Notes On Intimacy
by Shepherd
Hoodwin
 Once you are in a
relationship, how can you develop intimacy? One key is honesty. Some people tell
little lies about themselves when they first begin a relationship. This is
destructive to intimacy, because your partner will never be completely sure if
you are telling the truth. It is much easier to maintain credibility if you
start out being credible. This is not to say that you must talk about things you
are not ready to talk about, but neither do you have to falsify information.
If, for instance,
you lack a sense of self-worth,
you are likely to attract a partner
who
mirrors your view of yourself,
who treats you as if you were worthless.
There are times when lying
is appropriate, but rarely with someone with whom you wish to have intimacy.
Even lying about your age says to the other person,
"There is something about me I do not want you to know. This is the
boundary of our intimacy." If you want to be known and understood, you
must make yourself knowable and understandable. Communication needs to be not
only honest, but clear and complete. Communicating with another person - any
person, not only your mate is a challenge, because each person speaks a slightly
different language, with different assumptions and definitions. You must be
deliberate and alert to make yourself clear to others.
Opening Up
People often have the
unrealistic notion that if somebody really loves you, he knows all you want,
need, or mean without your having to clarify it. Since human beings are
generally not telepathic, this does not usually occur. If you take
responsibility for communicating what you want, need, and mean, you avoid
unnecessary disappointments and misunderstandings.
Misunderstandings destroy
intimacy more than any other factor, and most of them can be avoided. Of course,
the more deeply someone knows you, the more aware he is of your wants and needs,
and of how you communicate. Nonetheless, as you change and grow, it is important
to stay up to date with each other.
Intimacy needs space and
time to grow. If two people have packed schedules day in and day out, they
probably do not share much intimacy. Intimacy implies being with the other
person, being there in the present, in both conversation and silence. It may
include expressing difficult emotions; a clear and appropriate expression of
anger, for example, can bring two people closer together. Any time you love
someone enough to tell him how you feel, you are offering a bridge that can
enable him to know you better. Of course, bridges go both ways you can get to
know him better as well.
You cannot be any more
intimate with another person than you are with yourself. For example, how can
you expect someone else to know what you are feeling, when you, yourself, do not
know what you are feeling? You can develop intimacy with yourself in the same
ways that work with others: be honest with yourself, communicate clearly with
yourself, and give yourself space and time to be with yourself.
Filling The Gap
You cannot expect any other
person even someone who conforms to your fantasies in every detail, to give you
what you feel is missing within you. You must do that yourself. If, for
instance, you lack a sense of self-worth, you are likely to attract a partner
who mirrors your view of yourself, who treats you as if you were worthless. Why?
Because it is confusing when a partner insists that you are worthy when you are
certain that you are not, and people do not like to be confused.
If you are fortunate enough
to have a partner who tries to inspire a sense of self-worth in you, but you are
not willing to accept it, you will probably deflect his input or dismiss him
entirely. You might, for instance, tell yourself that he is prejudiced, or
think, "What does he know?" Anything you have not yet dealt with in
yourself will likely come up at some point in the context of a mate
relationship.
Therefore, if you are single
and have been making use of your time alone to release your old patterns, you
will have an easier time when you form a relationship. However, no one is
finished processing everything. The more you are willing to acknowledge and work
on your shortcomings, without self-judgment, the easier it will be to develop
intimacy with a partner. One reason is that you are less defensive.
Many fights arise over
defensiveness. Suppose you are in a relationship with someone who says to you, "You
are selfish about the television. We always have to watch what you want to
watch." What would most people's response be? Probably an automatic "No,
I'm not!" Suppose that, instead, you say, "Hmm...I wasn't conscious of
that. Thank you for pointing that out." After giving it some thought, you
discuss possible solutions, such as taking turns, or getting another television
- you agree that you do not always have to watch together.
Also, since you had not been
aware of the problem, you ask him to be clearer in saying what he wants to
watch. Because you were open rather than defensive, he does not have to be angry
about that issue any more. You have heard and received his complaint. If your
partner complains about something you do not agree with, or are not able to do
something about, your willingness to hear and discuss it can still help defuse
the issue.
Love Requires Maintenance
Some people want to get a
relationship set up so that it is running smoothly and they never have to do
anything about it again. However, this does not usually work. To make an
analogy, someone may build his dream house and move into it; however, he must
continually refine and maintain it. In a sense, a house is never done. The same
is true of relationships. They keep changing, providing opportunities for
growth, as the people in them change and grow. There is nothing wrong with that.
Wouldn't it be boring if you felt that you had everything set up, that you
always knew what to expect from your partner? It is more fun to be constantly
looking for the unexpected, discovering new things and changing.
Sometimes relationships
change to the point where they are no longer workable in that form. Maybe the
form needs to be changed to a more distant relationship, a friendship perhaps.
That is not necessarily an indication of anyone's failure; you may have simply
completed your work together. Ending or changing a relationship gracefully,
without making anyone wrong, is a mark of maturity. The more quickly you
acknowledge that a relationship is no longer serving you, the sooner you can
move on to your next step. That may be a relationship that does serve you, or a
period of aloneness. Of course, some relationships are fitting and adaptable
enough to serve you for the rest of your life.
A Genuine Relationship
How do you know whether to
keep working on a relationship or to let it go? There are no hard and fast rules
about this, but generally, if you have an automatic impulse to run, there is a
good chance that you would benefit from staying with it. If you have an
automatic impulse to hang onto it, it is likely that you would be well advised
to let it go.
The key factor is your
motivation. If your impulse is to run, it is likely to be because of laziness,
not wanting to do the necessary work, or fear of what that work might bring up.
If your impulse is to hang onto the relationship, it is likely to be because of
fear that you will not find anyone else, perhaps because you are not lovable
enough. It is preferable to stay in a relationship because you genuinely want
to.
The
above was excerpted with permission from the
book:
 Loving From Your Soul
-- Creating Powerful Relationships"
by
Shepherd
Hoodwin.
Published by Summerjoy
Press. ©1995.
To
order this book.
More books by this author.
About The
Author
Shepherd
Hoodwin is an intuitive, workshop leader, and teacher. He is a conscious channel of a
nonphysical entity referred to as Michael. He
also does past-life therapy, counseling, and channeling coaching
(teaching others to channel). He is the author of: "The Journey
of Your Soul -- A Channel Explores Channeling and the Michael
Teachings", "Meditations for Self-Discovery -- Guided
Journeys for Communicating with Your Inner Self", and "Loving
from Your Soul -- Creating Powerful Relationships". Shepherd can be
contacted through his website at http://summerjoy.com,
or toll-free at 877-SUMMERJoy (877-786-6375).
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