Get it? In to me see? Intimacy?  I’ve written about intimacy before, but I guess I’m spiraling around for another look at it again after spending the evening with some of our best friends playing Rummikub all the while laughing, singing and generally cutting up AND we’re all going to be spending 8 days together in a short while and still wanted to spend this time together.  Boy have I come a long way.  There was a time when being around someone or a group of friends, no matter how much I liked them, would make me really uncomfortable.  Those were the days before therapy, 12-step programs and general cleaning-out-the-closets of the ghosts in my mind. I had no concept really of how to set any kind of a boundary, inside or outside.

No wonder intimacy was so scary to me and can be to others as well when you don’t know how to set a boundary with yourself whether it’s actions you take or things you say or don’t say—-that can build up a thick shield of protection against the world.  It’s equally as hurtful when you don’t know how to set a boundary with others, such as if someone said something hurtful to you and you didn’t know how to identify your feelings (hurt, disappointed, angry, afraid) or how to set a boundary (you cannot talk to me that way, in that tone, using those words).

The world can be a really scary forbidding place when you allow yourself to bing off of other people.  No wonder many of us turn to isolation so that we don’t have to feel the pain of interacting with others?  I can tell you though, that when you learn how to take care of yourself and surround yourself with people who care about you then your perspective of how the whole world is and can be does shift.  When you live in a dark sparking red tunnel with lot’s of pain it’s hard to envision a world of soft feelings and fun, but it is out there.

As with all things, the first place to start is within ourselves.  We have to learn to listen to how we are feeling and not judge it (such as “I shouldn’t be feeling that way!”).  Then we can take the next step to understanding what we need to do or have to take care of ourselves better. Slowly we begin to build (or rebuild) the trust within ourselves. Once we trust ourselves then we can trust the choices we make in the people we interact with and know how to take care of setting boundaries on the inside as well as the outside.

In to me see.  What do you see in yourself?

Unlocking your heart - intimacy