Blocks to Intimacy are any patterns we have that are often unbeknownst to us. We usually only experience them once we enter an adult relationship.
Intimacy requires an enormous amount of vulnerability and trust. Combining those can bring up a lot of fear for almost all of us. Suppose we have a history of having experiences where issues around security and trust have been impaired in some way. In that case, that tends to surface as repetitive patterns. These patterns tend to display themselves when we attempt to get into an adult intimate relationship.
That’s basically what an intimacy block is. They may have different histories but frequently share unresolved trust, trauma, or vulnerability issues.
How do you recognize if you have an Intimacy Block?
If you have a repetitive pattern of having an experience or a feeling repeatedly, that can be a sign. It doesn’t have to be a specific behavior showing up with your partner. If you say, “Hey, I always feel this way, or this always happens to me,” you’ve had a repeating relationship experience. This is the first clue that you have tension between your conscious and your subconscious mind. You may act out self-defeating behaviors despite your best intellectual or conscious efforts. These behaviors occur subconsciously, and you experience a result you don’t want. If you do this repeatedly, it’s safe to assume that you have a subconscious block to Intimacy. You can also take that into other domains if you experience a pattern in any area. Patterns are always a significant clue to finding what is at the root and if you have an emotional block of some sort.
Discovering the source of trauma can aid its healing but can look very different depending on the individual. First, we should define trauma which is a loaded word. Most people think of trauma from a car accident or a very radical experience somebody has had. Still, trauma is any emotionally-charged experience a person has had that was not fully processed at the time of having the experience.
Depending on the individual, it can be something that, for many people, looks pretty benign. Even an experience with your social peers when you were a student in school can be a source of trauma. It can stem from an emotionally unavailable well-intentioned, loving parent that dismisses emotions. Other trauma can be pretty obvious. You are aware that if you have had significant sexual or physical trauma, you know consciously and subconsciously that you have a lot of blocks in that area. This requires deeper therapy such as EMDR which works mainly with the subconscious allowing these issues to be emotionally released through that modality.
Processing Trauma In Order To Heal
Trauma is an experience that’s so overwhelming we can’t fully process it at the time of having it and thus suppress emotions. When it comes to trauma, we outgrow the experience, but the suppression of those emotions is left. In therapy, those suppressed emotions are safely processed and released.
Many people equate therapy and counseling with sitting around talking. Although talk therapy is relevant, it’s about more than finding the narrative and discussing it at length. The narrative could be more relevant. The suppressed emotions are what we focus on, not why they are there. Methods such as EMDR get to the root of emotions more efficiently. They do not require speaking about the narrative.
Approaches to Treating Emotional Blocks
In processing emotional or Intimacy blocks, we first need to identify them and the defenses that have built up around them. This defense can be very powerful. They have become powerful as at the time they were developed, they might have helped one survive whatever experience.
Our defenses are what we use to keep ourselves safe. Sometimes our reasons create an inability to look at what’s uncomfortable. That certainly can be the first area to focus on. Regarding identifying patterns, sometimes our defenses don’t allow us to do that honestly and transparently. Once your pattern is located, it typically has some genuine emotional charge. Wherever there’s an emotion, that’s where the defenses come up. This can cause a dilemma, and there has to be a willingness, to be honest with yourself in a productive way.
Quality counseling and therapy can help you locate where those tender spots are. If done professionally, it creates a safe environment that does not trigger or re-traumatize you. Instead, it allows you to be emotionally released from those traumatizing experiences. The goal of trauma therapy is releasing emotion, it doesn’t change the past, but it certainly does release the emotion attached to it.