A lot of people seem to misunderstand.

They think that intimacy means losing yourself in another.

After all?

Don’t you need to fully expose yourself?

Risk it all?

If you hope to enjoy true love?

I can understand why you would get this impression. So many voices keep telling you that you’ve got to be open to love “completely.”

It is true of course.

Love requires exposure to potential hurt.

You can’t escape that possibility.

Not without self-protecting and failing to be vulnerable.

Even so?

You don’t need to dismiss your mind in the process.

You cannot actually fully share yourself with someone else unless you are very clear about it. You need to understand who you are and exactly WHAT you are willing to share.

What those other people are telling you?

It’s not how to share yourself with your lover.

They are saying someone else will complete you.

If you are not ALREADY complete?

You’re just going to be taken advantage of.

Yes what I’m talking about here is that seldom discussed concept of BOUNDARIES. It is only when you know where you start and they end that you can truly share yourself with someone you love.

Intimacy has been called “into me you see.”

It is about allowing your partner to see inside you.

It is not at all about losing yourself.

Or your self identity being colapsed into them.

While it seems paradoxical?

Real intimacy actually requires you to HOLD BACK.

This is where my definition of romantic love comes in. Romantic love is two separate individuals valuing each other.

Romantic love is the pinnacle of a truly western concept.

The value of the individual.

The SELF.

Precisely because you own yourself?

You can truly share yourself with your partner.

At every moment this is a gift you give.

Your partner never deserves it or can claim it from you.

This is why in my last post I wrote that expectations will always be the demise of your love life. You do not own your partner and they don’t own you.

Instead you both choose.

Ongoing.

Choose to be together.

The only way either of you can ever enjoy intimacy?

Make sure you DON’T lose yourselves in each other while you do.

Do you see it now? Is it finally starting to sink in why I keep telling you that you have to hold love with an open hand always and why I keep saying only when you do this can you have the love you desire?