Another Exercise for Healing Fear of Intimacy

When I wrote yesterday about fear of intimacy, I spoke of how, for me it was about fear of abandonment and fear of rejection. Fear of loss is also a lurker in there for me and I believe, closely tied to that fear of abandonment.

When I first began opening up my heart to a man, it felt extremely scary and anxiety-inducing. There were a couple of times that it felt just so overwhelming that I considered leaving in the middle of the night. I would find myself feeling so vulnerable that it was almost unbearable. It was utterly intense and I had a very low tolerance for it. I had a low tolerance for intimacy because I had guarded my heart from it so diligently for most of my life.

I began opening myself up a bit here and there with strangers and with my close friends. Then I started opening up a bit to the man in my life. The first guy I started opening up to, was one of those unavailable men who I talked about in the previous article. It seems he had a fear of intimacy as well, so neither one of us had much tolerance for it.

If you find yourself in this situation, I'd like to encourage you to do it anyway. It feels unsafe at first, but there are very few men out there who will intentionally hurt you. When you start opening up, even if they have their own fear of intimacy, they will treat you gently. Trust that.

If you have a fear of intimacy, this is actually a rather ideal situation, because you won't be able to go too deep (and scare yourself too badly) because he won't allow you to. And it's better to know, if you're looking for a lasting relationship (which I believe most of us are) now, than to find out a year down the road. Don't you think?

If you keep practicing this, the Universe will bring you the man who will walk through this with you. Trust that, as well. One fear that you will have to face in your quest to overcome fear of intimacy, is that the guy your with, may not be the one to take this journey with you. There may have to be other guys. You will have to face that fear of potential loss, and may have to experience it. The way I see it though, is if I can't overcome my fear of intimacy, I'll lose him anyway at some point. So I might as well do some intensive healing work around this now, so it doesn't become a life-long problem. Agreed?

Do You Have Fear of Intimacy in Relationships?

Wow! There is soooo much I can write on this. I consider myself an expert in this field – fear of intimacy, that is. Well...I WAS an expert, as in past-tense; these days I'm becoming more of an expert on ways to overcome fear of intimacy. This has been a huge fear in my life, that I'm happy to report I've experienced almost complete healing around. Today I want to share an exercise (or two) I've used that have been of great help to me, and that I hope will help with your healing of this as well.

For me, fear of intimacy was based in fear of abandonment and fear of rejection. Fear of abandonment has been deeply ingrained in me since the loss of my Mom some twenty-three years ago and it's been affecting my life in huge (and not good) ways since then.

I don't want you to worry so much about the "why" of your fear of intimacy. For me, it's been much more helpful to concentrate on ways to heal it. The past is the past, and although it deeply affects us in everyday life, and it is helpful to understand, they "whys" are better discovered in therapy. For me, as a Life Coach supporting women's empowerment and positive self image, it's more about working with and healing the NOW.

My particular fear of intimacy and abandonment manifested itself as attracting unavailable men. These guys weren't married or otherwise unavailable, they were emotionally unavailable (in many ways worse, because I actually thought I might have a shot at a life with them). I attracted emotionally unavailable men, and the saddest thing is, even if I would have had a shot with them, it would never have worked, because I was terrified to let them know that I cared about them. They would say how they were never getting married, never getting involved, etc., etc. and I would just shrink up into myself and build those walls (around my heart) a little higher. Sound familiar?

A Mayonnaise Jar and Two Beers

A dear friend of mine sent me an email this morning that's got me feeling contemplative. You may have seen it before, but I'd like to share my thoughts on it here.

The first question it brings up for me is: what's important to me in life? What are the "golf balls" in your life? Which things are the sand? What things are critical to your happiness?

For those of you who haven't seen the email, here it is:

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 beers.

Is "Self Love" a Bad Word?

I'm a huge fan of Christine Arylo and her work around self love. I can't tell you how big a difference she's made in my life. When I first found her, one of the things she was talking about was loving oneself and how it's perceived as a bad, selfish thing. It's actually defined at Dictionary.com as:

self-love [self-luhv]

noun

1. the instinct by which one's actions are directed to the promotion of one's own welfare or well-being, especially an excessive regard for one's own advantage.

2. conceit; vanity.

3. narcissism ( def. 2 ) .

It sure doesn't sound like an honorable thing, does it? It sure didn't sound like something I wanted to strive for. But then Christine asked this question: Would you tell your daughter, your sister, or your mother to not love herself?