Intimacy & relationship are a celebration of life: Every day I get to work with couples & individuals who want to let down their barriers to opening up, fully experience physical & emotional closeness, and use sensuality, intimacy & sexuality as a way of creating a well-nourished, joyful existence, and use THAT as an offering to Divinity and the World.
If there’s anything that I’ve assimilated to the very cells of my being, it’s that Sex Heals.
It is one thing to know and feel this for others intellectually. It is quite another to maintain that knowledge when everything in my body says: Bitch, RUN.
One of the main motivations in taking a break from dating is resetting how I view relationships: I’ve been open in how I have a history of, according Attachment Theory, Avoidant Attachment. Very simply put, avoidant attachment tends to distance and dismiss, well, everything; deep emotional connection, commitment, conflict, revealing authentic emotions, communication, any kind of dependency of either party, etc. Intimacy or feeling emotional closeness can trigger feelings of being smothered and trapped, and the reaction is to run. Run as far away as possible.
However, I want to cut that shit out.
Fascinatingly, studies have proven that people who have Secure Attachment styles (emotive and receptive, open to self-disclosure, creates interdependency with friends and partners) actually coax their Anxious (oversimplified, think clingy and needy types) or Avoidant partners INTO more secure attachment. Wowza.
Since my Avoidant Style isn’t helpful to anyone, least of all me, I want to attach more securely to people I have romantic interest in. So how does one go from Avoidant (or Anxious, for that matter) to a more Secure style?
Notice Your Behavior
I’ll speak to mainly avoidant behaviors, but know that this can be applied to our Anxiously Attached friends, or any way of being you want to change.
Notice when you’re withholding affection, communication or love. When you avoid broaching a topic of conversation, when you convince yourself something doesn’t bother you, or even when you go completely numb to a person or situation.
What’s so insidious about this type of behavior is that most times, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Our attachment styles are formed in infancy, so chances are you don’t recognize that you’re using distancing or dissociative mechanisms, because you haven’t had to cope without them.
Just like we don’t notice when we’re not touching a hot stove or walking into oncoming traffic–we just don’t. It’s the same thing with these distancing coping mechanisms. We’ve been avoiding intimacy because we’ve learned that it hurts. So leaving it alone is second nature.
It was particularly interesting to notice that my daily habits, routines and ways of being with friends, lovers and close ones heavily skewed to the Avoidant side: I rarely ask for or accept help, I take pride in doing things alone, I deal with overwhelm by leaving or shutting down. I have crafted my lifestyle to cater to my avoidant lifestyle.
Which has served me perfectly well for the past 32 years. And I’m curious to what else is possible.
Now Do the Opposite
About a year ago, I started doing the opposite of what I normally do in intimate relationship. Whenever I noticed I was playing games like not responding to texts, not returning calls after sweet, deep sex & intimacy, or convincing myself out of my feelings for someone by nitpicking–I’d do the opposite. I’d reach out and send a sweet text, ask to make plans to hang out, share something vulnerable about myself.
Here’s the key: ALL WITHOUT EXPECTATION. I did it because it was new and different for me, not because I wanted validation, confirmation, or even a response.
It sucked. I felt like I was suddenly everything I’d never wanted to be: needy, over-communicative, pursuant, weak, pathetic, out-of-control, vulnerable. In reality, I was acting like a normal human with emotions.
When we do something we don’t normally do–learning a new skill, moving in a different way, saying things we don’t usually speak out loud–we are creating new pathways in our brain. It’s the same thing with healthy attachment practices.
I started becoming a more Securely Attached person by ACTING and SPEAKING like a Securely Attached person. Yes, it feels terrible and WRONG at first. And gradually, it feels more true, more real, and like I’m being more honest with those who are precious to me, and also myself. I get to experience this very soft, passionate and innocent part of myself that I was afraid to look at before.
Turns out, She’s pretty fucking awesome.
Lighten Up, Buttercup.
Our fear comes from taking ourselves SO seriously. When I expressed my feelings the first few times, I was crushed (Because why would Creation have that first time play out the way our ego wanted it to? We have things to learn here!).
We get hurt when we’re honest–but we get back up. We scrape our knees, and serve up our guts on silver platters and act like fools for love–but that’s the point. John Wineland, a fave, said “We will all be sacrificed on the altar of Love.” We will break up with and get broken up with, cheat and be cheated on. Best case scenario: In your wonderful, enriching long term relationships, someone DIES of old age.
It is infinitely more enriching to be the expression of sweetness, to be authentic and play and willing to fall. And the more you fall, the quicker you can get back up.
Ernest Holmes, founder of Religious Science, said “The Universe exists for the self-expression & delight of God.” Creation is continually looking to get familiar with Itself, to live through us as Its most delightful expressions.
When we reframe our healing and relationships as a way as our Highest Self to get to know Itself, things become sweeter, lighter, less of a THING. We cannot be destroyed by our past, our sorrow, and least of all someone else. This is the lila–the Hindu concept of play between Spirit and this realm.
So that’s what we can relax into, the play, the curiosity, and change just to see what happens.
In pleasure & delight, sweet ones.
