Author: Joanna Intara

Some people might not like me for this, but there are some practices that if you have integrity for, will help you have the kind of closeness and intimacy you most desire in partnership.

And I know you want it…

So.. how often is it that you self assess for your own comfort level with being truly intimate for the experiences you seek in a relationship?

How often do you self assess for the inner resources it takes to be that intimate and close?
Do you identify them?
Do you know what they are?
Could you articulate them to your partner?

Have you?

Will you?

This couldn’t be more KEY.

How are you going to have the closeness and intimacy you desire if you’re not willing to do this first and see YOU inside?

Consider this your practice for this week.

Grab a sheet of paper, write down the current needs you have that you want your partner to fulfill, and ask yourself, ‘how am I relating to this need?’

See what you find…

If you’re really ready to have the closeness and intimacy you desire…

And quite literally change how your relationship closeness is feeling….

Tell me the ONE step you’re going to take to make the time do this week. I’m already blocked out in my planner to get it done.. it’s important to me, and I know it’s important to you.. and things always grow when we make the space and time for them.

We had a BLAST on our recent LIVE STREAM chatting on all the things that you don’t want to miss on HOW TO make closeness and connection with your beloved happen more easily.

And I KNOW you don’t want to miss out on how to do that because you haven’t given up on receiving the kind of connection and closeness you desire.

Let’s let it be okay that the number one thing that trouble couples is disconnection.

It could be financial, sexual or emotional.

It can be about the kids or about your in-laws.

It doesn’t matter which realm …but what does matter is this;

How you relate to all the inner parts that make up and engine your desire FOR connection in whatever area it is.

How you open up to all the pieces.

How you give them space.

How you hold them.

How you communicate with them.

How you accept them (or don’t).

And most importantly,

How all of that impacts on how we connect with another.

This is EXACTLY what we went into on our Live Stream this week, where you’re going to get the exact step by step on what to do to have more of the connection you desire and need from your partner in a way that’s fun, deep and practical.

You certainly don’t have to come…

You could keep feeling disappointed or unhappy or moving onto the next relationship because they aren’t meeting your needs…

Or, you can decide to lean into the layers of support that are here for you and master this relationship initiation challenge instead, in community, who support each other, as we learn and wrestle with what it takes to do relationship really well.

It’s time to decide what’s going to support you more.

I hear every week from my clients that they want to be closer to their partners.

More intimate.

They want deeper conversations where they feel super close, relaxed and intimate.

And I see the fallout from this written about online too.

People exposing breakups or how someone they were dating failed the test for not doing something.

And I’m not saying have no boundaries, because they are really important.

But what I am saying is this.

Have you actually self-assessed that you are available for the intimacy and closeness that you seek?

How comfortable are you with being that intimate with yourself first?

How available are you for such deep closeness with all your inner parts within?

Many of us have never sat with that inquiry.

Resulting is expectations on the other person while missing the potency of facing this part of ourselves first.

And being stuck in that….in their current dating cycle.. partnership.. or last five years.

It’s a real thing.

So the next time you find yourself expecting they’d be a certain way first, in order for you to be emotionally intimate with them..

Get honest in your self-assessment of your own openness and closeness within yourself first.

And act from there and see what goodness comes from it in your relationship.

I know it’s gonna be good.

Is there ONE thing you can do this week to make space for your own self-assessmen

Mark and Eric had been together for 8 years. They had two sons and were both successful entrepreneurs.

But they had reached a real impasse in their relationship.

Things hadn’t got any deeper or closer in the last year and both of them couldn’t figure out exactly why.

They felt lonely and a sense of drifting.

There’s talk about business glass ceilings, but there can also be relationship ones as well.

Where you’ll only go so far with what you desire, but not seem to go further.

Because there are unseen expectations of the other that may be floating around.

I knew that I had to ask them about this. I felt strain and pressure in my own self when they were talking about it, so that’s pretty instructive that they felt some pressure too, about their limits and I had to see what this was.

And we explored this using inquiry, emotionally focused therapy for couples and also family system dynamics, to really get at the unseen expectations that may be running the show.

And when I asked each one of them about the level of inner honesty, within, (similar to what they expected of each other) and had observed, it shook things up. They both noticed the way they subtly closed that inquiry down, shut it off, or changed the subject.

I brought their attention to this.

They giggled.

They knew it was true.

And I asked them to get more honest in their self-assessment
…for intimacy
…for closeness
…for love

And they did it.. because they wanted to be close.

Starting with just a simple step – start to ask the real self-assessment and inquiry questions.. “how do I relate to this need or desire?” to get the ball rolling.

You do want the closeness, right?

So if you do, the next time —
…before you get ‘clear’ with your partner on exactly what’s needed from them before you go to next level closeness, …before you withhold or contract away from connection because they’re not going deep enough with you
…before you ‘play it safe’, but staying in the comfortable because they are too

Don’t.

Lean into how honest you’re really being about intimacy with yourself, and therefore intimacy with your relationship.
Be that honest with yourself.
Be truly self-assessing.

And be the intimacy you seek.

It’s literally going to change you and your relationship world.

What’s one little step you can take today to make space for more honest self-assessment about where your needs come from?

A lot of people carry dis-empowered beliefs about how they’re going to have the closeness they desire.

That, or they farm out their happiness with the idea that they’ll meet the right man or woman and THEN everything will be intimate, cozy, easy breezy.

Or if you’re in relationship, that closeness will be when your partner displays a certain quality, then you’ll be closer, or more intimate, or have more sex and love.

It’s easy to slip into.

But it also sucks your sovereign power to engage with yourself and become more intimate, connected and aware of your own inner life, that you would ascribe it to someone else, or locate your safety to go intimate outside yourself.

I’ve done this many times.

Actually, my hubby and I did it with each other.

He wouldn’t open up to me or feel close to me unless certain things were present.

And I was the same. I found myself outsourcing my needs for intimacy and projecting onto him.

Where instead I could have just done this.

Become really honest in my self-assessment about how available I would be for the deep intimacy I wanted IF he did certain things, rather than become deeply available for that intimacy with myself.

I had to get extremely real with what parts of myself I was secure being intimate with…and then be even more honest with assessing what parts were actually off-limits.

And when you’ve got two people who are not doing that…

Not exactly yummy closeness.

So when you feel the call to make the other person be more intimate in the places than you are with yourself.

When you hold back, or contract, or withhold closeness and emotional intimacy because you’re waiting for the other person to do something first…

Turn towards yourself.

Hold yourself to that.

And be extremely honest in how open for intimacy, closeness and emotional connection you actually are.

Don’t let yourself off with the easy answer. Call yourself on your own projection strategies.

For example, I felt so relieved when I finally stopped trying to have my hubby meet my needs for emotional safety in certain places, and when I took that power back and became safe inside myself in those places no matter what he did, our connection shifted and we became much closer.

It’s tempting and maybe you’ll feel more comfortable for a while doing that, maybe you’ll tell yourself you’re more safe, but how long is that honestly going to last?

This closeness need is not going to go away…

It won’t give up getting your attention.

And why should it?

It’s actually trying to get you to come home to it.

To get that honest and intimate with yourself first BEFORE you go trying to extract external things from another and BE that with yourself, with your partner, in whatever place you need to FIRST and then see what happens.

You might just change your relationship.
And well, if you both do this, then there’s no telling how deliciously and ridiculously close you can be.

This is what I’m experiencing now… this much closeness.. sweetness…intimacy..and connectedness.

It’s the sacred gift of giving YOURSELF in full so that you don’t have the problem of feeling like they’re not giving it to you, whatever THAT is you want so things can be closer and more intimate and connected.

And I’m very sure that if you do the same for you, you just might change your relationship world to have the exact kind of intimate, closeness connection you’ve been desiring. Starting with you.

Feel free to share with me here ONE step you’re going to take this week with yourself to get more honest with your availability for intimacy. For me, I’m going to spend time getting very clear on what I’m still secretly hoping he will do or say, so that I’ll feel closer to him, and then tell him about it, and go find that in myself first.

What will you do?