom I know she gained through experience—that that kind of whole and grounded relationship with oneself leads to good relationships.
Life is a mirror, and I’ve been using the mirror to try to prove to myself that I deserve love. At the core, I have been able to see clearly that all my striving just comes down to the fact that I still haven’t learned to really love myself.
Where is the refuge?
Amidst all this, Qapel, who had become a dear guide and Great Friend to me as co-Teacher at Clear Sky, died.
Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Just a few months after I moved to Clear Sky officially in 2024. Just, gone. Just like that.
Oh.
Not only could I not fill my own void with other people’s love, I couldn’t predict when anyone would or wouldn’t be there, within the span of a moment.
Qapel was the first person who I was close to that died. He had become a vital part of my daily life in the community at Clear Sky, supporting me through my struggle and suffering. I had received so much wisdom and empowering encouragement from Qapel, that, in addition to the other relationships I used as a source of comfort, I also had started to use his presence as a teacher and mentor to help me feel OK. And Qapel himself was the one who taught me: “Codependency is self-betrayal.”
I can see now that this is because when we intertwine our sovereignty and sense of center and wellbeing with anyone in particular, and make ourselves dependent on them for our wellbeing and sense of direction, we cannot be steadfast and true to our calling. Codependency obscures our contact with our daemon, with the small, still voice that is guiding us to our own hearts.
This is where the rubber hits the road in spiritual practice.
Changing my Relational Karma
I continued to practice celibacy for a little over a year. I watched myself put myself through so much agony, grasping for Other in order to try to escape the pain of not knowing how to love myself. I kept asking myself, What are relationships for? What are relationships for?
Do I want to use people to make myself feel better? Do I want to be prisoner to other people’s affections for me? Do I want to be expending all of this energy on how other people “make” me feel, or do I want to use my energy to do what my heart really wants to do?
Awaken. Liberate. Love.
At the end of the summer, almost a year into my celibacy, we went as a sangha to Central Asia with Sensei.
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. Twenty-seven fellow Dharma sisters and brothers. One bus. The number of unique connections that can occur between 27 people is 351. You can imagine there were a lot of unique conversations, special moments amongst us.
And, I still felt myself deeply lonely. There was some kind of intimacy I desparately wanted, and felt I couldn’t achieve. I was so disappointed. Almost a year of practicing this self-sovereign practice, and I still felt a prisoner to relationship. One day on the bus, sitting behind Catherine Sensei, I asked myself, When will you stop torturing yourself like this? When will you love your own friendship?
A couple of weeks later, I woke up in the middle of the night, in bed again at home at Clear Sky, the brilliant September night sky full of stars through my window. I looked up at the stars, and a response to the Erika on the bus came through clear and stark.
All those stars, the same light.
All Beings, Beloved
My heart, at its core, loves all the same. Including myself. All beings my mother, my father, my child. My brother, my sister, my everything, all of us. It wasn’t new, but it landed in a new way. The teachings surged in my heart.
As Catherine Sensei has so gloriously taught: If we are brutally self honest, our needs are very simple. And after this year of practice, this is more and more obvious. The greatest need my heart has, really, is to awaken our true nature, to embody the full potential of consciousness in service to all of creation, to love with all of myself in this web and universal trajectory of total ecological healing and health. To be totally committed to the flourishing of the whole.
It’s really that simple. “Intimacy with all things,” Qapel taught, as his teacher taught; that’s awakening.
And, whatever relationships that arise which support that, consciously chosen and consciously evolving to support the heart’s deepest vow, and the awakening good of the All—that is what my heart feels relationships are for. Now, my celibacy practice may be officially “over,” but the practice of learning to awaken, moment to moment, choosing to let go and love, over, and over, and over, with the support of my teacher and community, this glorious life—well, there is no end in sight.
And we’re just getting started!
Banner image by Tony Asimakopoulos