Mindfulness, Self-Awareness & Intimacy: How to Become Empowered to Develop a Successful Relationship

Introduction

When you get up the courage and the motivation to go through the process of mindfulness, observe, pay attention, become aware and accept what you see, the more self-understanding and personal-growth you gain, and the more empowered you become to develop a successful intimate relationship.

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Mindfulness and Intimate Relationships

Mindfulness means: you pay attention to and are aware of whatever happens within you regarding your life and relationships.

When you practice mindfulness you become empowered to develop a successful and healthy intimacy. The reason being, that the more you pay attention the more aware you become of yourself (your needs, fears, expectations, fantasies, reactions and behaviors); and as you become aware of yourself the more empowered you become to make conscious decisions regarding your life and relationships (whether you currently have a relationship or attempt to develop one).

Four layers of a mindfulness intimacy are:

1. Paying attention, which enables you to stop acting on automatic pilot. As you pay attention you become able to act with full awareness, making appropriate decisions regarding situations you encounter in your life and in your relationships (either with your current partner, or with a new partner). When you pay attention, notice and become aware of what there is, you can then decide what changes you would like to make.

2. Observation: Paying attention is based on observation: you observe yourself, your thoughts, attitudes and emotions, reactions and behaviors.

3. Acceptance: when you observe, with full mindfulness and pay attention to what is, it is crucial that you accept what you notice. Acceptance is vital, since as long as you don’t accept what there is you can’t make a change, because you deny what there is and therefore don’t see a need for a change.

4. Making a change: Change is possible when you accept what you observe. Denying and rejecting what you see don’t lead you to personal growth (and to living life and relationships to the fullest, since you don’t accept parts of yourself which are, after all, part of “who you are”, parts which often lead you to harm your relationships).

When you observe, pay attention and accept, you can then make a change. The reason being, that you become free to make conscious decisions, rather than continue acting on automatic pilot (like you might have acted until now). Being free you can contemplate new ways of behavior (rather than behaving, once again, according to your old harmful patterns), choosing a behavior which you think/feel best suits you and the current situation, whether with your current partner or in a new relationship.

Be careful not to be your own worst enemy

There are those whom the process of mindfulness might scare them, who might prefer to go on with things as they are rather than look inwards and make changes. I you are among them, you might deny and reject, rather than accept what you observe. You will then convince yourself that you don’t have such and such attitudes, behaviors and/or characteristics; that you are not responsible for whatever it is that goes wrong with your relationship. You will also convince yourself that you know yourself well enough and that there is nothing you need to explore and learn about yourself.

Such self-conviction might misguide you: it will “persuade” you that you are o.k. (and your partner not); that you know yourself well enough (even if you don’t); that there is nothing for you to change (even if there is).

If you take the “easy route” – accepting these convictions rather than beginning with the process of mindfulness: paying attention, observing, becoming aware and accepting what you see – you sabotage yourself, by not enabling yourself see things you need to see (about yourself, your partner and your relationship) and making the decisions you need to make in order to finally become empowered to develop a successful, healthy and satisfying intimate relationship.

How to benefit from the process of mindfulness

When you get up the courage and the motivation to go through the process of mindfulness, observe, pay attention, become aware and accept what you see, the more self-understanding and personal-growth you gain, and the more empowered you become to develop a successful intimate relationship.