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Intimacy - Intimate Relationships Are Changing - Evolution and the Urge for Wholeness Over the past few years it has been my ongoing privilege to work with a growing number of couples. They seek me out for private mentoring including for support with the quality of intimacy in their relationships. Some are newly in love including just starting out on their shared journey together. Others are long-term couples. Now, 1 or the other or both has found themselves at a crossroads. Regardless pertaining to the length of time that couples have been together there seem to be a few central underlying themes to the challenges we all face at the time it comes to being intimate with another human being. My own relationship journey has inspired me to undertake a very personal study of what it actually takes to achieve genuine intimacy. It is such a foundational human longing – the desire for connection including companionship- that it appears on the radar screen often whenever we set our hopes on a fulfilling lifestyle. Who among us does not need to love including be loved? While I regularly travel to study with teachers in the relationship field, it is more from years of close observation including deep listening that I have been led to formulate some of my loosely held perspectives. I say loosely, because having hard fast rules at the time it comes to matters pertaining to the heart seems ridiculous at best. When we speak of love we are in spiritual territory, where intuition carries us much further than logic ever could. I rely more on the feelings in my body, the vibration of aliveness in my cells, the depth of soul visible in the eyes, to guide my way to a particular understanding of love including its majesty. That said, more than a few clients have asked me to write some words that might help them make sense of both the chaos including the wonder they experience. It is both humbling including empowering to speak of such things. A universal hunger for more meaningful including nourishing loving connections with other human beings is often felt as a particular ache or need we prefer to keep hidden. To expose these longings takes us immediately into vulnerable territory. That is the first observation I could provide today. Intimacy requires vulnerability. There is absolutely no getting around it. To be close to another we must reveal who we are including that means risking rejection, ridicule including surprisingly, something much more frightening for many – the possibility that we might actually attain the acceptance we seek. Here is the thing. Evolution is happening everywhere including that includes within our intimate relationships. at the time 2 individuals come together to create a third presence- their relationship - the evolution of each individual accelerates. Have you heard the expression - If you need to grow obtain into a relationship? I find it to be so true! There is nothing like a relationship to fuel the evolutionary fires. In fact in healthy relationships – those based on celebrating differences, encouraging wholeness including honoring needs of both partners, growth is inevitable. Challenges emerge at the time couples limit their own personal expansion. Or at the time they assume that their partner could remain the same over the course of a lifetime. How comfortable are any of us with change? We like the comfort pertaining to the familiar even if it absolutely no longer serves us. It takes great courage to stay conscious in relationships. Going to sleep including living according to habit, at times, seems much more viable. That is, until the pressure to evolve rises including absolutely no longer could be shut down or ignored by us. The truth is that evolution washes through us including absolutely cannot be denied any more than a wave upon the ocean can. Resist the flow including it backs up creating enormous pressure. Many relationships are altered or abandoned right before the point of breakthrough. It is much easier to blame a partner than to take responsibility for developing more consciousness. Especially at the time we have so few models of relationships that are based on 2 whole partners coming together to expand both their uniqueness as individuals including their shared magnificence. More often we come together in a particular attempt to fill our emptiness, pacify our loneliness, or soothe our inner conflicts. We do all of these things in the name of love including wonder why we often feel drained. Real love energizes us. It is a particular offering that might fertilize the ground upon which both people are safe to become more than they could ever be alone. Relationships are not a particular elixir or remedy. They are a catalyst including container for transformation including a place to share a whole range of experiences. The thing is – relationships mean such different things to different people that we often obtain confused regarding what we are doing together. 1 pertaining to the first things to do is to clarify including define your relationship vision – both individually including together. It does not matter whether you are currently part of a couple or a single. It might be helpful to consider the following 2 urges including how they motivate your behaviors. The Urge for Freedom – experienced as a longing for personal development of our own skills, including the engaging of life on our own terms. The Urge for Connection - the longing to merge, unite, share including experience communion – intimate unity that takes us beyond our independence including transforms us thoroughly. If you have pursued freedom in your past chances are you now long for connection. If you have known intimate connection it is quite possible that it is now time for you to develop your own inner authority. Eventually we need embrace it all. Balancing our urge for freedom including our urge for connection seems to be a prevailing evolutionary challenge within the relationship arena. at the time we realize we do not need to give up our selves to be fully present with another, relationships act as a sanctuary. The journey taken together has the potential to be a most exquisite opening to our own essence including to more of everything that life has to offer.
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