How to Move from Loneliness to True Intimacy (and Transform Your Relationship

How to Move from Loneliness to True Intimacy (and Transform Your Relationship)

Practice #1 of 6 Core Practices to Create a Healthy Marriage

In my ebook, Transform Your Relationship: 6 Core Practices to Create a Healthy Marriage, I offer 6 core practices you can engage in with your partner to strengthen your connection and build intimacy.

The first practice I discuss is Developing Self Awareness and Acceptance. Without self awareness and acceptance, it will be impossible to create a strong, healthy marriage.

Today, I want to talk more about how the practice of awareness is the remedy for isolation and loneliness.

Tumbling Through Life

So many of us “tumble through” the day and through our lives. This is a term I learned from meditation teacher and clinical psychologist, Tara Brach.

“Tumbling through” refers to living our lives with a pervasive lack of awareness; a habitual tendency of reacting to whatever comes our way, without clarity of thought and feelings, without a solid sense of self.

Let’s pause right now and stop the “tumbling” by asking these questions:

  • How much of your day, as you keep up with tasks and responsibilities, are you unaware of how you feel or what is going on around you?
  • How many of your responses are on automatic pilot without first pausing, slowing down, and considering what you truly feel or want?
  • How much do you use the busyness of life to avoid feeling and to avoid being aware?
  • How much do you experience dissatisfaction and loneliness as you rush through your days and ignore your tender self?
  • How much do you judge and shame yourself when you struggle with your own feelings?

If these circumstances seem to describe your life, then it’s likely you also must feel a profound disconnection from yourself.

If you are disconnected from yourself, it is likely you are experiencing a disconnection from your partner.

Both the disconnection from self and from other, create isolation and loneliness. Both are born of a lack of awareness and compassion.

Being the Unanchored Boat

Without a solid sense of who we are, what we feel and what we want, we are like unanchored boats being tossed about by the waves. Our waves are all the stimuli, events, and interactions that come our way on a daily basis and push us along without direction or purpose.

As we approach ourselves and our partner like an unanchored boat being tossed about by the waves, it is hard to establish true connection because do not have a solid foundation. The lack of foundation comes from our lack of awareness.

Over time, this results in loneliness and isolation.

When we are anchored to a core self through the practice of awareness, we have the ability to remain clear and unchanged by the ups and downs of every day living.

We feel clear in our direction, in what we want, and in our purpose.

We manage the waves more effectively because of this clarity.

We are able to feel connected, solid and supported.

Disconnection Becomes the “Normal”

For far too many of us, this persistent disconnect becomes our “normal”.

We barely notice how out of touch we are with what we are experiencing deep in our hearts and souls because we are so accustomed to avoiding, denying, and hiding from our self.

It is only when we slow down enough and desire to be seen, understood, and held in love, that we recognize a deep loneliness born out of our own lack of awareness.

It is in these moments of awareness, when we catch glimpses of how the “tumbling through” has led to the experience of loneliness, that we feel the most profound sense of separation from self and other.

Do You Want to Move from Loneliness to True Intimacy?

If you want to move away from the loneliness, lack of direction, and disconnection you experience in your marriage, please consider cultivating a practice of awareness and compassionate acceptance. In this practice you will develop a capacity for creating true intimacy.

Intimacy is the opposite of separation. It is the epitome of true connection. It is the remedy for isolation and loneliness.

Intimacy requires, more than anything, bring truly present; the kind of presence that comes from allowing ourselves to being seen, understood, and held in love for who we truly are and doing the same for our partner.

Being Aware, Present and Establishing True Intimacy

When we slow down, pause, breath, and allow ourselves to reflect, we foster awareness of what we are feeling, of the thoughts racing through our minds, and of our responses to others and to our life.

It is then that we have the opportunity to become fully present to ourselves. This kind, and graciously compassionate, awareness leading to presence, allows us to open our hearts.

Our hearts open when we are securely anchored to our truest self. It is then, that we have the capacity to engage in the giving and receiving born of true intimacy.

To Read More About This…

In my ebook, I talk about the importance of practicing awareness with non-judgmental acceptance and compassion.

I outline possible consequences within your marriage resulting from a lack of awareness.

I also offer a practice for you to cultivate loving, compassionate, and nonjudgmental awareness.

If you want to dive deeper into this practice of awareness and acceptance, I hope you check out my ebook.

I also hope that you begin to honor your true self with great kindness and compassion.

For when we can do this, we lessen our moments of feeling isolated and lonely. And we create the possibility for deep connection and true intimacy.

Peace in the Journey,
Jane

 Introduction  |  Practice #2 in Series  

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Jane Ryan

Jane Ryan, LMFT, CST is a Licensed Couples and Family Therapist and an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist. She specializes in helping therapy participants nurture their intimate relationships, recover from purity culture & sexual shame, & embrace their true erotic nature. She supports women in reclaiming their embodied wisdom and living from their radiant, feminine power and essence as they enter the peri-menopausal and post-menopausal years.