Intimacy is the most important part of any feel-good connected relationship. Intimacy can be broken down into: "into me see". But intimacy is much more than that. It's not just seeing into somebody, it's also feeling into somebody, listening into them and becoming an expert on them, to the degree that you
completely understand them. It's to comprehend a
person's internal world. Most of us, when we think about intimacy we're just thinking about sex. Sex can be a byproduct of intimacy, but you can have intimacy without sex. Fear of Intimacy Some people, many people are terrified of intimacy. It's the basic number
one thing that they avoid. There are several reasons for this. They may be terrified that intimacy is gonna lead to something
that feels bad. For example, we might be terrified that if we let someone
really see the truth of us, they'll not tolerate it or accept it. If they know the truth of us,
they may use it against us later. If they know our
weaknesses and vulnerabilities they can capitalize on them
to our detriment, and conversely for their own best interest. If they know what we really want, they can use that as leverage to control us. If they give us closeness, we may feel like we're obligated
to make them happy in return, which is a kind of trapped indebtedness, so we've lost our freedom as a result. If they find out things about us, they might judge as bad or wrong, they might increase our shame,
abandon, reject us. If we let them in, they might find a way
to engulf us completely so we don't even have ourselves at all. We need to spend some time imagining being completely close to someone and having no distance between
ourselves and the other person, so that they can see, feel,
hear and understand us and be permanently connected to us, and see what deep imprint
of fear arises, as a result. When a child is born, it is born with a natural
need and compulsion to be close to, connected to, together with its parents. So what goes wrong in order for
us to develop a fear of intimacy? It means that there was
trauma that we experienced when we tried to get
that closeness with someone. How a parent responds to being
wanted and needed by a child, as well as how the parent
uses this need for closeness for their own aims, dictates how safe closeness
and intimacy is, or isn't. If we have a fear of intimacy, our parents either dismissed
our neediness of them and shamed us for it, and/or used our neediness against us. The key feature in households that develop adults
that have a fear of intimacy, is that the child's emotions are responded to with an attitude of: "I will not tolerate you". So it's not just about feelings,
it's about: "I'm not going to tolerate your truth." "I won't tolerate your ideas." "I'm not gonna tolerate how you feel." "I'm not going to tolerate your reality." In this type of a household, the way that a child feels, what they think,
the things they want, is perceived by the parent as a challenge. Here's an example, Let's say that a little kid is getting
ready for school in the morning and really starts to
show signs of distress because they don't want to go to school. In this type of a household, the kind that creates intimacy issues, when that child responds
to going to school, in a negative manner,
their truth is: "I don't want to go to school", what the parent is gonna do, is not
tolerate that feeling, that perception. What they're gonna do,
is turn against it. Now this parent either
dismisses it entirely, ignores it, or minimizes it, "That's ridiculous" "It's okay. Everything's fine", or this parent is gonna
turn in opposition to it. And maybe they'll say something like: "Well you have to go to school,
it doesn't matter what you think. we all have to go to school. your sisters and brothers
had to go to school, this is just how it is.
Come on, get ready." The message the child gets is that the way he or she feels, thinks,
as well as what she or he wants or doesn't want, is invalid, shameful and is in direct conflict with the parents feelings,
thoughts and desires. The message here is: "You can't have you and have me too, because our truth conflict, and I'm the adult, so you're wrong and bad." instead of seeing how ridiculous this is, we decide that the parent must be right. And for the sake of
ending the terror we feel, to be in conflict with the parent
that we're dependent on who is the God of our reality, we tried to disown our feelings,
thoughts and desires and idolize the parent. Because viewing them negatively,
overwhelms us with anxiety. Our own personal truth
is swallowed by them, in the same way that a prey
animal is swallowed by a predator. And we allow this to happen. It is a strategy to try to keep
ourselves safe from conflict and to keep ourselves
from being abandoned. But we feel swallowed, we feel engulfed and we lose ourselves. Another common form of
intolerance for a child's emotions that leads to a fear of intimacy and then some interesting
results in adulthood, happens when the child
expressing their thoughts, or desires, or emotions actually causes a collapse in the parent. Now if the parent is addicted, or has some other type of mental illness, or even is just going through a grief deep enough that they can't
honestly emotionally face the task of parenthood, then the child literally believes that if they impose any of themselves, the way they feel, the way they think, the things
they want, on their parent, it will cause them to fall down. To die. So basically, that person will withhold all of the truth in themselves. How they feel, what they want, what they think, everything, so as to preserve the
well-being of the parent. And they take this pattern
on into their adult lives. This is so often the case in households where a parent is suicidal. The child learns to never
share the negative feelings because if they do, it may push
their parent over the edge and cause them to kill themselves. What we have to understand is that if in our childhood,
our need for our parents as well as our feelings,
desires and thoughts are not tolerated, by our parents or by the
people in our environment, we will develop a fear of intimacy. We will learn never to share the reality of who we are with anyone else. We don't let them in, we don't offer ourselves to them. Now that's bad enough, because it means that you
can't actually have a relationship or connection with anybody, but the most awful part
of this pattern is: In order to live like that, we have to disconnect from
our own personal truth as well. We have to separate ourselves off from the way that we feel, the way that we think, the desires that we have and our needs for other people. Because we've already learned that they're not to be tolerated. What does this look like
in your day to day life? You disconnect from your feelings so you don't have to feel them. You disconnect from your thoughts so
you don't have to recognize those thoughts. You disconnect from your body,
so you don't have to feel it. You disconnect from desires
and you go with the flow. Or you isolate yourself. One thing we have to accept if this is our experience in life, is that our heart is broken. It was broken a long long time ago. And we haven't been able to heal it, because we haven't found a way to resolve the deep deep pain of never being seen never, being felt, never being heard, never being understood and never being wanted. Closeness inevitably involves vulnerability. Now obviously, vulnerability
is the number one thing that you're trying to avoid,
if you have a fear of intimacy. Because what did we learn? It's not okay to have feelings, it's not okay to have desires
based off of those feelings. And so we are looking to avoid
anything that induces those feelings. And vulnerability is the one that induces the majority of those feelings for us. So we are literally, in full-on avoidance of all that could possibly
be looking like vulnerability. In the scenario, closeness is to be avoided at all costs, even though closeness is our most
suppressed and desperate need. Now here's another thing, we can't dismiss our own
needs, feelings and desires, without doing the same
to other people around us. We don't want to see or feel
or deeply understand someone, because this brings up these
deep feelings of unfairness that we have to accept and tolerate and take care of someone else, but they will not give us
the same treatment in return. Just like in childhood. For this reason, the people involved
with those who fear intimacy, feel as if they're not seen, not heard,
not felt and not understood. They will feel like the person
who fears intimacy doesn't see the obvious ways that they hurt other people. Or do anything to remedy the situation. The person who fears intimacy, seems to be completely void of empathy. Because the truth is, he or she is not connected
to the other person enough to perceive their feelings or
thoughts or needs or desires, enough to even have empathy. So if you're struggling
with the fear of intimacy, this is how to approach that fear: Step 1. Get in touch with your emotions. Your emotions are like a compass. They are always telling you
about your internal truth, your personal truth. So if you're thinking a thought, your mirror will always
be the way you feel. They're gonna tell you exactly where
you stand at all moments of the day. It doesn't really matter
whether the feelings are reflective of a thought or perception that's accurate or not, the feelings themselves,
are always an accurate reflection. Your emotions are the doorway to figuring out what you want in life. What direction to go. What's keeping you from that. Not being in touch with
your emotions in life is similar to being stranded in a
foreign wilderness with no compass. For this reason, I want you
to watch my video titled: How to Feel
(Learn How to Start Feeling) Learning to feel after having
deliberately cut off from your emotions, begins with the conscious choice
and decision, that you want to feel. Now I know that some of you
who are intimacy phobiques may consciously be like: "Yeah, I want to feel, I'm good
with that. Let's learn that." But by far, the majority of you is like: "mm-mmm. No, no! That's dangerouse." So you've got to be aware of that
aspect of you that doesn't want to. Because like I said, learning how to feel, begins
with the decision that you want to. From that point, you start slowly. And once you learn
what feelings you're having, you then practice communicating
that to the other people in your life. Consider this a process of
re-owning your personal truth. 2. You've got to discover the part, one or multiple, that are actually fueling this issue. The ones that want nothing
to do with connection. The most avoidant aspects of you. The ones that are like: "Nope not getting close.
Close is a no. No no." Those types of parts, you have to find them. Once you find them, you've got to feel into them, see into them, listen to them, understand them and meet
the needs that they have. Basically what you're doing is
giving that part that fears Intimacy, the intimacy that it never got from the people who created
its issue in the first place. From this space, that part of you will tell
you what you need to do and what it needs other people to do in order for it to allow
for intimacy in its life. Now to understand how to do this process or to find parts within yourself, I want you to watch my video titled: Fragmentation
(The Worldwide Disease) 3. Make a dedicated practice
of noticing social cues. I know that sounds like a funny thing, but here's what happens: When you don't believe
that any of you is going to be accepted or tolerated, so you basically close yourself
off in a little bubble, what happens is that
people who fear intimacy, live in a kind of self-centered sphere. It does you no good, to notice all of the things
that are going on with other people. You can't have that connection,
it's dangerous anyways. And obviously, this creates
a kind of negative pattern. You decided you could never
be acknowledged by them, or be supported by them, so you tuned other people out. This means you either ignore or dismiss subtle and not so subtle
cues from other people, all the time. Now the reason this is a vicious cycle, is because it makes the world
and intimacy, more dangerous. When you don't pick up on
social cues in other people, and so you don't adjust your behavior according to those social cues, what happens is that you become
dangerous to other people. So let's pretend that somebody has
just barely lost somebody that they love. If you're not really attuned to the fact that they are giving you
all kinds of social cues, that they're in a state of grief, because you're walled off, you may be the person
who walks in and says: "Hey, what's so gloomy?
It's a great day outside. Why are you sitting like that? I don't like it actually,
when you sit like that. You're starting to upset me. Why are you always
trying to drag me down?" See? So, your own behavior didn't adjust according to the
social cues that you perceived. So what does this create? It creates a scenario where
everyone's gonna look at you like: "That is a fucking asshole right there." And what do people do
when they make that decision? If you're the bad guy, now, you're the one that's the threat. That means all of the aspects of them that want to protect themselves
against you, come up. That means they're not going to
take your best interests at heart, because it's obvious you
don't take their interest. So basically, the world gets
even more unsafe for you, which actually fuels your belief that's causing you to withdraw
and not be intimate in the first place. The more you notice social cues, so as to respond to them in a way that makes
people feel safe near you, the more they will want
to take care of your needs and personal truths and best interests. So throughout your day
in every social interaction, practice reading their emotions
and checking in with them about whether what you are
perceiving is accurate or not. 4. You've got to notice your
disconnection with people when it occurs. Notice that feeling like,
you're just a brain that doesn't even have a heart. It's almost like a disconnected head
that's wandering all over the place. You're not even really
somebody that has a body at that point. That sensation which
you usually don't notice, is an indication that
you have disconnected. Another really good indication, is if you've disconnected
from an aspect of yourself, other people in your exterior life will become the carrier of that aspect. So here's what I mean: Let's say that you felt rage in your body and you disconnected from that, and so you're now this sort
of floating kind of a brain, at this moment in disconnection, The likelihood is, the other person is going to now amplify, because they're the carrier of your rage. So when you see people
in your life screaming at you, and this is the kind of
movement they're doing, it's probably a good indication
you're disconnected at this moment. To elaborate on this, notice how other people are
responding to you with anxiety, neediness and rage. Rage is a cover emotion for powerlessness. This is happening because
you are disconnecting from your own feelings of anxiety, neediness and fear, in this moment. You feel that by disconnecting
from the other person, who you perceive to be
causing those feelings, you can escape from
the feelings themselves. Obviously, this makes
them become the carrier of your suppressed and disowned
emotions in that moment and they will become even more anxious. Because you are making them responsible for both their own anxiety, and yours. So when this happens, choose to drop into and feel the feelings of anxiety,
powerlessness and neediness that you're trying to avoid. You are terrified of
strong negative emotions. Forcing yourself not to distract yourself, or leave the physical
vicinity of the other person, and choosing instead
to drop inside yourself and let yourself feel these feelings
underneath the disconnection, is the only real way not
to create a vicious spiral of lost connection with the person who you genuinely want
to be connected with. 5. With a willing partner who actually does want to do what
mom and dad never wanted to do, which is be with you when you dropped
into the truth of yourself, you can have a rehabilitative experience, where when you drop into
the way you feel the anxiety, the neediness, the powerlessness and even the rage, that person can sit and be there with you, without needing you to change. They can receive your truth. That's genuine intimacy. So isn't that interesting? You can even learn intimacy, by somebody being present with
your avoidance of intimacy. 6. You've got to commit
to a path of authenticity. If you have a fear of intimacy, you have not been authentic. You have lived your life in the exact opposite state. Trying to be authentic around your parents which is an intimate thing, because you're trusting someone
with the truth of you, had consequences. But notice the pain involved
in living an inauthentic life. Anaïs Nin once wrote: And the day came when the pain it took
to stay tight in a bud, was more painful than
the risk it took to bloom. The question for yourself is: "Are you tired yet?" "Is it too painful yet?" "Has that day arrived?" If it has, I am begging you
to watch my video titled: How To Be Authentic 7. Your fear of intimacy has made it so you prioritize things that don't require you to
go towards those emotions that intimacy stirs. This means that you've got
to check your actual priorities. You may be saying: "My priority is my relationship." Sorry, most of your energy is going
into hobbies or obsessive work. Anything where you feel confidence and don't have to feel vulnerability. Don't have to feel a need of other people. That's where your attention
is actually going. And this is the thing, if you're gonna develop a genuine
connection in a relationship, that actually does
have to be your priority. You can fit these other
things into your life, by all means, people do it all the time. But you've got to know
where your priorities lie, because I'm gonna guarantee you
that if you get into a pinch and you are with a partner,
and you say: "My priority is work." You're losing that relationship. A life of achievement
is absolutely useless if you have no one
to share that life with. What you really want and need is connection, closeness, to be truly seen, felt, heard and understood by someone. You need to see that you
can be loved for who you are, not for what you can do,
or for what you can achieve or accomplish. 8. Notice how positive feelings trigger you almost more, than negative feelings. This means when you do have that closeness or when it may look like you
actually have a sense of togetherness, Oh, are you ever going to get triggered. The reason you're going to get triggered
is, it conflicts with your entire reality. It conflicts with what you think is
possible and what you know about yourself. You're gonna feel suspicion
and distrust for the other person. And this is gonna unwittingly
trigger that deep-seated feeling that you developed in childhood, that who you were was
not to be tolerated. As a result, it arouses all of that pain. And to get away from
the pain of that trigger, you will disconnect from those feelings and create problems or tension
in the relationship you're in, or push the person
who is loving you, away. If you have this pattern
of fear of intimacy, guaranteed, the people in your life feel super freaking confused by you. Because it seems like
everything's going wonderful, we're so close and
suddenly there's a problem. Suddenly, I'm getting pushed away,
and then when I go away, suddenly you're chasing me. It's that classic push
and pull relationship. 9. Face your shame. Shame is the root
of a fear of intimacy. why? Because who you are, are those internal feelings,
thoughts, desires, needs. That's who makes up
who you are in this life. And that was "not to be tolerated". So if you learn that, what else are you to decide, other than who you are is bad,
wrong and is not to be tolerated? That's shame. That's what it is. That's the definition. For this reason, I want you to watch my videos titled: How to Overcome Shame and: The #1 Relationship Obstacle
(And How To Dissolve It) 10. Be aware of when you
are pushing people away. I want you to play a game
with the people in your life give them full permission, when they feel like
you're doing a push away, either through an action or something
you're saying or doing or not doing, let them voice it to you. You have to become aware
of when you're doing this. I'm sorry to break it to you, but if you have a fear of intimacy, it's impossible for you to be
a super self-aware person. Because you had to push away your feelings, your thoughts, your desires, your motives, any awareness about you, the truth of you. So you're gonna have to accept that and realize that you're gonna be continuously learning about yourself and re-owning your truth. And part of that is seeing what
you're actually doing to people. Self-awareness is the key to recognizing your behaviors
before they are acted out and damage your relationships. 11. If you fear intimacy, but you want a good relationship, you're gonna have to commit to
becoming an expert on the other person. The person you're in a relationship with, they'll usually be the
first to start this with. And this is gonna be the case eventually with all the people in your life, but just pick one person. You need to become
an expert on this person. You've got to understand them, look into them, really want
to know their internal world, to such an incredible degree, that you get them completely. That has to be a risk
you're willing to take and a commitment you're ready to make. 12. I want you to make
a consistent practice of the connection process. In the connection process, you are going to be actually journeying
into somebody else's internal world, and they are going to be journeying
into your internal world. I teach you how to do this,
in my video that's titled: How To Connect With Someone 13. Discover your needs and even though it's scary, you've gotta express
your needs to other people, even if you can't do this directly. You've got to take your needs and you've got to put them
in the center of the relationship. So that people can choose
when and how to meet them. If you can't express your needs directly, I have a solution for you. You can write them down
on a piece of paper, put them somewhere in the house, or send them to your friends, so that they can receive those needs and choose to meet those needs. What happens when we don't trust that anyone is gonna meet our needs because we've already learned that
our needs will not be tolerated, is that we now have only two options. Either we go completely without our needs, in which case we starve,
most of us can't do that, or we manipulate to get our needs met. So instead of expecting
a person to meet those needs, or manipulating them
to meet those needs, surrender to the vulnerability of
letting other people meet those needs, because they want to. And because your happiness,
is their happiness. When you were young, your needs were not met
with warmth and consistency. Your needs were either not met at all, or were met with inconsistency,
anger and resentment and often with strings attached. You learn not to depend
on others to meet your needs, but to swing between manipulating
them to meet your needs and meeting them all by yourself. You need to let yourself
have the experience of having your needs met by others, because it brings them pleasure to do so. 14. Accept that you are starting from scratch. You have no freaking idea how to have a good intimate
close committed relationship with another person. And that's okay. But what I want you to do is literally, wipe the slate clean, just admit: "I have no freaking
clue how to do this", and from scratch, start learning one by one, how to be close, how to be committed, how to stay with this person so that we're connected and not pull away. Become okay with throwing
your old paradigms away. If you're an intimacy phob, chances are your concept about
how to keep a relationship together, should be thrown away. 15. Become comfortable with vulnerability. The foundation of a good
relationship, is vulnerability. The more tolerant of
vulnerability that you are and the discomfort it causes, the closer that you will
be able to be with people and the less you will push them away. Vulnerability is not weakness. Instead, it involves great courage
to be willing to be vulnerable. If you can choose to acknowledge and share your vulnerability in a situation instead of cope by pushing people away, creating conflict or disconnecting, you can remain connected to the
person you want to be connected with. You can bring resolve to what is real. You can meet needs that are real. You can make relationships
feel good again. 16. What you've got to recognize, is that you meet other people in the same way that your parents met you. You've gotta recognize
that you're doing this. What that means is, you are meeting other people's feelings, thoughts, desires and needs including the need for you, with intolerance. If you can remember how painful that was, you can recognize what you needed instead, and provide that experience
to other people. I Want you to imagine, and this will be easier if you have
an issue with connecting with people, that every time you provide
for the other person, not only tolerance, but acceptance and love for whatever they're presenting to you, it is the same as doing that for your inner child. The one that was so hurt
by that, in the first place. So it's not possible for you to
provide intimacy for other people, without also rehabilitating
the aspect of you that was so hurt by not having it. Intimacy is an act of courage. And I want to remind you, that courage implies fear. You can't have courage
in the absence of fear. So you're gonna be scared. You're gonna be scared to high heaven, when you have a fear of intimacy
and you're trying to develop it. You've got to be okay with the fact
that you're gonna feel fear. Don't try to escape from the fear, bring that into the damn
relationship with you. The good news is: If you have found a partner that really wants to be intimate
and connected with you, when you bring yourself into
the center of that relationship, your truths, your feelings,
your desires, your need for them, and they're allowed
to do the same to you, you have found resolution
for what you suffered from as a child. You will have a genuine experience
of somebody really wanting you and wanting you to feel good, because it brings them pleasure
to see you feel good. Have a good week. Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte
www.tanyaduarte.com
