Certainly love means many things but one of the critical components is the ability to be courageous and indeed honest in your communications with your partner.
This is perhaps one of the most difficult of tasks because of the many fears that step in one’s way. It may not seem surprising that these fears are also those that eventually spell the demise of a relationship.
So what are some of these fears and how does one transcend them in order to establish a healthy and truly loving relationship?
Fears in Communication
First the fears; they include such things as:
- I fear I will be rejected if I speak my truth to my partner.
- I fear I will hurt my partner with my truth.
- I fear I will feel guilty and be unable to forgive myself.
- I fear I will have to justify my feelings or beliefs to my partner.
- I fear my partner may get angry with me.
Clearly capitulating to such fears means suppressing your own truth. That is accompanied with feelings of frustration, dishonesty, needing to constantly be on guard that one’s truth is kept under control, and a decreasing degree of true intimacy.
It may also lead to feelings of becoming emotionally and sexually distant from one’s partner, possibly the sharing of such information with third parties in order to vent one’s frustrations, sexual affairs and so on.
The tendency for all of these is to undermine the relationship anyway.
So if you’re feeling caught between the proverbial “rock and the hard place” how does one find a way to nurture a truly healthy, loving and sustainable relationship? Well, to summon up the courage to be honest and truthful when the circumstances call for it!
Summoning Up the Courage to Communicate
Of course in order to do so one must transcend the catastrophic beliefs i.e. the potential for rejection, being hurtful, feeling guilty etc., that are fed by the fears that I have listed above.
Here is a powerful way to accomplish this.
Let’s take the first item above i.e. the fear of rejection as an example that you can walk through with me.
Overcoming Fear Step by Step
Now contemplate the following question: “What is the benefit to you of having the fear of rejection living inside you?” Initially one may say that it protects one from getting rejected,
If this is the case, then supposedly how would you feel knowing that you were being protected in this way? Well, you might say that you might be feeling safe, secure, calm, relaxed, confident and resilient to the reactions of others to whatever you might say.
So to summarize one could say that: The fear of rejection causes you to feel safe, secure, calm, relaxed, confident and resilient to the reactions of others to whatever you might say.
Is That Really Your Truth?
Is that, however, the truth? Clearly not because this fear actually makes one feel anxious, weak, fragile, tense, and leads to secretive behaviors that make one feel guilty, insecure and in fear of being found out.
This is clearly the opposite of the summarized conclusion above espousing the supposed benefits of the fear. So, can these opposite statement be simultaneously true? Clearly not!
Determining the Truth for You
Well then, which one is the truth for you? If you look closely at it I think you’ll see that the fear is not beneficially acting for you.
Well that means that the statement above that ” The fear of rejection causes you to feel safe, secure, calm, relaxed, confident and resilient to the reactions of others to whatever you might say” is false!
If you see this, do you want this false belief to be residing in your mind or body? If not then simply ask, from your heart, to have this belief purged from your life now.
Next, you’ll notice that the fear itself is clearly toxic to you as it undermines how you feel and your behaviors in your relationship so do you want it living inside you? If not, then again speaking from your heart ask it to be purged from your life now.
Now contemplate how you would rather be or feel in relation to being able to speak your own truth with your partner. This might look something like: feeling calm, confident, resilient, relaxed, loving, honest, and so on.
If this new way of being, as you have delineated it for yourself, feels desirable then again assert this to yourself as you speak this through your heart.
Now that you’ve come this far simply notice how you feel inside and how you feel about and towards your partner. You may be pleasantly surprised at how wonderfully positive loving moments will emerge through your new found freedom to be open and confident in this way.