Personal Growth Center - Relationship Issues

Sometimes we search our entire lives for a feeling of oneness with another person. It's hard to describe, really, what we search for, but we know it when we finally achieve it. Maybe we tire of that feeling of being ultimately alone as we struggle through the challenges of life, as every person must. If only there were someone else here, we say to ourselves, who can understand and share these burdens with us. Maybe, it would not be so lonely.

Or perhaps, in our more positive moments, we want to share not just the burdens of life but our pleasures, our strength and beauty. We want the powerful impact of our internal experience to have an impression on someone else, as if to say that we count, we are whole and we want to convey this feeling to another person.

As humans, we are social beings. Is that why we search for intimacy with others? Is the quest for intimacy the reason we commit ourselves to another person in marriage or other public declarations of loyalty? We experience frustration when our committed relationships fail to bring us the promise of intimacy, and this may help to explain the neediness, control, and ultimate option of separation or divorce.

In trying to find intimacy, are we searching for the ultimate feeling of bonding that we felt toward a parent during our infancy? The search for intimacy may be why we form social groups, and it may explain why we quest for spiritual fulfillment in our lives. We do not want to be alone. We want to touch and to be touched.

Many people, today feel alienated. For all the benefits we derive from living in a highly technological world, we still lack ways to form intimate relationships with other people. In fact, our high tech society seems to fragment our social connections, to drive us away from other people. For example, electronic mail seems to make connecting with other people much easier, but in truth our messages are usually just flashes of ideas - briefly written, briefly read and instantaneously deleted - and they barely fulfill our desire for more complete relationships based on our inner experiences.

In our modern society, we don't see, hear, or touch other people - not in person and not to the extent that humans have in the past. What our world has brought us is an abundance of stress in our personal lives. And stress and intimacy are hardly compatible.

To have an intimate connection with another person requires first that we have access to our own personal emotions and ideas. We cannot expect another person to insert intimacy into our lives when we are out of touch with our own internal experiences. We must explore and become familiar with our own personal thoughts and feelings before we can share them with someone else. Our intimate experiences involve our emotional, cognitive, social, physical, sexual and spiritual lives. Two people, each of whom is in touch with his or her own internal experiences, may be able to share an intimate relationship on any one of these levels.

Intimacy is one of the ultimate expressions of the human experience. This may be why we strive so hard to find it.

How Do We Reach Intimacy? Each person seems to perceive the intimate experience in his or her own way. It takes a personal journey of self-discovery to learn how to share intimacy with another person.

Here are some guidelines that may help to define that journey:

KNOW YOUR SELF: Get in touch with your own private experiences. In our stressed-out world this is often hard to do because our attention is directed outward much of the time. It helps to sit ... do nothing... and be distracted by nothing. Spend time in reflection and introspection. Observe your thoughts and feelings. Close your eyes and imagine yourself experiencing something pleasurable. Become familiar with those parts of yourself that are strong and that feel whole and integrated. Learn to feel comfortable with that part of yourself that senses calmness, confidence and peace.

Try spending a few quite minutes every night before bed, reflecting on the events of the day. Or keep a daily journal of your private thoughts and feelings. Until you know your own private feelings, it is difficult to share them with someone else. Practice putting labels on how you feel.

COMMUNICATE WITH ANOTHER PERSON: Share what you know about yourself with another person who can be trusted. First, you need a sense of commitment to that person. Strangers passing through your life are not the appropriate people with whom to share your deepest feelings. Intimacy has to be reserved for another person who will be there over the long haul, a close friend, a partner, a family member, or, if we're lucky, a soul mate.

You also need a feeling of trust. If the other person is not able to appreciate the delicacy of what you are sharing, it is futile to try to achieve intimacy. In the worst case, your words might be held against you later, and this can be very damaging and may lead to cynicism of distrust. Knowing whom to trust involves acquiring good judgment about other people. A trustworthy person is one who can honor and respect you for sharing your most intimate experiences.

Finally, you need to understand that intimacy involves making yourself vulnerable. The guarded and defensive person will never find true intimacy. Finding intimacy means taking a risk, opening yourself up, sharing that which is the most personal part of yourself with another person. Can the other person handle it? Can the other person care? If they can, you are no longer alone.

INTIMACY IS RECIPROCAL: A healthy, close, intimate relationship is one in which both partners know themselves and are able to come together with a sense of equality. Certain relationships are not meant to be reciprocal. The therapist/client relationship, for example, often involves a high level of deeply, personal communication, primarily on the part of the client. Perhaps the most intense and lasting levels of intimacy are achieved when both partners are able to share equally with each other. As the listener, you have to be able to honor and respect the openness, vulnerability, and courage of the one who is communicating very personal ideas and emotions.

Value judgments, criticisms and advice-giving have no place in intimate communication. The ultimate goal is to appreciate and acknowledge the validity of the deepest feelings of the other person. If you express own personal thoughts and feelings, you may then have the ability to truly appreciate and even feel another person's experiences.

KEEP THE LIGHT ALIVE: Once two people have entered into a deep level of sharing, they usually want to stay there. If there is true equality between the two, they can achieve a balance which feels right and which they don't want to lose. If one of the partners feels the need to lessen the level of intimacy, the probability of conflict increases. The clue to avoiding misunderstandings is to maintain your commitment and trust at all times.

Intimacy takes work and a sense of maturity. The intimate relationship is healthy. It is perhaps the highest form of why we enter into relationships in the first place - to end loneliness and to share our deepest and most personal self with a trusted partner. Humans are social beings and we respond physically to the experience of intimacy. People who have intimate relationships live longer and healthier lives and they report more personal happiness and satisfaction with the way they live. Intimacy gives us a feeling of comfort, security, and a sense of being loved and accepted. It gives us the freedom and support to stay true to the special qualities that define each one of us as a unique person.

Psychotherapy can allow us to explore our own deepest and most intimate feelings in a safe, supportive and accepting setting with a professional trained to understand these inner processes. We can successfully learn to stay true to our uniqueness and to feel comfortable in sharing our authenticity with another person. We can explore who can be trusted, and who can't, as well as the features of our lives that may have led us to hide ourselves from others. Counseling has the potential to teach us how to break out of isolation and loneliness into a world of love and acceptance.