If you long to be known and understood, you are not alone.
We are hardwired to desire relationship and connection with family, friends and of course, our intimate partners. These relationships bring safety and comfort, a sense that we can let our guard down. These are the people our souls call “home.”
However, achieving this type of relationship doesn’t just happen because we want it to. Intimacy with others has to be nurtured and cultivated. You have to engage and take action to deepen the relationship. Often people ask me how to take their relationships to the next level and strengthen their bond with others.
In response, I offer an equation of engagement that sounds simple but demands acts of bravery: Truth = Intimacy.
Let’s break it down together so you can start taking action in your relationships today:
Honesty is sharing your truth. This is the foundation of being known. How can anyone really understand you if you aren’t truthful about what you feel, think and need? However, sharing our truth can feel scary. Because of this fear many people will live years without expressing their true emotions to one another. After all, what if you put yourself out there and don’t get the response you are hoping for?
However, when you do speak up, you find that sharing your truth brings freedom. A loosening of the energy it takes to hold back. A lifting of the veil between one another. A clearing of the air that gives way to a deep breath.
The best place to start is by being honest with yourself to get clear on what you want to share. Ask yourself “What am I holding back that is keeping people from understanding the real me?” This is your truth worth sharing.
Vulnerability is speaking your truth. John Mayer sang it well in his lyric “Say what you need to say.” Every relationship has a sub-narrative, the story that is waiting to be shared if people were willing to take a risk. The “I love you so much I am not sure who I would be if you weren’t here” or “I am so worried that we are drifting and that you are going to lose interest in me” or “I am not sure how to make things better, but I would desperately try if you would too.”
When you withhold these conversations from one another, your relationship finds stuck and stale places to wait. And in the absence of vulnerability, you’ll fill the air with platitudes and obligations, building a fake version of the relationship. Ultimately it is your brave voice that must break the silence and shock the heart of your life together back into rhythm.
Authenticity is the result of your truth. When your truth is known and spoken into the relationship, you are free to be yourself. You may have experienced relationships where you have needed to play a role or character. Where your actions are gaged by what will please someone else or position you to get the approval you desire. Some relationships may ask you to hide parts of yourself you think someone else won’t like. These relationships don’t last and eventually wear people down into shadows.
You aren’t meant to live life hiding who you are in the places you are expected to be fully known. When you share your truth and speak it out, the real you receives permission to be fully present. When we show up like this together, the relationship elevates to a place where intimacy can thrive.
May this be the Valentine gift you bring to your relationships this year. A gift of the real you being loved for who you truly are.
Revolutionize Your Love for a Lifetime
Relationship Reset reveals the secrets to becoming a better couple through exposing valuable information from current research and identifying critical insights that make relating easier.