Intimacy “truths”
All of us grow up learning certain “truths” about ourselves, other people and the universe. Many of these “truths” are adopted when we are very young. As a child, with our limited experience and the limited development of our brain, we experience and observe from the vantage point of the small world we occupy. Based on those experiences and observations we decide “truths” which we may carry and often live by the rest of our lives. Often, it does not occur to us to use our adult mind and our scientific abilities to examine these “truths” If we do, we will find that many of these “truths” are “lies” or, at best, partial truths.
Many of these “truths” are often directly related to intimacy. When we are young we are also necessarily very self-centered. If something unpleasant happens, we often decide that we caused it. Perhaps one of most common experiences is having a parent who is emotionally or physically unavailable. From our child perspective the reason is that the we did something to cause that parent to be unavailable or absent. If we are lucky we later learn that adults, including parents, have their own issues having nothing to do with us. We also learn that the peer who is a bully is dealing with their own low self esteem by convincing themselves that they are better or stronger or smarter or in some way superior. Their hope is that “if they are superior then they are worthwhile and will, thus, will be respected."
If not careful we generalize our limited experiences to include the whole world. If one person or a couple of people have proved untrustworthy then no one is trustworthy. If one person abused us in some way then everyone will abuse us in some way. Obviously, from an adult, educated perspective this is very poor science. If we turned in a report to our boss or a research project to someone with a sample size of one, two or even 10, we would be told to redo the experiment because the design was flawed.
We establish truths about ourselves in the same unscientific way. Despite the fact that we know, at some level, that all people are humans and, thus, by definition less than perfect, we are often shameful, shocked or in denial about our own character flaws or defects. If we cannot be honest with ourselves we cannot love ourselves. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot allow others to love us. If we cannot allow others to love us we must justify/try to make sense of our behavior by blaming other people, events or things or by beating up on ourselves. The more we engage in any of these behaviors the more isolated we feel and, thus, the worse we feel. Eventually we experience symptoms of this vicious cycle. Those symptoms might include physical illness, anger, acute depression, numbing ourselves out with alcohol or some other addictive behavior, or running away in some other way.
If we are very lucky we find the courage to ask for help out of this dark place. That help, ironically, begins with taking a relationship risk. This could mean hiring a coach or a therapist, joining a self help group at church or one of the 12 step programs, finding a higher power, or identifying a wise teacher/mentor.
The good news is that we can choose new truths by which to live; truths based upon our adult knowledge of what is safe and possible,
The new truths will allow us the intimacy we crave with ourselves and others.
Jimmy F. Pickett
All of us grow up learning certain “truths” about ourselves, other people and the universe. Many of these “truths” are adopted when we are very young. As a child, with our limited experience and the limited development of our brain, we experience and observe from the vantage point of the small world we occupy. Based on those experiences and observations we decide “truths” which we may carry and often live by the rest of our lives. Often, it does not occur to us to use our adult mind and our scientific abilities to examine these “truths” If we do, we will find that many of these “truths” are “lies” or, at best, partial truths.
Many of these “truths” are often directly related to intimacy. When we are young we are also necessarily very self-centered. If something unpleasant happens, we often decide that we caused it. Perhaps one of most common experiences is having a parent who is emotionally or physically unavailable. From our child perspective the reason is that the we did something to cause that parent to be unavailable or absent. If we are lucky we later learn that adults, including parents, have their own issues having nothing to do with us. We also learn that the peer who is a bully is dealing with their own low self esteem by convincing themselves that they are better or stronger or smarter or in some way superior. Their hope is that “if they are superior then they are worthwhile and will, thus, will be respected."
If not careful we generalize our limited experiences to include the whole world. If one person or a couple of people have proved untrustworthy then no one is trustworthy. If one person abused us in some way then everyone will abuse us in some way. Obviously, from an adult, educated perspective this is very poor science. If we turned in a report to our boss or a research project to someone with a sample size of one, two or even 10, we would be told to redo the experiment because the design was flawed.
We establish truths about ourselves in the same unscientific way. Despite the fact that we know, at some level, that all people are humans and, thus, by definition less than perfect, we are often shameful, shocked or in denial about our own character flaws or defects. If we cannot be honest with ourselves we cannot love ourselves. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot allow others to love us. If we cannot allow others to love us we must justify/try to make sense of our behavior by blaming other people, events or things or by beating up on ourselves. The more we engage in any of these behaviors the more isolated we feel and, thus, the worse we feel. Eventually we experience symptoms of this vicious cycle. Those symptoms might include physical illness, anger, acute depression, numbing ourselves out with alcohol or some other addictive behavior, or running away in some other way.
If we are very lucky we find the courage to ask for help out of this dark place. That help, ironically, begins with taking a relationship risk. This could mean hiring a coach or a therapist, joining a self help group at church or one of the 12 step programs, finding a higher power, or identifying a wise teacher/mentor.
The good news is that we can choose new truths by which to live; truths based upon our adult knowledge of what is safe and possible,
The new truths will allow us the intimacy we crave with ourselves and others.
Jimmy F. Pickett
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