Relationships & Intimacy

Relationships.....the boon and bane of life :)

We all live surrounded by relationships. Relationships are a space where life happens, where growth happens, (as boon or as bane.......either ends of the scale)

As boon; relationships between two adults have the potential and possibility of genuine intimacy.  That's at one end of the scale. So, what forms an intimate relationship?

'Intimacy' is a nuanced word. It usually brings to mind romantic or marital or sexual pairings. While each of these is a possibility or opportunity for intimacy, there is a whole world that is rich with possibilities of intimacy, of connectedness and attachment. Something that can singularly uplift life to some beautiful highs.

It is not also just about 'feeling' close in the usual and immediate sense of the word.

It is more all encompassing than that. It is the possibility of a rich relationship which allows each to be who they are, yet feel the connectedness. And in that lies the growth of the self and the other.

This post is coming out of some recent conversations (across relationships and across the gamut of the scale)

I quote from 'The dance of intimacy' by Harriet Lerner.  "while intimacy is no simple term, intimacy means that we can be who we are in a relationship, and allow the other person to do the same.'Being who we are' requires that we can talk openly about things that are important to us, that we take a clear position on where we stand on important emotional issues, and that we clarify the limits of what is acceptable and tolerable to us in a relationship. 'Allowing the other person to do the same' means that we can stay emotionally connected to that person who thinks, feels and believes differently, without needing to change, convince, or fix the other.

An intimate relationship is one in which neither party silences, sacrifices, or betrays the self and each party expresses strength and vulnerability, weakness and competence in a balanced way"

She then talks of how 'relationship patterns' get in the way of allowing this to happen. Experience seems to indicate that most people are so caught up in relationship patterns and expectations, that they live and die in that drama cycle of roles and patterns.

So why? Why do we need to break through those? Why do we even need intimate relationships?

Guess it's about a 'choice'.

Lerner says "People grow and develop through emotional connectedness to others. Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the 'self'. And only through working on the 'self' can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.

I believe that for both women and men the most significant area of learning is that of understanding and enhancing our intimate relationships with our friends, lovers and kin".

At the very foundation of building 'intimacy' is building the 'self'.