The Key to Connection

By John Amodeo

As a psychotherapist for nearly thirty years, I've worked with many individuals and couples who long for greater intimacy. I've seen many others who feel a vague emptiness and discontent that they can't pinpoint. They often don't realize that the lack of connection is at the root of their dissatisfaction.

We are hard wired to seek connection. A holy longing moves us toward each other. There is no greater delight than two hearts resonating together in love and openness.

Yet our vulnerable heart is easily wounded. If we've been abused as a child, we may move into adult relationships constantly on alert for danger. If we've been neglected, we may not even know what we seek; we never had role models for connecting in a rich and meaningful way. We may rarely let down our guard and allow others to see and know us. Trust doesn't come easily. We are quick to defend ourselves through a frozen state of shut down when we feel hurt, shamed, or criticized.

Connecting with others begins with being more intimate with ourselves. This simply means allowing ourselves to experience feelings and longings that we may have shut down in order to survive. It means making a safe space for our feelings to surface and have a kind and compassionate relationship with all aspects of ourselves. Buddhist teacher Tara Brach calls this, "radical acceptance," which means that we don't shame or criticize ourselves for feeling what we feel. We make room for the full range of our human experience without thinking there is something wrong with us.

The couples I see in my therapy practice usually love each other dearly. But sadly, they don't know how to connect in satisfying ways. Oftentimes, their longings are so painfully unmet that they leap out by attacking and accusing. They blame, they shame, they criticize, they label each other. They try to get the other to change. Of course, this usually pushes their partner further away. I try to help them find another route to connection by getting out of their heads and judgments and learning the language of the heart.

Our heartfelt longings and desires are the most vulnerable part of us. Every time we blame and attack, we are not revealing this vulnerability; we are trying to control and fix our partner. This subtle act of aggression is likely to lead our partner to retaliate or withdraw.

Trying to get others to change is a defensive strategy that creates mutual heartache. We keep spinning our wheels in the slimy mud we keep slinging at each other. Instead of relying on our default mechanism of attack or withdrawal, we might consider being more spiritually courageous by taking risks to reveal the vulnerability that we so keenly feel.

Blame, criticism, and defensive anger are secondary emotions. Our primary feelings are often the sadness, hurt, and fear that we hide not only from our partner, but perhaps also from ourselves. It takes courage to recognize the deeper, primary feelings that we habitually hide and defend against.

As we allow a space for our primary feelings, we are better positioned to reveal these to people we want to feel close to. I have often observed how couples suddenly feel closer when their guard comes down and they show their authentic feelings and longings.

Oftentimes, couples think their partner knows — or "should" know — how they feel. But what their partner often thinks is not that their loved one is hurting and longing to connect with them. What they often conclude instead is that their partner thinks they are a bad, selfish, or dysfunctional person.

Just because we feel our own desires so acutely does not mean that our partner knows what we feel and want. There can be a wonderful magic in showing feelings and desires that we think are obvious. Congruently revealing the depth of our feelings and longings is a peace gesture. We lower our guard and let another into our tender world. Doing so often encourages the other person lowering their defenses as well, which often leads to a tender moment of connection for which we long.

We often need help in navigating the terrain of the heart and learning the language of the heart. It takes time to learn and embody these skills, as well as work wisely with inevitable setbacks. The mind learns quickly, but it takes time for the heart and body to absorb and incorporate these learnings and move forward.

We may revert back to destructive ways of communicating when we feel even the slightest hurt or rejection. The reptilian part of our brain is poised to protect us through a fight, flight, or freeze response when we feel threatened. We need to make space for these predictable reactions, and gently return to bodies when we notice that we've dissociated from ourselves.

As we begin to be vulnerable and show what is more genuine within us, things won't always go well. We need to learn how to hold our own tender feelings when our partner is not able to do so. This self-soothing skill is an essential part of loving ourselves, which allows us to tolerate the inevitable breaches of trust that happen in every relationship.

The good news is that we can learn to repair the trust by continually returning to our primary felt experience, being gentle toward ourselves, and taking the ongoing risk to reveal our authentic feelings and longings to each other.

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