Pitfalls, Delusions and Illusions of Flames – Part One

“If I hadn’t learned from you about my ex from 30 years ago,  I wouldn’t have tried again. Now I’ve wasted 30 years because there was no one to explain or guide. So many on the sites are broken and distraught because they don’t get where they are at and feel they have lost everything.” ~ Jed Heart anonymous member

Sacred Union Marriage Issues Checklist is a bullet proof bullet point list for troubleshooting intimacy issues in a partnership-any partnership between two consenting adults. If and when two consenting adults decide together to play out fantasies within the context of their intimacy, that is not covered here. Fantasy that is covered come from various sources including children’s fairy tales and other stories, television shows and movies, theater films and plays as well many other countless media sources. Role playing does not create emotional intimacy. Instead, role playing creates limits on individuals who have feelings and emotions. Creating a checklist of role playing characters each partner idolizes and seeks to act out as a means of acting romantic will open intimacy further. If and when both partners can communicate to each other about their internalized fantasies intimacy is able to seep through the role play characters and the real intimacy begins.

Beyond role playing, shedding off the layers of ideals is quite an amazing feat. There will be many layers of ideals that we can discover when we allow our partner to express what s/he feels, sees, hears as feedback. Ideals are very difficult to discern. We need to be able and willing to feel sacred, safe and secure to trust our partner to express our feelings and emotions freely. Our partner is more likely than not to point out our ideals as we tend to act and react emotionally in our relationship. Good starting points is writing a checklist  of all the ways we say, “should”, “would”, “could”. It helps us in relationship if we can make troubleshooting intimacy as a game vs a means of being right vs wrong.

Mentioning right vs wrong, the need to be right is a sure sign of perfectionism. Yet, there are also many ways a person can demonstrate perfectionism. A checklist of needs vs wants can aid in troubleshooting perfectionist ideals. The exercise of feeling safe and secure enough to allow our partner to feel free to open her/his mind to associate layers of what s/he feels, thinks about what s/he expects to be perfect is ultra intimacy. This layer of expectation may be a very sensitive intimacy source of irritating agitating needs to feel loved. Consider a partner may have been expected to act towards others in certain ways as well as act to expect others to treat him/her in certain ways. Every person has unique expectations built from birth and childhood throughout adult relationships in all areas of life-family, school, work, religion, social, and other previous partners.

This article is part one of a three part series. At this point, it is enough to ponder fears of accepting and acknowledging our attractions and emotional responses to potential mates. Denial of our emotions can lead us to avoid, ignore and otherwise sabotage building intimacy at any point in a mutual attraction from before it manifests as a visible relationship or at any time between meeting to actually communicating, dating and oven well beyond into a marriage. Emotional hiding may occur at any time fear rears its head. Pondering fear will bring up enough memories of all ways and means we have felt embarrassed, humiliated, maybe even merely humbled. Shying away from sharing our feelings and opening our awareness to our emotions takes skill in self-flection and communication with others. Learning how to feel safety and security in order to feel we can trust others is not easy nor simple. It merely sounds good. In practice, it takes both courage and bravery to lose self-reflective self-consciousness and express our inner most hidden feelings and emotions with a potential partner or partner. Denial of emotions which are painful can cause all sorts of trust issues.

This is a point where Positive Thinking does not do the trick. It is self-examination, ruthless digging into the dungeons of our most hidden emotional laden memories which is the key to reveal our selves to our own selves and then to a partner. Sometimes, the potential partner or partner sees, hears and knows us better than we imagine as they are viewing our actions and reactions from the outside. It can obvious that we are denying our feelings and emotions. Of course that is in itself pain to become aware that we may not be able to hide from a potential mate. Yet, learning to accept and acknowledge our feelings and emotions even while we feel vulnerable is enough to break through our emotional patterns of hiding and denial. There is much to be pondered for one’s self and partner. A partnership will stall or a break up may occur if emotional withholding becomes habitual. If one party is not certain s/he can accept and acknowledge both parties are in relationship, whether discussed or not, it is time to create a list of questions starting with this one, “How do you feel about me and you?” or, “Are you thinking and feeling that we are heading into a relationship?” or, “Are we in a relationship?” A relationship may be happening or not happening depending on the intimacy both parties are able and willing to discuss about their definitions of relationship. No one needs or wants to feel s/he is off guard and in a relationship s/he has not agreed to enter as a partner. Sometimes, one or both parties merely need a check in to discuss their relationship basis and define their feelings and emotions more than they previously discussed. At some point, a relationship exists for both or it does not. And, this must be agreed upon by both consenting adults to accept and acknowledge that they are both in partnership in the relationship.

To be continued… Part Two, Part Three

Enjoy,

Jedhi