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Intimacy is a present moment experience... |
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Are you afraid of intimacy? I was, and I was completely blind to it. Here is how I discovered my hidden fear of intimacy and how learning to overcome my fear of intimacy...my fear of love...has changed my life in so many warm and loving ways.
From analyzing to
compassion... Here's how I stumbled onto the hidden secret that was making my life so unhappy... I was in a workshop...a personal growth workshop with 47 other people. The instructor asked us to pair off with someone, anyone. I looked around, and found a stranger who saw me too. We sat across from each other, cross-legged. I felt nervous right away. The instructor asked us to tell the other person about ourselves in two minutes or less. She said she was a 46 year old doctor from _____ (a big city). She was married. She was here to figure out what to do about her 18 year extra-marital affair. Should she leave her marriage? Or leave her lover? I was aghast, even as I kept my face stone straight. I didn't want her to know that I was a 38 year old country boy hiding in a big-shot businessman suit. The instructor then asked us to hold the hands of the person across from us. She asked us to "Imagine all the things these hands have done...all the people they've helped, the work they've done." I looked down at her small hands, skin drying and age spots here and there. I pictured her hands carefully cutting open someone's tummy. Then the instructor asked us to look the other person in the eye and see if we could feel love for that person. My heart skipped a beat....or three. Love? How do you feel love for a total stranger? I looked up at her and our eyes met. Her eyes locking on mine felt like a night light that found its mark. I instantly felt an incredible, uncontrollable urge to laugh. I gritted my teeth fiercely, resisting this ultimate embarrassment. Then I felt a wave of anger pour through me. "What the "f---" are these people doing to me?" I thought angrily. "I don't know this woman from a hole in the ground. How can I feel "love" for her?" My anger raged...for a few seconds. Then I shut down. My eyes stared blankly at her. I was an empty shell. Surviving the longest two minutes of my life. The instructor finally ended my agony. Then he asked, "Who felt love of some kind for their partner?" All around me, the hands shot up. But not mine. I left the course that night a deeply shaken man. I realized that I was terrified of intimacy. I could no longer deny it to myself. I became determined to understand why. That was in 1996. I discovered one answer. The present moment. I discovered that I lived in my head, filled with thoughts that replayed yesterday's defeats, and role-played tomorrow's victories. I analyzed but I didn't feel. Feelings were to be avoided, at all cost for me. No wonder I felt hollow, empty, a shell trying to live up to everyone's expectations, even as I defiantly convinced myself that I was my own man. I was avoiding the present moment. I was too scared to be me To love is to feel. To feel is to risk revealing my REAL self. I didn't want that. I wanted to control my life - pre-plan it, contain the risks, manage other people's perceptions of me if I made a mistake. Anything but be real, spontaneous, loving and alive! From that fateful moment onward, I wanted intimacy - real love - more than I wanted to hide. I wanted to understand why I feared intimacy and I wanted to embrace my emotions, and not be the clinical, analytical person I had become. You will discover peace, joy and meaning when you learn how to be present - fully alive, intimate, loving - open and vulnerable. This is the greatest gift you can give yourself - and to those around you - your spouse, your children, your parents, your friends and co-workers. You won't un-do 30, 40, or 50 years of your personal history just by wishing it to be different. I spent $20,000 on my journey. That's a lot of money. I didn't spend it in one shot, to get one answer, in one week or one month. I just kept going, trusting myself that each course, each group, each one-on-one session was right for me. What's your life worth to you? Are you willing to invest ...in learning how to love...and be loved? In becoming happy with who you are, open to attracting a positive life partner, and being a great life partner yourself...In finding your purpose and a career that fits your life, not a life that fits your career. You have to be willing to act. Sooner or later, you have to ask yourself, why later? why tomorrow? why not now? why this money? why invest in me, rather than a newer car, new furniture, a great vacation? We offer a way. We don't claim it is the only way. But learning how to be present teaches you how to NOTICE the ways you avoid love and intimacy. Learning how to STAY present, even when you feel like running away or lashing out angrily, is the essence of our teaching. Comfort with intimacy builds an ease with people you'll love...for the rest of your life. Once you learn to notice the present, and acquire the "Present Living" skills to know what to do with what you notice, you will enter a new 'zone' - the present moment zone - where you learn how to generate love from within yourself. Other people's bad moods, annoying habits, inconsiderate actions will no longer spin you into an unhappy place. You will learn to feel at ease with who you are, what you want, and how to live the life you were meant to live...in a loving way.
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