Tag Archives: falling in love

Fear of intimacy

Posted on by
3

They are wounded.

Keep this in mind when you see or experience people — or yourself — hiding or running from real intimacy in a relationship.

I am not talking solely about physical intimacy or love-making intimacy. I say love-making intimacy because people have been having sex for years without an iota of emotional and spiritual intimacy to be seen for miles. Physical intimacy, holding hands, holding each other, cuddling, simply touching, can be a steep climb for the badly wounded. Love-making intimacy, even steeper.

Avoiding intimacy takes many forms. One of the more common is when people enter into relationships with partners who are either unable or unwilling to be intimate. At times, this allows the partner seeking intimacy to both bemoan the absence of intimacy on the one hand without ever having to  be intimate on the other. Choosing to be with someone who can’t be intimate can be a way of avoiding intimacy in and of itself. This does not mean either person is aware of the intimacy-avoiding pattern they’re trapped in.

If emotional and spiritual intimacy were physical beings the amount of intimacy being lost could fill the Grand Canyon on a daily basis.

There are real reasons deserving of the deepest respect people fear intimacy. Almost without exception the fear revolves around the following truth. At some point in time, usually in childhood, but not exclusively so, you were in some way taught that being who really really are was dangerous. Emotionally, physically, or sexually dangerous. Someone you loved with all your heart died. You were abused physically, emotionally, spiritually, sexually. Somehow, through no fault of your own (even if you are still making the mistake of holding yourself responsible (You’re not!)), you came to believe truly being yourself with someone else was dangerous.

For an array of reasons, I believed it was dangerous for me to be myself with someone for years. For me, getting free of this fear began with two understandings. First, getting free of this fear meant getting free of my history. Second, who deserves to be in control of my decision making? Me or my history?  I pick me.

Talking about the fear with someone is not only an immense help, it is necessary. Talk to someone: a psychotherapist, a member of clergy, a close friend. Now, for those who believe asking for help is an act of weakness, let me ask you something. If it is an act of weakness to ask for help, then why is it so hard to do? After all, if it was an act of weakness, asking for help would be easy. And, it’s not so much that I think each of us need the help. I think we damn well deserve it. Why? Because you deserve to get free of your history’s decision-making power. Promise.

Love ain’t easy, but…

Posted on by
1

Fully giving and accepting love is not always the easiest thing to do. It can be downright scary for understandable reasons given the rough sledding so many of us of have gone through in life. However, as far as I’m concerned to love and to be loved is life’s most precious gift. Especially love between people. I make a point of singling out love between people because,  if you’ll permit me the use of a cliché (there’s a reason it is a cliché), love is everywhere.  To wit, I love books, good writing. There are written passages so beautiful they bring me to tears; I’d hold them in my arms if I could. There’s music I love. Music so beautiful my heart beats faster and sweet-shiver chills run up and down my spine. And then, of course, nature herself. Nature is the whole of life and love is a part of the whole. Love is nature’s finest creation, the ability to give and receive love,  its most singular reward.

For the so many of you (and I am in your number) whose hearts and souls are bruised and bloodied by love lost, by the absence of love, by the slings and arrows of those so damaged they’ve come to believe they are incapable of healthy love, by those so internally mangled and misshapen they are, in fact, cruel, I say to you, don’t lose hope. The wounds of history deserve only so much decision making power. Our histories teach us caution. Good. Yes. They teach us to have  the patience to discover what is real and what is not, what is true and what is false. Good. Yes. But they do not deserve so much decision making power they make us shut down, enact the off switch.

So, my dear reader. Give yourself permission to love and receive love knowing that no love between people can be if we do not accept each other and ourselves for who we are. Again, no love between can be if we do not accept each other and ourselves for who we are.

And then there is this ineffable truth; you deserve to be loved and you deserve to give love. Perhaps in this moment you are unclear on this or don’t believe it. Perhaps you’ve been so thoroughly pulverized by the brutality in life you think it impossible. Perhaps you grapple with a combination of all of these. Well, I’ve got good news. Because it may feel impossible does not mean it is impossible, it means that’s how it feels. Because you may, at this moment, be unclear, does not mean clarity is not there for you to discover – it is. And because, right now, you don’t believe it does not mean it is not worthy of belief. Consider, for a few moments, the content of the last sentence which comes right now.  This piece was written, with love, for you.

The Courage to Love

Posted on by
Reply

Maybe I am a foolish dreamer but I believe love – real love – is very likely the greatest gift life offers us. I think if you are afforded the possibility of real romantic love you are, well, a fool if you allow things like a single tattoo (which I don’t have) or facial hair (which I do have) to be deal breakers. You are equally foolish if you let the size of a woman’s breasts or the length of her legs guide your decision making.

It seems to me many have a plethora of reasons, some conscious, some not so conscious, for avoiding real love. What is his or her schooling? Have they been to college? What did his or her parents do for a living? She or he has a child already? He or she has been married before? She or he is five feet tall? Six feet tall?

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the human species is ineffably gifted at coming up with reasons to avoid real love. I remember many years ago going out with a woman for a brief time. We liked each other and all was going well and one evening over dinner she said, I’ve been meaning to ask, what sign are you? Not seeing the bear trap on the ground in front of me, I said, Libra. A look of unutterable horror came over her face. Oh Peter, she said, in a tone so troubled you’d have thought every one she knew just died, We don’t get along. Instantly realizing I was facing a mountain that called for oxygen tanks to summit, I said, What the hell we been doing up to now? She shook her head, put her fork down on the table and said, I should go. I agreed. She left. I finished my meal.

Now I know there are underlying reasons for why we run from or avoid the possibility of love. Nearly always these reasons are found in the soil of our histories. We’ve been wounded before, we’ve been betrayed before. We’ve turned our hearts loose before only to have them gutted. In some instances we were raised in ways that taught us we weren’t much worth loving. So, if you find yourself falling in love, or faced with the possibility of falling in love and being loved, just think, if you run, your history wins – again. Your history does not deserve that kind of decision making power. You do.

If You Need Me

Posted on by
2

If you need me, I’ll be there, with kind arms waiting, no furrowed brow for you.

Daylight comes and daylight goes, dreams seem to do the same, but I tell you

If you need me, I’ll be there, bringing you a cup of tea sweetened with a smile

From me because you are you and that’s all you need to be

If you need me, I’ll be there.  In coming storms or in the thick of pain, during times

Of hunger and lost hopes and lives, I’ll be there, in your dreams, in your heart always

If you need me, I’ll be there, in the song of the morning birds, the early day sun glowing

Warmth into your heart, because I love you, you know that, I am there, you can hug me

If you need me, I’ll be there, in the quiet and in the loud, in the darkness and in the light

In the rhythm of your footsteps in the morning and in the night I am there always

If you need me, I’ll be there, because you are you and that’s all you need to be

In life and past it, I’ll be there, loving you, always, because you are you and I am me

It Is Always

Posted on by
Reply
In the soft-sweet chambers of the dreaming human heart, hope draws its finest breath. There, in the rhythmic blood-flow butterfly-filled moment, the bond begins. There the ineffable connection between two people, exquisite as the diamond-lacing of morning dew on a blade of grass, all the fathoms of the soul strong, is born. There ,love begins, and, if we stay out of its way, grows. It is life and death’s finest gift. It is always.
______________________________________________________________________