We all deeply desire connection with others, but what is necessary for us to have this?
When we were born, the most important thing to us was connection with our mother. We needed connection with her body for adequate sustenance. We needed emotional connection with her, or with someone, to feel safe, and to develop the ability to regulate our feelings. Connection with someone was essential to our physical survival and our emotional well being.
When we are fortunate enough to have a healthy experience of connection with our parents, we grow up feeling loved, lovable and safe. But in order to have this healthy connection, our parents or other caregivers need to be connected with themselves. They cannot fully connect with us if they are disconnected from themselves.Continue reading Connection: Our Deepest Desire
Are you addicted to porn and not feeling good about it? Discover the likely underlying cause and what to do about it.
I received the following question when I was conducting a webinar on sexual addiction:
“I have had a pornography addiction since I was a teenager. I am now in my mid 30’s. For the past four months I have abstained through Inner Child work, but two days ago I visited a porn site and masturbated. I feel really sad about this. What is the best way to address this?”
Pornography addiction is quite common. At one of my Five-Day Couples’ Intensives, one of the men was working on his porn addiction and was feeling embarrassed about it. In an effort to help him, I asked, “How many of you are addicted to porn?” Among the six couples there, four of the men raised their hands. Continue reading Addicted to Porn?
Do you sometimes feel like you try to give your partner the connection he or she wants and can’t figure out how?
I was having a Skype session with Andrea and Lawrence. Married for 18 years with two teen-age children, their marriage was strained. When I asked Lawrence how things were going between them, his answer was the same as always: “Fine.” When I asked Andrea the same question, she got a pained look on her face. “Things are okay, but not great. I’m lonely with Lawrence so much of the time. We just can’t seem to connect.”
Are you mystified about how to create meaningful emotional connection with others?
We are inherently social beings, and feeling emotionally connected with another is one of the great joys in life. Yet, all too often, we feel lonely around another or others, wanting to connect and not knowing how. We may have learned numerous . . . → Read More: How to Connect with Others
Do you want to experience intimacy and connection with others, and the joy and aliveness that this offers? You need to start by learning how to love yourself, rather than abandon yourself.
“Intimacy begins with oneself. It does no good to try to find intimacy with friends, lovers, and family if you are starting out from alienation and division within yourself.” – Thomas Moore, author, Care of the Soul
Most of us would love to have intimacy and connection in our lives, yet we often find this elusive. Why?
Thomas Moore puts it in a nutshell. Until we are intimate and connected with ourselves, we cannot experience the greatest joy in life – intimacy and connection with others.
The question becomes: what causes alienation and division within yourself? Just one thing – self-abandonment.
I grew up with a very angry mother who would attack me out of the blue. As a highly sensitive only child, the fear and heartbreak of being treated so unlovingly was unbearable. So rather than feel the hurt, I numbed it out by learning to stay in my head rather than being present in my body, and by focusing on caretaking others’ feelings. The only way I could survive was to not know that I was being so hurt.
I had so deeply shut out knowing about my own pain that when I had children, I thought nothing about yelling at them. One day, as I was yelling at my son Josh, who was about 2 ½, he looked up at me with tears running down his cheeks and said, “Mommy, when you yell at me, I feel like I’m gonna die.” Continue reading When You Feel Hurt By Your Partner
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