I have written some articles recently about the various reasons why we may find it hard to find a committed relationship and one of those reasons is a fear of intimacy.
This is not a flaw in your character. It is a part of being human as intimacy leaves us open to the idea of pain.
What we are asking ourselves, if we have this fear is: How do I keep love at arm’s length?
Now you can ask yourself, how can I change that?
The quality of your relationships has been shown to be the most important key to happiness in life.
The Harvard Grant Study, a 75-year study into happiness concluded that the most important indicator to living a fulfilling life is your relationships.
This study is one of the most comprehensive studies of human development ever undertaken. The study describes the personality characteristic which is most important for finding this happiness. It is “a mature coping style that does not push love away.”
So, why would you push love away?
Why is it natural for you to flee the very love you wish to embrace. As I have written in my book, The P.E.O.P.L.E. Programme, there are clear reasons for your fear of intimacy. What you do with your fear determines who you become in the world of relationships.
The idea that this fear is a flaw is untrue. You can liken it to a fear of dying, and it is completely rational in your subconscious. Love is the most valuable thing in the world, hence the fear of losing it or being hurt by it is completely understandable.
We can all have certain levels of an inability to love! What you need to do is explore the patterns that you have created in your mind to avoid feeling close to others.
How you keep intimacy at arm’s length
You may find that upon exploration, you have many coping mechanisms that keeps love at bay. It will take time and a consistent effort on order to move on from them completely.
I suggest that you find your primary defence and begin working on this first. Then hopefully the others will be easier to overcome.
Remember that love and connection are the most important factors to a happy and fulfilling life. And that connection also relates to the love that you have for yourself. A major key in being able to let others be close.
Here are a few things to be aware of that you could be doing in order to keep meaningful love at bay:
• I keep choosing relationships with people who can’t meet my needs.
• I often find myself in the position of having to teach people how to be in a relationship with me.
• I have a few people in my life who are very close to me,
• I never seem to find the opportunity to spend much quality time with people.
• I keep getting annoyed at people for little things.
• I really want a relationship, but when I get home, I just make myself dinner and watch TV and don’t interact with people.
• I find it hard to be myself with people.
Take a moment to reflect on your own patterns. What rings most true for you as a way that you consciously or subconsciously orchestrate relational distance in your life?
The best antidote to fear of intimacy… Yes, you guessed it… The single greatest antidote to fear of intimacy is being intimate.
Who is the best person to practice this on? The person that you trust most with your emotions? Who asks you how you are and really means it, listens to your truth and keeps it to themselves?
To improve your relationship with you then, on top of understanding yourself, try positive self-talk and affirmations.
If you want to work on these issues, but find it too hard to do by yourself, then contact me for your free coaching consultation – click on the contact button or call 07709 350019.
To see more about how my coaching works and can help you, watch the trailer to my documentary – Forget Me Not – You can see this on the Forget Me Not page under resources.
I look forward to speaking to you.