In intimate relationships, things can go wrong for a variety of reasons, including poor communication (why can’t they just listen!), lack of trust (he never changes), infidelity (she betrayed me) and differences in values or goals. These problems can lead to feelings of hurt, frustration, and resentment, and the resulting struggles can cause the deterioration of the relationship. Transforming intimacy: from struggles to love is a fulfilling part of the work I do.
Intimacy struggles
In my workshops and sessions, I often see how personal issues, fears, and doubts can also play a role in the breakdown of relationships, as people may habitually protect themselves from opening their hearts to others, restricting the flow of love and creating patterns of pain. And so it goes around.
In intimate relationships most partners have different levels of masculine and feminine essence, which can be challenging. For example, a more masculine partner may have difficulty understanding or accepting a more feminine partner’s emotional expression and needs, while a more feminine partner may feel unsupported or dismissed by a more masculine partner.
I find that many intimacy struggles resolve when we understand the masculine and feminine dynamics at play.
Those with a more feminine essence can often have protection and wariness from past hurts and disappointments in relationships, leading to feelings of not being enough or becoming overly critical as a way of self-protection. Their partner is ‘not loving them in the right way’. They may unconsciously believe that by not being vulnerable, or numbing their feelings, they will be safer. But vulnerability (with a trusted partner) is a primary receptive energy that draws the masculine into a love relationship.
On the other hand, those with a more masculine essence may be wary of commitment and concerned about the lack of freedom in relationships but have a deep need to be met by the feminine. They are not connected yet to the depth of freedom they already are inside themselves. They can be in doubt about their masculine energy and may become a ‘pleaser’ lost and disconnected from his own core or be rejecting and dismissive as a means of self-protection.
From Struggles to Love
To improve the relationship, it is helpful for both partners to connect to their own core essence and respect and delight in each other’s differences. Seeking counselling can be beneficial. Additionally, workshops and sessions such as Living Love offers can help transform these issues.
When the feminine honours her own love and beauty, then she relates to herself and to the masculine from a very different place. She stands for herself, trusting and allowing her flow of feeling and vulnerability. Fierceness, tears and deep yearning may be felt and expressed as part of her love. This is very healing for her, to be real and to open to being loved by the masculine as she is. In her feminine essence, vulnerable, alive, powerful, loving. And as she experiences the masculine meeting her, encouraging her in her full flow of energy, she opens and grounds into more of who she really is.
For the masculine there is the relief and delight of meeting the loving feminine heart and body. He is directly enlivened by her open feminine energy. Now he wants to listen! Real-time embodied loving feedback from her gives him the right amount of challenge to adjust and deepen himself. He becomes more trustable and starts getting different responses from the feminine. He tastes and develops the freedom in his being and how to deepen that within commitment and responsibility. Gaining clarity on his life purpose helps him enormously. He experiences polarity with the feminine that is wild and free, with deep integrity.
And when one’s essence is strengthened, the core of an issue reveals itself. Whether it is a communication issue or a sexual imbalance or a lack of trust it starts to come right. You can solve it much more easily in this depth of strength and vulnerability, in the energetic dance of the loving masculine and feminine.
We are not taught how to do this reorientation and it is not something we can always achieve on our own. It is not our fault, more the lack of transmitted wisdom in the art of intimacy.
with love
