Asking for a Commitment

 

Do you have trouble making a commitment and once you’ve made one, can you keep it?  In order to commit, it is important to examine the fears that keep you from truly stepping-up in a relationship.

1. Recognize familiar patterns.  Have you heard the same complaints and do you say the same things?
   • Be brutally honest with yourself.  If you keep making excuses for why you cannot keep moving closer in this relationship, you need to acknowledge that these are simply excuses and have no merit.
   • If there is not a gradual moving closer in this relationship, than the relationship is not growing.

2. Do you create distance and then more close after you get it?
   • This is what I call the “dance of intimacy” – apart-together, apart-together.
   • Closeness automatically conveys a sense of better getting to know another person.  If you do not know and like yourself, you will never want another to really get close to you and will sabotage that closeness.
   • Once you create distance and feel “safe”, you will have enough space and then make the move to get close again.  This is a pattern that will continue until you take responsibility for the “dance”.

3. Do not use being selective as an excuse not to commit.  Both are possible.
   • Oftentimes I hear from clients that they are very “picky” and that is the reason they cannot make a commitment.  It is possible to have good taste and still be able to make a commitment.
   • When you are ready and open for love, your criteria becomes more expansive, while at the same time being particular. 
   • In other words, your compassion and forgiveness increase while at the same time you know more what works for you.

4. Does real intimacy scare you?  Do you really want to know another person and do you want them to know you?
   • How open are you?  Do you really feel comfortable enough in your own skin to bring another person close to you?  Do you like who you are?  If you don’t, you will never allow another person close to you.
   • Being close to someone, means by default, that they will become privy to your inner-most secrets.  If you have not made peace with your dark side, you will always push someone away as they get close to you.

5. Real commitment comes from the heart, not from the head.
   • The head can never take you the distance.  It is only your heart (your inner Self) that has your best interests at heart.
   • It does not matter how much money someone has, how   big a house is offered – when the lights go down- it’s just the two of you.
   • Choose out of the utmost respect.

Comments

[James]

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