Dr. Margaret Paul
“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
Do you try to create intimacy with your partner and others who are important to you without first checking inside to see if you are connected with yourself? Do you believe that if only someone would love you and connect with you, then you would feel happy and full inside? Are you looking for someone else to complete you?
One of the major reasons that many relationships don’t work is because partners are alienated and divided within themselves, which comes from abandoning yourself rather than loving yourself.
My work is all about helping people learn how to love themselves so that they can share their love with others and experience the intimacy and connection that we all want and need.
“Intimacy begins with oneself.”
What does it mean to be intimate with yourself?
Intimacy with others is about feeling emotionally close and connected with them.It is about connecting from your heart rather than from your head. You can connect intellectually with others from your mind, but emotional intimacy is about a heart connection.
The same thing is true on the inner level. You cannot be intimate with yourself when you are focused in your mind rather than in your heart. Inner connection and the resulting inner intimacy occurs when you open your heart to your feelings with kindness, compassion and a desire to learn about what your feelings are telling you.
“Alienation and division with yourself” occurs when you disconnect from your heart and your feelings with some form of self-abandonment, such as judging yourself, turning to addictions to avoid your feelings, focusing in your head or making someone else responsible for your well-being, worth or sense of safety.
Years ago I used to wonder why I could not maintain intimacy with others. I had no idea about all the ways I was abandoning myself. I had no idea that my main intention was to avoid my feelings and avoid responsibility for them and to have control over how others felt about me. I didn’t realize how much I was judging myself and how awful that made me feel. I didn’t realize that turning to my various addictions – food, anger, judgmental-ness, caretaking or withdrawal – made me feel anxious and alone inside. I thought these painful feelings were being caused by others’ unloving-ness toward me.
It wasn’t until I started to practice Inner Bonding that I understood what I had been doing my whole life up until then. As I diligently practiced the Six Steps of Inner Bonding, I gradually learned to stay present in my body, mindful of my feelings, and to want to take responsibility for my feelings rather than avoid them. I gradually learned how to lovingly manage the deeper painful feelings of life that I had been avoiding my whole life – the loneliness, heartbreak and helplessness over others that plagued my childhood, and that I had learned to avoid with my self-abandonment.
