Fear of Intimacy

This week’s topic on Empowerment Radio is the fear of intimacy. We all want to be loved, but for many people letting someone get close and becoming important to them is extremely scary. Fear of intimacy and fear of commitment are some of the major obstacles, which prevent us from having lasting and fulfilling relationship.

You may be familiar with this pattern. You have trouble trusting others and usually feel almost panicky, when someone shows interest in you. But then at the same time, you feel alone and want nothing more than having a sense of belonging. At some point the loneliness becomes so painful that you are daring to enter into a relationship.

Yet, you always keep your guard up and the person you are with on arm’s length. The longer the relationship lasts and the more your partner seems to care about you, the more you are starting to feel suffocated and trapped. You loose sight on what made you feel attracted to him or her in the first place, but instead become increasingly aware of all the little faults and idiosyncrasies that start driving you crazy. Whether it is the way your partner is slurping soup, breathing loudly while sleeping or always leaving a mess in his or her car, you take note of these “disturbing” details and eventually collect overwhelming evidence that this person isn’t right for you.

At that point you either end the relationship, or you become more distant, critical and even nagging, which eventually makes your partner pull the plug. While at first you feel relieved that you escaped this “impossible person,” it doesn’t take long for the sense of loneliness and longing for companionship to resurface.

No, you are neither bi-polar nor crazy. You are just dealing with an inner conflict on the level of your subconscious mind. Let me explain: In the natural course of our personal evolution, we develop a variety of personas and identities, which are rooted in our subconscious mind as so-called parts. Depending on the situation and the people we’re with, we automatically slip in and out of these identities. The persona we adopt during our job is different from the one that comes forth when we’re with our parents or our friends. Most of these parts or facets of our subconscious coexist and work together without any conflict, thus allowing us to switch hats quickly and easily.

Inner conflicts occur when two parts of our subconscious mind have seemingly opposite agendas and ideas for what is best for us. When it comes to the fear of intimacy, a fearful part of you wants to make sure that you’re safe and avoid pain, which is why it prefers for you to be in solitude, while the opposing part wants you to experience love and a sense of belonging. As a result you enter into a relationship with high hopes and good intentions only to soon try to quickly as possible get out of it. Eventually this inner conflict makes you feel conflicted, confused and stuck.

Listen here and learn how you can identify, whether you are afraid of intimacy and if so, what you can do to overcome the conflict at its core.