Discover the importance of developing high levels of self-awareness of how you think, feel and act in order to understand others more effectively. In doing this you will improve the quality of your communication with others.
You cannot be intimate with another person unless you're intimate with yourself. Now what does that actually mean? It means that you are prepared to ask questions of yourself, to be open minded, that you're not perfect. There may be things you don't like about yourself, but if you deny you have the potential to be a certain way you will not only put too high expectations on yourself, which is impossible to keep to, but also you'll be intolerant of other people's limitations and failures and things that go wrong.
It doesn't mean you don't set boundaries with other people and educate them how to treat you and set high standards, but it means that the more you can be willing to show that you're a human being, flaws and all, you will be more open to understanding that people make mistakes too.
Really, it's all about intention. If somebody is deliberately going out of their way to cause you harm or upset, that's very different than this sort of limitation that sometimes they let you down or have different ways of thinking about things. And if this could be a way when you need to work together to have mutual understanding of how you want your relationship to operate.
Now when we talk about emotional intimacy with ourselves, think about examples where you say, Oh, I could never be jealous, so I would never be an angry person. This, I would never be almost indicates a huge resistance on your part to accepting that all of us have the potential probably to be anything.
You may choose not to be jealous. You may not be a person who immediately is envious of other people, but you do have the potential. All of us do as a human fact. For instance, people say, I could never be violent towards another person. And yet if their children were in danger and they had to protect them, they might be very surprised at how they may act in those situations.
It doesn't mean you do it every day. You may not endorse it. It may not be part of your values, but you have the potential. When you accept that, you will be more open minded to times when you show you're not perfect. When you let other people down, you let yourself down. So therefore, it doesn't mean you don't have to change yourself.
You can be the best version of yourself and work towards changing and improving things. Say, for instance, you're not a person who's particularly patient. You can make efforts to improve that, but you also know that you have the great potential to be impatient. So accept that you're human and the other person is too. The more self aware you can be and self accepting of your imperfections even once you're on the path of improving them, you're going to be more open to discussing the limitations of other people. As I've said before, it starts with getting to know yourself. Use those categories of mad, sad, glad and bad to identify what you're feeling and then use active and empathic listening skills to ask other people what their feelings are.
Check out with them, clarify, paraphrase. Put it in your words, what you see in the other person and you check to see if that's correct. True emotional connection is when we don't just serve up a certain version of ourselves to our partner. We actually show them aspects of ourselves that we would like to improve when we're not perfect.
So the more true you can be to yourself, you're using the listening skills to check out with other people where they're coming from. You will avoid saying things like, no one understands me. Because if you're showing a certain version of yourself to another person, how can you expect them to understand you.
When you accept yourself, you share it with another person and you work towards being the best version of yourself as an individual, but also as a couple, you are moving towards true emotional connection and acceptance.
It doesn't mean you don't set boundaries with other people and educate them how to treat you and set high standards, but it means that the more you can be willing to show that you're a human being, flaws and all, you will be more open to understanding that people make mistakes too.
Really, it's all about intention. If somebody is deliberately going out of their way to cause you harm or upset, that's very different than this sort of limitation that sometimes they let you down or have different ways of thinking about things. And if this could be a way when you need to work together to have mutual understanding of how you want your relationship to operate.
Now when we talk about emotional intimacy with ourselves, think about examples where you say, Oh, I could never be jealous, so I would never be an angry person. This, I would never be almost indicates a huge resistance on your part to accepting that all of us have the potential probably to be anything.
You may choose not to be jealous. You may not be a person who immediately is envious of other people, but you do have the potential. All of us do as a human fact. For instance, people say, I could never be violent towards another person. And yet if their children were in danger and they had to protect them, they might be very surprised at how they may act in those situations.
It doesn't mean you do it every day. You may not endorse it. It may not be part of your values, but you have the potential. When you accept that, you will be more open minded to times when you show you're not perfect. When you let other people down, you let yourself down. So therefore, it doesn't mean you don't have to change yourself.
You can be the best version of yourself and work towards changing and improving things. Say, for instance, you're not a person who's particularly patient. You can make efforts to improve that, but you also know that you have the great potential to be impatient. So accept that you're human and the other person is too. The more self aware you can be and self accepting of your imperfections even once you're on the path of improving them, you're going to be more open to discussing the limitations of other people. As I've said before, it starts with getting to know yourself. Use those categories of mad, sad, glad and bad to identify what you're feeling and then use active and empathic listening skills to ask other people what their feelings are.
Check out with them, clarify, paraphrase. Put it in your words, what you see in the other person and you check to see if that's correct. True emotional connection is when we don't just serve up a certain version of ourselves to our partner. We actually show them aspects of ourselves that we would like to improve when we're not perfect.
So the more true you can be to yourself, you're using the listening skills to check out with other people where they're coming from. You will avoid saying things like, no one understands me. Because if you're showing a certain version of yourself to another person, how can you expect them to understand you.
When you accept yourself, you share it with another person and you work towards being the best version of yourself as an individual, but also as a couple, you are moving towards true emotional connection and acceptance.