Mindful Living

We all want more intimacy in our lives, even if we don't recognize it. What is intimacy? To me it is a closeness, a sharing of our truest feelings, including the uglies; the shame, inadequacies and fears we have about ourselves and our place in the world. When we can share those things, wow! powerful intimacy and connections occur. But it's also the "good" stuff- our dreams, accomplishments, memories, funny stories, lessons, and hopes. Intimacy can be physical. Holding hands, spooning, kissing, hugging, and sexual touch. When we don't have intimacy in our lives, in it's many forms, we can feel alone and disconnected, like an island. Like one woman described it to me: "I am alone and can only rely on myself". She was in a good marriage and raising young children with lots of family and friend support, but she felt so alone , all because she wasn't intimate with others. She played many roles (mother, wife, daughter, friend) in her life and kept oth...

Relationship Check Up How is your relationship doing? Answer the following questions to see where you are at! 1. Generally, do you feel loved and supported by your partner? 2. Is your intimacy satisfying for both of you in frequency and quality? 3. Are there trust issues or resentments in your relationship that have not been resolved? 4. When you fight can you usually resolve the issue and feel understood by each other? Eventually? 5. Do you enjoy spending time together? 6. What emotional needs are not being met by your partner? Which ones are? 7. What is going well in your relationship? Celebrate those things! If you think that your relationship needs some outside help, a couple’s therapist could be beneficial. Devona Marshall sees couples for many issues, including intimacy concerns, disconnect, and trust issues. She can be reached at 262.334.4340

I have my fair amount of fears, both rational to the irrational. Some of my more rational fears are: afraid something bad will happen to my children, death, heights, and rodents (OK, maybe rodents is irrational!). I am afraid of snapping turtles (never have encountered one), the world running out of oil, ghosts, and I can be a bit of a hypochondriac. Most of us have some fears, and many of us fear similar things, particularly harm to a loved one. And I also find so many of us are afraid to show who they are and to be truly intimate in a relationship. We hide aspects of ourselves for fear of rejection. We put up walls to keep people out. We think this will protect us, but the truth is, it only keeps us lonely. We are scared because we have been hurt before, and we say we will not be hurt again. We won't trust until we know for sure we won't be hurt. But the truth is, we will get hurt again and again and again. Maybe not intentionally, but relationships involve two people who bot...