Intimacy fears and our reward for facing them

A relationship with an intimate partner provides for us a window through which we can view parts of ourselves – of our innermost being – which seldom see the light of day. Herein lies intimacy’s reward as well as the root of our fear of it: because what if we don’t like what we see?

Moving deeper into a relationship inevitably involves looking at ourselves, because partners mirror each other. So we become naked and can’t hide from our own eyes, and this is oftentimes an uncomfortable experience. Maybe we’d rather stay in the darkness of our own ignorance; maybe we prefer the blindness we enjoy when we’re alone to the clarity we’re apt to find when we’re involved with someone else. We risk much when we lay down our habitual defenses and let someone see us vulnerable.

Intimacy fears arise when we have trouble loving ourselves – because allowing someone else to love us basically amounts to the same thing. Our insecurities can make us squirm, make us want to run from a truth that we believe must be so horrible. When a partner doesn’t see us the way we see ourselves, we may question their judgment rather than our own. They must be blind. Our maybe they truly do love us, so there must be something wrong with them! Essentially, if we carry around a belief in our unworthiness then we don’t know how to accept loving regard when it’s reflected back to us.

We don’t have to worry about our behavior so much when we’re alone. There’s not as much pressure on us to communicate, and be so concerned about how anything we might say will be taken. Intimacy demands that we find a way to express our real feelings and stay in touch with our own truth. But the payoff for all this work is the opportunity we’ll have to be seen and accepted for who we really are. We’ll have a chance to grow in a way that we couldn’t have without someone there to mirror us. We’ll enjoy the privilege of sharing all of life’s moments, great and small.

The reward for facing our fears around intimacy is an opportunity to be with someone who won’t shirk away from us even when we might turn our back on ourselves. When this happens, we have the chance to shed our self-doubt and reinvent our self-image, we can lay the past to rest and experience life as something new, in this very moment, with our partner.

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