Do you have trouble with intimacy? Is it hard for you to believe that someone can love you deeply? Don’t be hard on yourself; you are not alone. I know a lot of married couples and I know any number of wives and husbands who are not certain about how much they are loved. You may wonder how this is possible? I’ll tell you how.
We Need Intimacy
As a species, we need intimacy. We need it as much as we need air. We need sustenance, we need shelter and we need intimacy. The root behind any relationship, good, bad or indifferent is a desire for intimacy. We need intimacy because as a species, we need to feel loved and to feel cared for. Yet, even when we have love – we question it, we wonder about it and we doubt that we’re worth it.
Why would we do that?
Remember Kindergarten
There was a book written called All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and you know what – that book was right. Everything we need to know, we did learn there. Kindergarten, for many of our children, is their first exposure to external relationships beyond their core family. Children are not unique in their innate desire to be liked and loved. After all, they are our children. They are the children of our species and are they not microcosms of who we are?
My daughter, for example, likes everyone. She looks at the good qualities of every person she meets. Not just every child, but every person young or old. She wants to like them and so she does. She wants them to like her and she goes out of her way to do what she thinks will please them or make them laugh. The problem is, if they don’t respond in the exact manner she thinks they should, it confuses her. If they respond negatively, then she is hurt.
There are many adults in this world who respond the same way. We know how we would react. We know the reaction we want them to have – so when that reaction is in doubt, we begin to doubt their feelings and when we doubt their feelings, we think something is wrong with us – and you see where I’m going with this?
We need to be loved. We need to love. So when you are loved and you do love – appreciate it, embrace it and enjoy it. You need it and so do I.