Healthy Relationship, Healthy Self: Build a Stronger Connection Through Self-intimacy

Author: Richard Nicastro, Ph.D.

Intimacy is all about connection--the feeling that you and your partner are kindred spirits. The hallmark of a healthy marriage or relationship is feeling close and attuned to your partner, but maintaining this connection isn't always easy. Therefore, finding ways to enhance intimacy is a priority for all couples.

Self-intimacy: A prerequisite to interpersonal intimacy

You are probably in many different relationships: with acquaintances, friends, family, coworkers, to name a few. When you think about the relationships in your life, does your relationship with yourself ever come to mind? Probably not, yet this relationship is central to all of your other relationships.

Self-intimacy is the experience of feeling connected to all of yourself--the parts of yourself you naturally embrace as well as the parts you wish didn't exist. This connection allows you to feel grounded--giving you an emotional center that anchors your experiences. This anchor has an important place in your relationship.

To get a better understanding of your relationship with yourself, reflect on the following questions: "How do I feel about myself? What do I like about myself? Dislike? Hate? Which parts of myself do I find easy to accept? Which parts make me feel uneasy or conflicted?" Your answers to these questions reflect the type of intimate relationship you have with yourself.

Self-Estrangement: A block to interpersonal intimacy

Unfortunately, you may not have access to important parts of yourself. Why? Because you can dislike a part (or parts) of yourself so intensely that you deny its existence. Your denial doesn't mean, however, that these parts do not surface in your relationship--they usually seek expression. When you ignore parts of yourself, you've left the realm of self-intimacy (a connection to yourself) and have entered the world of self-estrangement (a disconnection from yourself).

At one time or another we've all denied certain truths about ourselves, maybe with little consequence--truths that would make us feel vulnerable or ashamed, desperate or inadequate. However, when you're in a relationship, the consequences of self-estrangement are always significant. Why? Because you can never fully hide from your spouse or partner.

When self-intimacy is the norm, you'll be fully present and emotionally available to your partner. When self-estrangement rules your inner world, you will remain disconnected from yourself and your partner. Your relationship is robbed of intimacy whenever you close off aspects of yourself to your partner.

Self-estrangement in action:

The husband who cannot be vulnerable with his wife is self-estranged--he denies his vulnerable self. A wife who minimizes her outbursts is self-estranged--she denies her anger. The girlfriend who ignores her jealousy is self-estranged--she denies her insecurities.

For the last ten years, Chris has worked almost nonstop to become a successful attorney. His driven nature has served him well professionally and he recently made partner at his New York City law firm. To his dismay, Chris's work-related success has always eluded him in his personal relationships.

Chris complains that he often feels distant in his marriage, despite his wife Kendra's encouragement to be more open and share his feelings. Chris is estranged from any emotions that make him feel "weak" or vulnerable. It's his inability to connect with these parts of himself that continues to block intimacy in his marriage.

Chris's first step in breaking out of this self-estrangement pattern is to honestly assess his relationship with himself--in particular, the parts of himself that he wished didn't exist.

Are you ready to assess yourself?

Rate yourself and your relationship intimacy:

Using a scale from one (no intimacy) to ten (very satisfying levels of intimacy), rate the intimacy in your marriage or relationship.

If your rating is relatively high (8 or higher), than you probably don't struggle with self-estrangement. If your rating is relatively low (4 or lower), self-estrangement may be standing in the way of a deeper connection with your partner.

To help determine the impact that your level of self-intimacy has on your marriage or relationship, now rate yourself on the self-intimacy/self-estrangement continuum below:

Self-Intimacy-----------------------------------------------------Self-Estrangement

Pick a spot on this continuum that reflects how connected (or disconnected) you feel to yourself. Try to think about how self-connected you feel in general, since this may shift for you, depending on circumstances. If the spot you choose is closer to the self-intimacy end of the continuum, this means you feel grounded and are able to share yourself fully with your partner; if your spot is closer to the self-estrangement end, you feel disconnected and are unable to share yourself fully with your partner.

Rating yourself can feel a little daunting, so give yourself enough time to adequately reflect on these issues. If it does feel like self-estrangement is holding you (and your relationship) back from achieving the intimacy you desire, speak with someone who can give you support around this issue (your partner, a trusted friend or family member, a counselor). You've already taken an important step by assessing your level of self-intimacy.

Are you ready to build a stronger, more intimate relationship?

To receive FREE monthly tips on how to build the relationship of your dreams, visit http://StrengthenYourRelationship.com/ and sign up for Dr. Nicastro's Relationship Toolbox Newsletter.

As a bonus, you will receive the popular free reports: "The four mindsets that can topple your relationship" and "Relationship self-defense: Control the way you argue before your arguments control you."

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/marriage-articles/healthy-relationship-healthy-self-build-a-stronger-connection-through-selfintimacy-357973.html

About the Author

Richard Nicastro, Ph.D. is a relationship coach and psychologist who is passionate about helping couples protect the sanctuary of their relationship. Rich is cofounder of LifeTalk Coaching, an Internet-based coaching business that helps couples strengthen their relationships.

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Healthy Relationship Program: Set Goals and Transform your Relationship

Author: Richard Nicastro, Ph.D.

Imagine your life without goals. That’s right: pretend you just wiped away every single goal imaginable—from the mundane sort like getting out of bed and brushing your teeth to the bigger variety, like making partner at the firm. I bet you can’t imagine it. Because without goals (the ones you consciously name and the ones you just carry out), our lives might feel like unstructured, amorphous stretches of time. Setting goals can direct, energize and motivate you. And meeting your goals is a tremendously rewarding experience.

Take a moment to jot down three goals that are important to you—things you want to achieve in your life.

Then think about which aspects of your life are most important to you—what you cherish most in life.

If you’re anything like the people I recently surveyed, then your goals include things like: making more money while working less, exercising more and losing weight (and keeping it off) and getting out of debt. Money and health topped the goal-setting list.

Then I asked these same individuals for a different type of list—a list of what they cherish most in life. Almost all discussed their relationship with their spouse or life partner. People and relationships topped the what’s-most-important-to-you list.

Relationship Goals are MIA:

Here’s what I find remarkable. The people I surveyed didn’t have any goals for what they cherish most in life—their relationship or marriage. When it comes to goal-setting, marriage is left at the curb. There’s a dangerous assumption lurking that a good relationship will take care of itself. The frequency of failed relationships tells us this assumption is dead wrong.

Your Relationship Roadmap: Create a vision

In order to create relationship goals, it’s important to have a vision that details the kind of spouse or partner you aspire to be as well as the type of relationship that is important to you and your partner—this picture should be consistent with your personal values. When your goals are out of sync with your values, you’ll find yourself stalled on the road to your relationship destination.

A set of relationship goals is a roadmap that lends direction to your relationship. If your relationship already meets your vision, then working to keep the relationship at this level can be your goal.

An exercise to help you create relationship goals:

Imagine that your partner has been hired to teach a class about you at UCLA. The syllabus is a written testament to the type of spouse or partner you’ve been throughout the history of your relationship. Not holding anything back, s/he will detail your strengths and weaknesses as a partner. The entire truth (as your partner sees it) will be unfurled for an eager audience motivated to learn all about you.

What do you imagine s/he will say about you?

Respond to this question as honestly as possible. If you find yourself resisting this exercise or focusing more on what you’d like your partner to say, you won’t establish any meaningful goals. Remember, this exercise is designed to help you take a realistic look at yourself as a partner, a necessary step in creating goals that will make a difference in your relationship or marriage. You will need to open yourself up to some truths that may sting. Take my word—it will be well worth it.

There’s relationship gold to be found in the gap:

There will be a gap between what you’d like your partner to convey in his/her lecture and what s/he would actually say. This gap contains valuable information that you’ll use to set up relationship goals. Keep in mind that establishing and reaching relationship goals means committing to changing your behavior. The focus should be on you and not what you believe your partner should do differently.

The guiding question is: How wide is this gap and what can you do to narrow it?

When you begin to take steps to answer this question, you start accumulating the information you need to create your relationship goals. Don’t rush this—it should be a process that you come back to over and over again.

Ready to discover more about relationship goal-setting and other practical ways to improve your relationship?

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/marriage-articles/healthy-relationship-program-set-goals-and-transform-your-relationship-208066.html

About the Author

Find out how to create the relationship of your dreams: Sign up for the free Relationship Toolbox Newsletter at http://StrengthenYourRelationship.com/ and immediately receive two FREE reports that will help you achieve your relationship potential.

Rich Nicastro, Ph.D. is a relationship coach who is passionate about helping couples protect the sanctuary of their relationship.

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Dating Tips and Advice - Guys Don't Need Them to Pick Up Women

Author: Amir Rimer

It seems to me that we are seeking success with women because we believe that if we are successful with women we will experience some sort of great joy and enduring pleasure.

What I said may surprise you.

Moreover, it may also surprise you that success with women is not what you REALLY want.

You only want to be in this state because you believe that this state will serve as a bridge between your current less fulfilling state (emptiness, loneliness, despair, etc...) to a different more pleasurable state (satisfaction, fulfillment, and contentment).

Yet, for some reason the state of being successful with women never seems to materialize. The only place where it usually does is in your head.

So, the inevitable question is: why?

Why are you doing everything that you can to achieve success with women yet fail and why there are some guys who treat women badly, yet achieve all the success they want?

Now the simple answer that most dating gurus give to men is that women are attracted to men that are confident and are repulsed by nice men who radiate neediness and lack of self esteem.

This is very true. This is what is actually going on, but how does this help the guys who lack confidence reach the state of success that the confident guys have.

If you have read any of my articles you probably know by now that I don't believe in giving people positive methods to achieve any physiological endeavors in life.

On the contrary, I believe that we have tried all the positive methods to become successful with women for years and we still find ourselves exactly where we started. Very depressed and confused.

So instead of doing what we have always done and expect different results, let's do things differently in order to experience new results.

Let's forget following a positive system, advice, tip, or guru and concentrate our powers on: Negation of false beliefs.

I tried to explain negation of false beliefs in many ways in the past and in this article I will try to explain it through a fun yet informative allegory.

Imagine yourself living on an island.

The island has two sides to it which are separated by a huge river.

The two sides of the island, X and Y, are occupied with people, yet the people from side X cannot visit the people from side Y (and vice versa) because there isn't any bridge or boat which can help them to cross the huge river.

The "X" side of the island is the side where you want to be (a side populated by confident guys who are extraordinary successful with women).

And the "Y" side is where you currently are (a side populated by "nice" guys who aren't successful with women).

You want to move from where you are (Y) to where you think you should be (X).

The problem is, apart from crossing the huge river, is that people from side Y of the island only accept newcomers who ALREADY have a confident mentality like they do.

So when you ask yourself or other people questions like:

- How can I become successful with women? -

- Can you give me 5 ways / tips / strategies,suggestions to get hot girls?

- Do you know how I can get my ex-girlfriend back?

- Why do women always dump me and then go out with jerks that treat them badly?

The answers you get for your questions, as you see, are not important at all.

What is important is that you currently have the kind of mentality which will not give you access to side "X" of the island.

This may be the most important thing I can tell you, don't forget it.

I will repeat it again in different words, because it is so important!

The questions that you ask are much more important than the answers you get.

The "nice" people who occupy side "Y" of the island are always asking these kind of unproductive questions, which show lack of confidence and are always trying to figure out why they are stuck on the "Y" side of the island.

As I said before, you can only be a part of the community of side "X" of the island if you are acting like its inhabitants from the very beginning.

After you become the kind of person who is thinking, speaking, and acting like the people from side "X", you will not have to do anything at all to cross the huge river. You will suddenly find yourself in side "X".

So the next time you have a burring question which you just can't find answer for, stop for a second and ask yourself the following question very seriously:

From which side of the island am I asking this question?

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/relationships-articles/dating-tips-and-advice-guys-dont-need-them-to-pick-up-women-589208.html

About the Author

Amir Rimer gives the complete story on how to attract women, using the most groundbreaking, innovative psychological techniques in the world in his new eBook The Dating Doctrine, which has now become available.
To learn more about how to become a women magnet, download the FREE 7 day mini course he has especially prepared for you at the following link:
http://www.yougetgirl.com

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Quiz- Do you Work On your Relationship?

Author: Cdmohatta

Do you quiz yourself about your relationship? Do you question yourself and your partner about all the aspects of the relationships and what is satisfying and what is not? Do you work on your relationship? To have a relationship that works, one has to work. Most of us take a relationship for granted once we reach a certain level of intimacy. We assume that we are regular partners. We forget to work on the rough edges and that dooms the relationship to our surprise.

Quiz yourself about the similarities and differences between both of you. Similarities will not hurt the relationship but differences will surely damage. There may be many differences between both of you. Your value systems may be different. Your political beliefs may be different. Your ideas about the future may be different. She/he might be looking forward to a childfree marriage where as you might be planning for a home full of children. Your finanicial planning may be different. One may believe in saving while other overspends. Will the joint account work?

Sometimes, the woman may be earning more than the man and the man may have to work on the male ego to happily go along. She may like to boss around but her partner may be more dominating. She will have to work on this. Unless both of you quiz about different aspects of the relationship and your personalities, it will not work. To make a relationship work for a long time, you will have to lay all the cards on the table and examine the hands carefully. Every relationship is meeting of two individuals who have to love each other accept each other and learn to live happily with each other. That requires work.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/relationships-articles/quiz-do-you-work-on-your-relationship-58964.html

About the Author

A quiz gives us many answers. To quiz yourself about your relationship, personality, lovelife and other subjects please visit funquizcards. The author CD Mohatta also writes for messages in screen-savers, desktop wallpapers, and online greetings. He writes on living, inspiration, romance, business management, etc. You can download screen-savers or send greetings at these websites which contain his writings: Romantic Screensavers .

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