Showing posts with label love and intimacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love and intimacy. Show all posts
Friday, November 30, 2012
Intimacy and Love
Stan Dale, the founder of the Human Awareness Institute, taught me a wonderful definition of what "intimacy" is: "in-to-me-I-see." Our ability to look deeply into ourselves, know ourselves and love ourselves provides a foundation for others to look deeply into us, know us and love us deeply. To be loved for who we are, we need to feel safe and secure enough in who we are to let others see us for who we are.
To be able to be intimate, however, requires a kind of steady loving presence, be it with self or other. True intimacy cannot grow in a climate of judgment.
Joel and Michelle Levy send out wonderful quotes of the day, and here is one that provides a wonderful illustration of what love really means:
"Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused."
--African Saying
If we have created the intimacy of loving relationship, and we are deeply seen by someone who loves us, they can remind us of our goodness, our beauty and our wholeness at those moments when we may lose touch with these fundamental truths. Intimacy offers not only a mirror of depth and soulfulness, but also a reminder of our inherent goodness, and the true worth and value of who we are deep down inside.
I have often felt intimacy is a food group for the soul. Without it, our souls starve. And with intimacy in gentle abundance, we are nourished and appreciated for who we really are.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
How Love Evokes Our Unloveable Parts
Last month I wrote about how what might appear to be incompatibility in a relationship, might actually provide a pathway to deepen love. In the mirror of love, as intimacy grows, we feel safe to be more of who we are. We can then take the risk of letting our wounded, unhealed and less developed parts, the parts we fear are "unloveable," surface for the purpose of healing.
Sometimes this happens consciously. But often it happens subconsciously or unconsciously. In the safety of love, our defenses start to melt, and our shadow parts emerge, the way a shoot emerges from a tulip bulb buried under the earth, sensing that spring is coming soon.
Initially, we may be horrified to feel so exposed, and to feel the discomfort of the parts we judge are "unloveable." What we reject, we distance from. This creates a barrier to intimacy with both self and partner. When we withdraw, we remove our energy, and it is the presence of this energy that allows intimacy to grow and flow.
It takes a lot of energy to keep our "unloveable" parts in the shadows. And sadly, most of these "unloveable" parts are very human. If only we feel safe enough to share them in a safe and loving context, we may find more compassion from others than we might anticipate given our own internal judgments.
And this very sharing, where we are received with compassion, may provide the very healing we crave and need. When we are brave enough to share our "unloveable" parts with our loved ones, we may find out that we are more loveable, "warts and all," than we might have imagined. And being embraced as a whole person, with human foibles, wounds and strengths, is what most of us yearn for deep down inside, in our heart of hearts.
Offering the gift of full presence to our loved ones, with an open heart, free of judgment, creates the safety to melt through barriers of self-judgment. In the end, we all win. Removing judgment creates more room for intimacy and love.
Copyright 2011 Linda Marks
Sometimes this happens consciously. But often it happens subconsciously or unconsciously. In the safety of love, our defenses start to melt, and our shadow parts emerge, the way a shoot emerges from a tulip bulb buried under the earth, sensing that spring is coming soon.
Initially, we may be horrified to feel so exposed, and to feel the discomfort of the parts we judge are "unloveable." What we reject, we distance from. This creates a barrier to intimacy with both self and partner. When we withdraw, we remove our energy, and it is the presence of this energy that allows intimacy to grow and flow.
It takes a lot of energy to keep our "unloveable" parts in the shadows. And sadly, most of these "unloveable" parts are very human. If only we feel safe enough to share them in a safe and loving context, we may find more compassion from others than we might anticipate given our own internal judgments.
And this very sharing, where we are received with compassion, may provide the very healing we crave and need. When we are brave enough to share our "unloveable" parts with our loved ones, we may find out that we are more loveable, "warts and all," than we might have imagined. And being embraced as a whole person, with human foibles, wounds and strengths, is what most of us yearn for deep down inside, in our heart of hearts.
Offering the gift of full presence to our loved ones, with an open heart, free of judgment, creates the safety to melt through barriers of self-judgment. In the end, we all win. Removing judgment creates more room for intimacy and love.
Copyright 2011 Linda Marks
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
