Live in Light

How Intimate Are You With Yourself?

Recently in the news a cleric was described as having incited hate about another religion and inferring woman were inferior to men. There were the usual outcries comparing religious perspectives, gender and the politically correct views of 2016. However my response was quite different to that. I was thinking ( assuming the reports were accurate) about how much that leader may be missing out on. How can you fully get to know yourself, your partner, your potential, the joy that life has to offer if you are filling yourself with prejudice, or putting limits on your and others potential because of these beliefs.

Today in my practice, two extraordinary people really took my attention. Both of them were experiencing relationship issues, What emerged out of these sessions, was the understanding that unless we truely love and are intimate with ourselves, how can we expect to have deeply fulfilling intimacy with our partner emotionally, spiritually and physically.

We are often quick to blame our partners (friends/family/workmates insert whomever you like here) when we are scared, worried or feel hurt. Yet it was interesting to see that these projections actually came from their thoughts about themselves. When we got to the deep intimate beliefs about themselves, it was clear they didn’t know how to be deeply loving and true to themselves. In one situation, years of conditioning had lead the man to believe that to be the “man and bread winner” he had to shut his feelings off. It was leading to a deeply dissatisfying relationship with his partner and also a decline in health. With the other person, years of abuse had lead to a shutting down of self and a focus on others as a way of judging her self worth and safety.

Although very different, both people were focusing on what they believed others wanted, and had shut down (or didn’t know) how to listen to what they actually wanted and who they actually were. This is what I mean by asking How intimate are you - with yourself? Do you know who you actually are? How do you distinguish between what your ancestors believed or what your childhood experiences lead you to think. Do you know what it feels like to have a loving relationship with yourself?

I belive both these people are extrordinary. They both have the most amazing intent of helping people and are working very hard on being the best they can be. But their lack of intimacy wth themselves makes it difficult at times.

And so I ask you: how intimate are you with you? Do you know how extraordinary you are? Do you find old patterns “renting space in your head” as one of my friends described recently. Do you know how to be so comfortable with yourself that you feel safe to be honest with yourself and a partner? Do you feel a strength in yourself that enables you to witness a partner being honest wth themselves? Do your cells even know the feeling of what it feels like to be magnificient, worthy or intimate?

In working with people over the years, I have found the origins of these less helpful beliefs run very deep, coming through family patterns and the history of culture. While we can be extremely grateful for our ancestors (they were pretty amazing coping and surviving with some of the things throughout history) we can also ask, is it in our highest and best to be thinking like that now. Although the planet we live on is the same, our day to day reality is so different to theirs. We now are aware of the connection we have with each other through the ease of communication we have (internet, telephone). We have an explosion of information about our bodies, planet, universe that was unavailable to our ancestors. (For example before modern medicine and the microscope the idea that someone died because they angered God might have made sense, now we can see they had a bacterial infection for example).

I believe that a truely phenomenal relationship is one that supports us to grow. In particular into ourselves, our joy, our bliss, while at the same time supporting our partner to equally grow into themselves. When we have the courage to be deeply intimate and honest with ourselves, it becomes easier to see the opportunities our partners give us when we react to something they say or do. Its as if they are putting up a mirror to show us what we are seeing in them is actually in us.
When we recognise this, we can gently enquire as to the origin, what was being learned by this situation and release the “old pattern” with Love and Gratitude.