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Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s.
The podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our
20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast, new listeners,
old listeners, wherever you are in the world.
It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we dive into the psychology of
our 20s.
This episode today we are going to get quite vulnerable.
If you are a frequent listener of the show you will know that I'm always looking for episode
suggestions.
Things that you guys, my fellow 20 something year olds are going through as inspiration
for the podcast.
Someone sent in this suggestion, actually multiple of you sent in this suggestion and I read
some of these messages and just thought how have we never discussed this before.
What we are talking about today is a fear of intimacy.
So many of you have been waiting for this episode and there is just a wealth of research, content,
articles, theories that go along with it and I also think it's something that so many
of us in our 20s struggle within silence and might not even realize that we are going
through.
I think a fear of intimacy is so valuable to understand because it's also one of those
ideas that has become misconstrued, misunderstood, overused in recent years and with that overuse
sometimes we don't always know the facts and of course the science and the psychology
behind why it occurs, how it presents in our lives and also ways to move forward, potential
solutions.
It's one of those classic catch 22 problems in psychology.
We want more people to have a label for what they are experiencing but that label still
needs to be an informed one and we want people to have the correct information about what
they are describing.
So that's what we are going to talk about today because I think so many of us struggle with
a fear of intimacy in our 20s and I don't always think we have the right information.
A fear of intimacy during this decade shows up in a lot of different, often invisible ways.
Maybe you have found yourself in a constant cycle of situations.
You push people away when they are trying to get to know you, both friends and people
you are dating.
You can never bring yourself to go on first dates.
You start fights when things begin to feel safe.
You may have placed all of these conditions on yourself for when you will be allowed to
date.
I can't date until I've lost weight until I've fixed something about myself and I love
myself more.
All of these actions and habits is a fear of vulnerability and it is secretly keeping
us from being vulnerable, intimate with people around us because we are scared that when
we get too close, we get hurt or that perhaps we aren't worthy of the love we think we deserve
so we shy away from any opportunity for us to be proven wrong.
I think to be emotionally intimate with someone is to essentially give ourselves and give
other people the guidebook on how exactly to hurt us.
If you have been left, you know, scarred or burned by a past relationship, attachment
problems in childhood, even if you are just feeling particularly insecure, I think that
love can be one of the hardest things that we can put ourselves through because there
are so much opportunity for disaster.
So much opportunity to be hurt, so much so that we avoid that crucial source, that being
love and meaningful connection.
It's actually quite devastating really.
I think a lot of us know this is going on behind the scenes.
We are not blind to have this pattern of behaviour and fear is active in our lives.
We want to be open, we want a witness to our lives, we want to be seen.
But it also comes with the realisation that allowing ourselves to go through this might
actually do something to hurt us further.
Sometimes that fear is too strong to push past.
So my hope is that this episode is of some help to you because I don't think big problems
like this have overcome in a day, but the first step is actually being able to diagnose
and understand the problem and having enough background information to proceed.
So without further ado, let's get into it.
So fear of intimacy is known by a few other names, the most common one being avoidance
anxiety, which is sometimes applied to a lot more than just love.
Avoidance anxiety really gets to the heart of how a fear of intimacy is sustained.
When we have an excessive fear, concern, worry towards a particular object or subject,
the easiest way to actually regulate that anxious response is to avoid anything that triggers
it.
So in that way avoidance becomes a coping mechanism whereby we are so paralysed by what would
happen if we encountered our fear that we act in the most rational way we can, which
is just to avoid that from ever happening.
In the case of a fear of intimacy, the trigger is not an object though, it's not some
fear like snakes or spiders or planes.
It's the feeling or a situation that being in an intimate social contact with someone
else might jeopardize our sense of security and safety that we have created for ourselves
internally.
Now a fear of intimacy is actually quite multifaceted.
It can be emotional, sexual, even intellectual or spiritual.
So if we fear emotional intimacy, what we're fearing is sharing our innermost feelings
and true emotions with someone and perhaps scaring them off.
Maybe because we are not accustomed to our feelings being important or respected or
were scared of what they will be able to do to us with that information.
A fear of sexual intimacy, it's also known as xenophobia, is where we have this very
serious anxiety about sharing that part of ourselves with someone else.
Maybe we are worried about being hurt, we are reflecting on really hard and traumatic
past experiences where we weren't given the respect that we deserve.
And so now we see any time that we're having sex or any opportunity to be intimate with
someone as possibly creating the same outcome.
And that's an outcome that we want to avoid.
We also have that fear of intellectual intimacy.
And that's not a facet of this that I think a lot of us typically think of.
Intellectual intimacy is this exchange of big ideas and thoughts and core beliefs.
That is actually such a vulnerable, squishy, deep down part of ourselves that very few
people I think ever really get access to in our lives.
And there's a lot that they can do with that information.
We might worry that someone will be dismissive or use these things against us.
We might worry that they won't agree with us.
They'll embarrass us.
That we'll realize that we're actually not as connected as we thought.
The root of all these fears is very subjective, whether you have a fear of emotional intimacy,
intellectual intimacy, sexual intimacy.
It's based primarily on past experiences and a history with a whole bunch of things
that can influence our approach to being loved and accepting love.
Then we have this fear of intimacy.
It prevents us from engaging in behaviors that will create a lifelong or sustaining bond.
Unfortunately for us, you know, to be loved is to be intellectually intimate, is to be
emotionally intimate, is to sometimes be sexually intimate.
And sadly, a relationship does have some core parameters and necessary foundations.
And we will have to kind of get past this fear of sharing those deep parts of ourselves.
If we ever want to truly feel like we should accept or feel like we can accept love into
our lives.
We mentioned some of the indicators of a fear of intimacy briefly before, but to dive into
it a little bit further, some of the signs that you might be struggling with this, whether
consciously or not, includes a series of really short relationships that all and because
of insignificant things, they gave you a small ik.
They didn't finish all their food on a date.
They didn't like the same music as you.
These ik's, these reasons that you think a valid may actually be protecting you from a deep
explanation, a deeper explanation, which is that you don't feel ready.
You're getting too close to the edge of tipping out of your comfort zone, so you are searching
for what you see as a valid reason to end the relationship that has nothing to do with
you and won't require you to actually look at your contribution to this relationship
fizzling out.
This may also be linked to a level of relationship OCD or perfectionism.
Relationship OCD is something that I am really, really fascinated about because I do think
that at times it's been one of the reasons I've sabotaged relationships.
What this form of OCD means is that we have a lot of obsessive thoughts about our concerns
and doubts when it comes to a romantic partner that are really difficult to manage that
feel very much out of our control.
We often end up existing in this state of hyper-vigilance towards very small signs that
us and our partner are not compatible.
We are looking for reasons that this isn't going to work before they blindside us.
We are looking for reasons to break up with them before we get hurt.
Even in the early stages of dating we may hold potential partners to a really high standard,
perhaps even an impossible one, because we still feel like we're being open.
We're still saying, like, yeah, I'm ready for a relationship, but I just don't want
to settle.
My standards are so high that I just don't want anyone who's below that.
That's what we tell ourselves when actually there really isn't anyone who could ever meet
our expectations.
Sometimes our standards actually are opposed to each other, but it gives us this opportunity
to keep people at bay.
That's not to say that you don't deserve to be picky and you don't deserve the most
exceptional, amazing form of love, but it's interesting when we start to see contradictions
and the things that we want from someone.
Those contradictions are pretty good evidence that the standards we're setting for ourselves
are a lot more protective than they are kind of informative.
They're trying to stop us from something rather than trying to keep us open to something.
This always, for me, resulted in a grasses greener mentality.
You're constantly thinking about how your relationship should be perfect.
How if you're missing one thing, it's a failure.
You have these fantasies about a flawless relationship that probably doesn't exist,
but by continuing to invest in the delusion, you keep all these other possibilities for
love at bay.
The thing I always think about when it comes to this is this concept known as the 1910
rule.
There was a video about this that went super viral on TikTok recently, and I think for
the best kinds of reasons, because so many of us fall into the trap of the 1910 rule.
The premise of this is that you can be with someone who is like 90% of everything that
you want it, everything that you have dreamed of, everything that your child would self
wanted from love, but there is this 10% that just isn't quite right.
Those things aren't deal-breakers, right?
They're just small things like, oh, they don't do the dishes exactly when I want them to
do them, or they're not as like, it's spontaneous as I am.
You let that 10% dominate over the 90%.
So that you go out looking for someone who fulfills the 10%, but then they are only 10%
of what you actually want.
You've given up something that is actually incredibly good for you over small reasons.
Sometimes, I would say that's the sign of a fear of intimacy, even if it doesn't look
like it on the surface.
There are some other things that would tell me that someone is struggling with this.
When you are in a relationship, you may also withhold information or avoid sharing your
feelings because it's going to make you too vulnerable.
You also might test your partner through emotional bids.
So emotional bids are these attempts to connect with your partner by gaining their attention
in a way that is actually indirect.
I always like to use the example of starting fights.
It's not that you even have anything to be mad about.
It's just that you are feeling insecure, you're feeling stuck, and you want reassurance.
You want that you want to kind of challenge your relationship to see if it can push through
this argument, see if it can push through this fight, whether that person is going to stay
by your side.
Once again, I think all of this has its roots in a fear of intimacy.
Now we need to talk about where exactly this comes from.
There are quite a few experiences that create this pattern of behavior or this reaction to
intimacy in love.
Some of them actually seem to be in opposition with each other, so it is very subjective and
based on your own mix of experiences.
A lot of these concerns, though, emerge in childhood.
But even things like our teenage relationships, past relationships, and a fear of engulfment
in security, they also contribute.
Before we get into this, it's also important to understand this concept known as commitment
readiness.
So, commitment readiness is a fairly new measure in clinical and research psychology, and
it essentially refers to our openness and receptiveness to a relationship.
Every single one of us has a level of commitment readiness, has this somewhat preformed or predetermined
judgment of our ability to be in a relationship.
If you have low commitment readiness, it's going to be difficult for someone to convince
you to take this next step in your love or in your connection because you just don't
feel equipped.
Whereas we have these people who have a high commitment readiness, that means that they
are the first ones to jump into a relationship.
They are ready for that commitment.
They are ready for that label.
They want to be dating.
They want to be in a relationship.
Now, a fear of intimacy reflects a low level of commitment readiness.
And that factor, that measure is impacted by the following.
So, the major theory when it comes to a fear of intimacy is that all of these quote unquote
problem behaviors began in childhood, normally as the result of a neglectful disorganized
overbearing parenting style.
If as a child, you did not receive the love, the care, the reassurance, the compassion,
the security that you needed from your primary caregiver, you may have implicitly learned
that close relationships are not something that you can rely on for your needs.
You really only have yourself.
So you push away people who might try and get close.
That's very indicative of an anxious, avoidant attachment style.
This emotional neglect that you have experienced may cause you to unconsciously seek out relationships
that mirror your past experience.
But if you grew up in an environment with emotionally unavailable parents, this may unintentionally
cause you to be drawn to emotionally unavailable partners in the future, because it's just
creating a familiar pattern.
And these people, you can also keep it a distance when, you know, maybe you are actually
the emotionally unavailable one.
What you're doing is seeking out partners who allow you to stay in what is familiar, what
is comfortable and what you know, which is that they will never fulfill your needs.
They will never be someone who is going to ask you how your day was, who's going to
push past the boundaries and the kind of barriers that you've created.
So you continue to feel safe when really you're actually avoiding a deeper level of intimacy
that will require you to give up your past misconceptions of love and be vulnerable.
I think we all have some basic understanding that emotionally unavailable caregivers are
going to create fearful and avoidant patterns of love and connection.
But in the complete opposite direction, there's also been some emerging research that being
raised by parents who were overprotective, smothering, overbearing also creates a fear
of intimacy because we fear for our independence and we fear for our freedom because we have
been taught that close relationships cause us to have to give up parts of ourselves or
feel closely monitored, feel closely observed.
So I came across this theory a couple of years ago in a PhD paper from someone in Australia
and they talked about how overprotective parenting is actually really linked to an insecure
attachment style, particularly in young men.
Maybe it's because they resent how closely observed they were.
They don't want that to be replicated in their romantic relationships or perhaps it's
this retrospective rebellion or protest against what they found unfair as a child that manifests
in them, continuing to push people away who want to get close to them in adulthood.
Whatever that may be, it obviously differs from person to person, but it can lead to what
some researchers call a fear of engulfment whereby we are afraid of being controlled,
dominated of losing ourselves to a relationship and then being unable to find our way back
when the relationship inevitably ends because we have that coattitude that love does not
last.
I don't think it's any surprise that if you are an especially hyper independent person,
someone who pushes back, you know, against requests for assistance who prefers their own
company, who believes in a very deep level that they don't need anyone but themselves.
It's obvious that you are more likely to appear as if you are actually afraid of intimacy
and you are afraid of what a relationship might cost you.
A lot of people who are hyper dependent, some therapists call it a trauma response, but
they may not even recognise that this is an issue because as a society, we express a
lot of approval and respect for traits like independence, especially in highly individualised
Western cultures.
Independence is incredibly positive and it can actually show a great level of security
when it comes to knowing yourself and what you want, but with anything I think balances
K and when you need to be independence outweighs your primal need for connection and for community
and for intimacy, that is when we begin to see these patterns that mimic a fear of vulnerability
and a fear of love or avoidance anxiety.
I used to actually have a friend like this and she was, actually she continues to be,
I will say that one of the most wonderful and accomplished people I know, this woman runs
Marathons, she has her own business, she was studying full time, she had a million hobbies,
she could bake, she could make music, she could teach you incredibly complicated economics
without even batting in eyes, obviously I'm just thinking her praises, she was amazing,
but she was so protective of her independence that she kind of rejected anyone who tried
to get to know her on a really intimate level because she was convinced that a relationship
would eat into her freedom and her ability to make decisions that were best for her.
I honestly think that on some level there's a lot of respect for that and she had a great
level of dedication to herself and honestly love shouldn't mean compromising those things
but the thing is that the right person won't ask you to.
What she thought was protecting her, keeping romantic love at bay, was actually something
that she ended up really resenting and she couldn't quite square, she couldn't make
sense of these two very loud forces operating within her that were very opposed, she wanted
to be loved but she also wanted to be free and she couldn't quite figure out I think
in retrospect how those two things could be equal because she had all of these negative
beliefs and perceptions of what love would do to her and I think that that hyperindependence,
that fear of engulfment, that fear of losing freedom is an aspect of a fear of intimacy
that we don't really discuss.
Past relationship from are not just in childhood can also contribute.
We often really like to focus on childhood as the only source of our attachment wounds
but equally I think a lot of psychologists, a lot of researchers are beginning to realize
that those teenage relationships, those first relationships, our early experiences with
love when they turn sour, when they are particularly difficult when they are traumatic, they can
equally shape how we connect with people.
If your first boyfriend or girlfriend was this intense or whirlwind of huge feelings
and commitment and then they ended up cheating on you or they ended up saying terrible things
about you severely damaging your self-esteem, it is going to be hard for you to trust or
love other people even if you have very welcoming, beautiful, loving, emotionally available
parents because that was still a really formative and core memory for you when it came to your
opinions on intimacy.
Especially when we talk about someone injuring your self-esteem, that stuff lasts, can last,
a lifetime.
It creates insecurity and it creates this need, this survival instinct to protect ourselves
from future hurt, from someone else getting too close to us, coming into our lives, feeling
love for them and then having them just completely break us down.
And sometimes those experiences also actually convince us that we don't deserve to be loved,
that anyone who loves us, we have deceived them, we have lied to them so successfully and
one day they are going to wake up and they are going to see it like that person from our
past.
They hurt us so badly that anytime someone else wants to come through that door, wants
to show us what we are missing, show us what we deserve, we see it as a threat.
So we push away, we run away, we don't want to be confronted by these thoughts, by this
potential for a bad outcome.
All of this leads to a level of emotional unavailability.
I think we often villainize people by calling them emotionally unavailable which completely
overlooks so many of the aforementioned factors and experiences.
A lot of which happened to us, we are not exactly active in, we are passive to our other
people of treated us, how other people have taught us to be loved and to receive love.
No one wants to feel unlovable, no one wants to hold back, but they are doing so in a lot
of cases to protect themselves and it is often based in a lot of insecurity, a lot of fear,
patterns of avoidance that we can actually recover from.
If you haven't worked through these things, no one has ever said this to you, no one has
ever told you that this is how it was, this is how it works.
You are going to continue to end up in those relationships that aren't fulfilling, to
keep reverting to the status quo, the easy thing for you which is to be alone.
So we are going to discuss some of the consequences of that after this short break as well as
deconstructing your fear of intimacy and how to move past it in just a second.
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Even though a fear of intimacy is a largely unconscious process, we can still observe how
it affects our behavior and our experiences.
Fear of intimacy is such a struggle there is so much shame involved questioning why I like
this and also a comparison to how everyone else in their 20s is looking like they're
living their best lives.
They're finding partners that telling us their love stories, they're getting married,
they seem really happy whilst we stay in this hyper vigilant, anxious, avoidant state
simultaneously wanting a relationship and petrified of what that might entail what we could
lose, getting hurt again, the courage to put ourselves out there and just the strength
that we might not have at this moment.
Some other impacts include a cycle of emotionally shallow relationships that actually keep reaffirming
what we already erroneously believe which is that love is not fulfilling, it is going
to hurt, it will end, it is not worth the commitment.
We're actually accidentally creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in those moments because we
are pursuing the kinds of relationships that never really challenge us, that match what
we have come to expect from love and so we never give ourselves the opportunity to know
any differently.
The foundations of our fear of intimacy, they remain unchanged, even if it looks like
we are putting ourselves out there, even if we're serial dating.
A lot of people who I've spoken to who struggle with a fear of intimacy, they also talk
about a persistent loneliness underneath it all.
They do want more, they do want those relationships that are nourishing, but they keep self-isolating
or self-sabotaging without even realizing that they're doing it.
And they feel like they're doing it all wrong, that they're the ones who make mistakes,
that they are just not worthy of love, they were just meant to be alone.
I want you to be really gentle with yourself when those thoughts emerge.
You are not alone in this, you are not always going to be alone in this.
So many people, people that I know, people I've spoken to find fulfilling and wonderful
and lifelong love out of a place of a fear of intimacy, moving past a place of a fear
of intimacy.
And it's not a death sentence, it's just something to be aware of and approach with kindness
and forgiveness to yourself.
And what can we actually do about addressing our fear of intimacy, both within ourselves
and also maybe within the people we're dating?
Firstly, you need to do the deep internal work to firstly identify the root of this feeling.
We've given kind of a selection of different explanations, but you are the only one who
can understand how far back this spans, where this has come from, why this has occurred.
I think professional assistants are therapist during this journey is incredible because they're
going to be honest with you, they're going to prompt some of those larger epiphany moments.
They're going to bring a neutrality to your situation that will be really helpful, that
is going to break yourself, shame, cycle, maybe break your pity party, break yourself sabotage.
I know though that therapy at the moment is quite inaccessible, it's expensive, the weightless
of super long.
So in the meantime, here are some questions that you can ask yourself to help get to that
point of identifying what are these feelings may have come from.
So the first question I want you to ask yourself is what is the worst thing that could happen
in a relationship?
Is it the pain of it ending?
Is it the fear that you will lose yourself?
That you will have to share parts of yourself that are vulnerable?
Why are you so scared of being in love and being sane?
What are you actually worried about?
Secondly, do you actually feel lovable?
And if the answer is no, why is that?
Is it because you are nursing a deeper insecurity that is actually the main issue here, but is
just manifesting in avoidance?
Is it because someone has taught you in the past that you are unlovable and you have taken
that to be truth?
Is it because your parents created an environment where you felt undeserving of attention and
care and emotional safety?
Once again, this is really revealing.
It helps you get to the core of the problem here.
Where did this come from?
Throughout this process, I think it's also valuable to start breaking down and really
examining some of those false beliefs that we all have when it comes to love.
Some of those examples of this include, you know, love is easily broken.
It's always going to disappear.
If my relationship fails, that's going to prove that I'm unlovable.
If I keep my distance, I'm safe and in control.
I'm going to be, people are going to be embarrassed of me if they're dating me.
People are going to cringe at me.
Marriage, relationships, they never work out.
They always end.
These beliefs all keep us in a place of fear.
And of course, if you've had past experience with her, if your parents got divorced, if
you've just had someone treat you really badly, it's not that you've actually, you know,
been conscious in accepting those fears and accepting those false beliefs.
They've something that you've learned unconsciously and implicitly from your environment.
But you need to prove to yourself that they are not the whole truth.
And the way we can do that is by visualizing ourselves in a relationship where none of
this occurs, when none of this comes true.
What would your ideal relationship look like?
How would it feel to be loved and cherished?
And is that desire bigger than fear for you?
Is that something that you really, really want?
What activities would you do with your partner?
What small ways would they show you love and you show them love and return?
How would it feel to say, you know, in five years, like, I confronted my fear and I proved
it wrong?
And now I have this really good thing.
And would you be okay if it didn't work out?
Yeah, you totally would be.
You totally would be.
Now part of this is also about questioning whether this relationship is actually possible.
Have you seen an example of this or is there a version of this person that you would
actually want?
Would you be willing to compromise on some of those things that you really, really think
are necessary in a relationship?
I'm going to say this again.
You're allowed to want big things for yourself, but don't let that hold you back from a relationship
that might not look perfect straight out the gate, but takes time to grow.
Like I said before, sometimes we create such impossible standards to actually keep our
walls high.
This does not mean that you need to settle by no means, but actually that you should examine
what conditions for love you are unfairly imposing as a way to actually protect yourself.
This links to my next piece of advice in a way.
Be wary of doing a complete 180 when it comes to dating and just artificially accelerating
any form of intimacy or connection you have with anyone to just get that label.
I think that what we're doing here when we're like, okay, I have a fear of intimacy, I'm
just going to get into a relationship and work it all out.
What we're doing is putting ourselves through flooding or exposure therapy.
So this time flooding is actually something that we borrow from phobia treatment.
When people are scared of snakes or flying or dogs or whatever, clowns, whatever it may
be.
Some therapists engage in this technique where they force us to confront alph ears in their
most intense and severe form.
For example, if you're scared of enclosed spaces, they make you sit in an elevator for hours
as a way to bring on panic and then help you work through it.
This really helps with objects.
The thing is that love is not an object or a singular situation.
It is so much more nuanced and multi-dimensional than that.
But sometimes we try to almost flood ourselves with a really intense relationship to speed
up the recovery process and this kind of DIY healing vibe.
I'm just going to take the crash course here.
I'm just going to put myself on the accelerated path.
This actually might backfire and it will cause you to just reinforce all the previous
ideas that you had about love, that it ends, that it is not good, that it is shallow.
It might sound counter-intuitive, but I actually think you need to take a break from dating
for a while to perhaps interrupt that cycle of emotionally unfulfilling relationships or
situations or that pattern of bad dates, that pattern of self-sabotage.
You know, sometimes it's important to ask yourself, are you actually just bearing
yourself in these temporary feelings in these swipe-based dating apps to ignore what's
really going on?
Are you trying to expose the fear of intimacy out of you, flood it out of you, or is it
something else?
I think be wary of going completely in the opposite direction as you move through this
journey and instead take six months starting today, maybe, starting tomorrow.
Let's say starting tomorrow, so you have some time to prepare.
Take six months to just really focus on building yourself back up, to regain your confidence,
and recognize that you're amazing, to nourish those secret gardens as we call them, to reconstruct
and reform and remold all of those negative, unhelpful attitudes you have about love.
There is this amazing resource online, it's called Psycholive.
I will leave a link in the description, but they put it really well.
You need to challenge your negative opinions and attitudes towards yourself before you
can really let people in, because half the reason we resist connection and love is because
we feel undeserving.
Or we are terrified that we don't have what it takes to be properly seen and loved and
cared for.
When you are in a relationship and perhaps you're noticing the urge to push somebody away,
that pattern of conflict, of emotional bids, of self sabotage, overcommunicate as much
as you possibly can.
Sometimes the only way out is through, and what we fear here may be vulnerability, but
we kind of have to prove it to ourselves that we can raise our concerns, we can talk
about our anxieties, and we will receive the reassurance that we need.
It's not going to be the end of the world to let someone in, it's actually going to be
such a catharsis, such a relief to finally go of all those things we keep to ourselves,
all of those fears, and have someone listen and respond.
Now, if someone can't provide you without reassurance, and that's just like space to listen
and understand, it's not you, you are in the wrong relationship, and staying until it
falls apart may only further entrench the core beliefs that are causing you to run away
from love and intimacy.
We do see a fear of intimacy being caused by out of relationships, and honestly, you
can't risk all the work you're doing towards deconstructing your fear of intimacy on someone
who might be emotionally unavailable, but not doing what you're doing, which is healing
and moving past that, and actually taking the time to really understand the origin, understand
how it manifests, understand how it is creating unhealthy patterns of behaviors in you.
You know, the chances of that happening of you actually being in a relationship with someone
who is emotionally unavailable whilst you are here healing a fear of intimacy, it's
actually a lot greater than we might expect, because we see a lot of people explaining
that emotionally unavailable people are more likely to date and be attracted to other
emotionally unavailable people, because you know that they will never challenge you.
So if your partner is the one who exemplifies intimacy avoidance, remember you are an
ally in this, but you are not their therapist, you cannot solve their problem for them.
I actually think pushing them too hard to do the deep internal work that you might be
doing to counteract their negative beliefs and attitudes towards love may actually have
the reverse effect you intended and cause them to borrow further into their fear, especially
if the root of that fear is a fear of engulfment.
I think instead you need to practice staying emotionally present for your own sake and sitting
with your own fears and working through them and letting your partner do that work for
themselves in parallel.
Communicate what you need, ask them what they need, it's the age old rule of a loha,
ask, listen, observe, help and ask again.
That is all you can do and when I say help what I mean is ask them what they need you to
do, is it reasonable, is it something you can help them with, can you reassure them,
can you maybe give them some space?
If that's what they need to just process things, but if they're asking you like, hey,
actually I want to break up for a couple of months because like this is just too much.
No, that is not your job.
You are not their sounding board for the techniques that may or may not work and making them
more emotionally unavailable.
You are not their test dummy, you are not their guinea pig, you are someone who is worthy
of love in yourself, in of itself.
Your worthy of love even if that person isn't able to provide that yet and I think that
staying in those relationships is actually going to keep you on a version of yourself
that you're ready to outgrow.
You don't, you know, it's kind of a hard reality is that you can't always bring the
person you're with or bring the person you want to take with you on this journey.
They might not always be ready or prepared or at the level that you are and I think that
as hard as it might be sometimes you need to walk away.
You cannot heal someone who is not yet at the stage of believing that anything is wrong.
You cannot heal someone who is not committed to growth the way that you are and maybe you
would be better breaking your own heart, being alone for a while so that you can find
someone who matches where you are at and who can give you what you need and who can show
you how deserving of love you really are without you needing to beg for it.
And stay in those situations just because you don't think you deserve better.
Just because someone in your past has taught you these negative false beliefs about your
inner worth.
You really do owe yourself so much more than that.
You really do.
You're a wonderful person.
You know, the fact that you're listening to this episode shows me that you are committed
to actually learning more about yourself.
Show me that you are sensitive, that you are vulnerable with yourself, that you are
self-aware, those are all incredibly positive attributes that you don't want to waste
on someone who is emotionally unavailable.
So some final rapid tips here.
Process, don't avoid the shame or pain.
Keep a journal of what you're thinking, right?
Down those negative false beliefs and those attitudes because I think you might be better
able to rationalize them.
Take a chance on yourself.
You don't need to hide away or disappear.
Take risks.
Share more.
Fight people in even when it's hard, slowly accustom yourself to what vulnerability might
feel like for you.
Put yourself in situations where you are celebrated, not just tolerated.
Even if that means leaving friendships that you feel safe in right now because they
aren't as emotionally fulfilling as you deserve.
And write down some affirmations about your openness and receptiveness to love and keep
them somewhere visible as a reminder.
My favorites are pretty simple but like I'm worthy of love, love flows effortlessly into
my life.
Love is joyful.
I am enough.
I am worthy of a love that reflects my true value.
My heart is open to receive love in all of its forms.
I know that when we talk about affirmations, it sounds pretty wishy-washy but there is
really something to be said about creating your reality through the words that you speak
to yourself, through the thoughts and cognitions that you have about yourself.
If anything, it can't hurt.
I think that it's incredibly helpful.
I think that it's incredibly powerful to remind yourself without needing that external
validation that you are deserving and that there is love coming your way that will make
you the most open, honest, vulnerable version of yourself.
So I really hope that this episode has been of some help that you've learned a little
bit more about where a fear of intimacy comes from, what it creates, the behaviors that
are associated with it.
But also how to heal the first kind of initial steps to moving forward.
You've already there, like you've already recognized this.
And if you've recognized it in a partner, have some grace, have a level of forgiveness,
but also take care of yourself and realize that it's not you.
It really isn't you.
This person has probably learned a lot of what they are projecting on you from past relationships
from childhood.
And at some point you might need to, like I said, break your own heart for the better,
for the better for yourself.
So thank you so much for listening.
As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please make sure that you are following along for
future episodes.
Make sure you leave a five star review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening
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And if you have someone who needs to hear this episode, please feel free to share it with
them.
Maybe they can take something out of it the way that you have as well.
This episode was actually a suggestion from quite a few listeners.
So if you have a suggestion, please feel free to message me on Instagram at that psychology
podcast or you can follow me at Gemma Speg to see more of what's going on.
We will be back on Friday with another episode.
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