The End Of My Life - 1082 Words

No one has ever said on their deathbed, Gee, I wish I d spent more time at the office. At their moment of reckoning, the top regrets that people share are about wishing they lived the life they d really wanted to live, wishing they hadn t worked so hard, wishing they d had the courage to express their true feelings, wishing they d had deeper connections with people and wishing they d let themselves be happier. I don t want to have those regrets at the end of my life. And I m pretty sure that you don t either. Yet, living out loud, finding time to relax, expressing my true feelings, fostering meaningful relationships and letting myself be happy? Well, that s actually pretty hard. It takes a certain brand of fierceness to live†¦show more content†¦Meaning: to speak out loud, to communicate what s going on inside. Which is a practice of unending vulnerability. I am, by no means, a master of this practice. This might be my work forever. Yet, through my practice, I ve found six steps to help me move toward a fiercer and deeper way of connecting with those that I love. 1. Know what you want. This step probably sounds like it has nothing to do with intimacy. I ll admit, this is a downright self-centered step. Yet, it s a crucial step to intimacy and connection. If you re not coming from the center of your own self, you won t be connecting in any real or lasting way. Knowing what you want, means knowing what you want in your relationship, knowing what you re looking for, knowing your requests and knowing your responsibility. It means that you re focused on where the relationship is going rather than complaining about where the relationship has gone wrong. It means that you know what to ask for, rather than passively waiting around for magic to happen. (PS. This is hard. I struggle with this even in a massage, never mind my marriage or closest relationships.) 2. Communicate what you want. If Step 1 was hard, Step 2 is like double-black-diamond hard because this step actually requires you to speak out loud. To say specifically what you want to the person that you re building courageous intimacy with. This means that you specifically request that the person helps you. And then you specifically