About Relationships
Connection, Intimacy, Caring and Love
The most powerful need we have as human beings is to feel a connection between ourselves and another. It is necessary for survival as infants – and equally so throughout our lives, though it does not need to be with just one person. Some people choose to remain alone but develop meaningful relationships with others as friendships.
One of the characteristics of such relationships is what our friend, Dr. Gerald Bauman, labeled “Serious Talk.” In serious talk we talk about our lives, our feelings, our problems, our hopes and dreams, our conflicts and failures. It takes a great deal of openness and trust to find people capable of receiving these inner feelings and parts of our lives. But it is in that sharing that connections and love emerge. Jerry was one such friend that Armin and I shared our lives with.
It is through relationships that we search for those connections. In romantic relationships, our hormones of attraction begin the process and act as powerful catalysts. But we must also experience the connection in deeper more intimate ways for love to grow and endure throughout the changes that life brings to us.
To be open to another is to take that risk – to share who I am and to want to know who you are.
Relationships
Most often we choose a person for a relationship because the chemistry attracts us – that is because there is something familiar about the person – but the basis for that chemistry is often something we are not aware of – lying under the surface of our awareness are feelings we experienced with our mother, father, grandparent or another person in our life. If there is something about those early relationships that has been difficult, sometimes people consciously say, “I don’t want to have a relationship like that.” But if we do not do our relationship homework, i.e. therapy or an equivalent process of reflecting about the relationship we want, we may end up in relationships that do not work.
Doing our homework is exploring or looking at the family you grew up in, the parents you had, how they related to each other and how you experienced them relating to you – how you felt growing up. As you look at all of that, we begin to be able to tell our story, to use your voice and share with another. The facts are a beginning. “I grew up in a family of five children; I was the oldest.”
And then we continue from there.
Individual people want different things in relationships. Sometimes people find a partner who has the same degree of openness as yourself and you are comfortable with each other. That works and can be a very positive relationship where each can talk about what they want in the relationship, in their lives going forward. But if life sends an unexpected crisis, it sends the relationship into imbalance; the openness is not adequate for the situation at hand. And people respond differently to crises and loss. One partner may be more uncomfortable at the level of openness that has worked before but may not feel safe in sharing that pain with the other. It suddenly feels as if you are in a strange land or foreign emotional territory. Our usual response is to shut down emotionally, to withhold feelings, to share less, not more. It may even feel as if the relationship is threatened – and then you are frightened.
At those times and in those situations, I can help you to open to your experiences and find a way to share with the other what you are feeling. When that kind of crisis is navigated successfully, the relationship moves to a different level of connection and openness. You have weathered a storm together and come through it.
If you know what you want but are confused or afraid to act, I can help you explore what is keeping you stuck.
It doesn’t necessarily mean you will act, but it does mean you will understand the complexity of the issues involved and approach the situation more aware of the risk, the potential impact on yourself and others, the benefits that might come and how you might navigate the process more effectively.