Gunhild Archer, counselor

If you are like me who either tend to think YOU are “too much”, or that you want “too much” from your relationships, I want to share something that might change your perspective. I recently had an insight that made me go from feeling like “I’m asking too much too fast” to “What I’m asking is really not a lot”.

First, some context… Dating (of course). Tinder (of course). If you have been here a while, you know the drill. I was talking to this guy… Looks wise, he was very attractive. His energy was also very appealing. He felt like a calm breeze; patient and pleasant to be around. Sadly, it didn’t work out. Why? Because I wanted a level of intimacy that he couldn’t give.

There is nothing new to this story. Wanting a level of intimacy that the man can’t (or won’t) give is the main reason why my relationships end. When it comes to men, it has been like that my entire adult life, but the pattern has been with me since far earlier than that. As a child, I, like most children, wanted a closeness and intimacy that was built on emotional openness and transparency. I wanted my parents to kneel down and grab my hand when I felt sad. I wanted them to look at me and tell me: “I see that you are sad. It’s ok, you can be sad. I love you”, before they reassuringly took me in their arms and hugged me. I also wanted my parents to answer my innocent inquiries about how THEY felt with honesty, in a self-contained manner. When I asked: “Dad, are you sad?”, I wanted him to kneel down, look into my eyes and tell me: “Yes, I feel sad right now. I have big feelings in my chest, but it’s ok to be sad. You don’t have to worry. I got it, and I love you”.

Anyways… To explain why so many relationships don’t work out, I have always told myself a plethora of stories like:

I’m too much.

I want too much.

I’m too intense.

I’m too needy.

Sometimes I would take it to the next level and blame my trauma: “I only need an extensive level of openness because I was traumatized”, which was followed by “If I could get over myself, I wouldn’t need to continuously know his feelings to feel safe”. (Which, when thinking about it, is an insane request. I seem to expect myself to be able to function like a person who were NOT traumatized, as if trauma isn’t an experience you will always be affected by.)

Like most of the men I have dated, he was a high-quality man so when I asked if he could help me find closure, he said yes. Throughout the conversation, he kept using the phrase “fast”. “He didn’t want to open up that fast.” My reaction? I wanted to defend myself. I wanted to tell him: “It’s not that fast!”. I also felt like a bad person for wanting too much too fast. As I got to digest the conversation, it dawned on me… It’s not about pace. What I’m asking for is not “fast”. I remembered a time when I couldn’t pace myself. I would go straight for the most raw and vulnerable places in people. At this point, I know I can (and often want to) pace myself. What I’m asking for is not “asap depth”. I’m asking him to be in touch with his emotional reality.

What about the insight I mentioned earlier? I want to describe what I saw as the insight came in.

Imagine the person you want to be in a relationship with, the one that doesn’t want to let you in, who keep telling you: “I just need time”. Every time you ask him (or her) “What are you thinking”, or “where are you right now, you look thoughtful”, you are met with resistance.

Now, imagine that they have a smaller body inside their body. Their outer physical appearance, the one you see when you talk to them, that’s the first layer of who they are. Imagine that the small body resides just a few centimeters inside that outer appearance. The small body is their feelings, and it operates in layers. The small body is vast and deep. It contains every experience you ever had. In a way you can see it as a black hole; all the information has entered the body and can be intentionally or unintentionally activated as well as consciously retrieved (#therapy). When the outer physical appearance experiences something, the small body reacts emotionally. You might feel happy, sad, lonely, frustrated etc. If you are connected to and aware of the small body, you are aware of your emotional experience. When you are aware, you are free to make a choice. Do you want to share your experience? To whom do you want to share? And how much do you want to share?

Connection happens when we allow the other person to witness, and take part in, our emotional experience. Interacting with someone’s outer appearance is like a game of polite. Or pretense. The juice, the intimacy, the connection, the good feelings, it happens when we decide to share from the smaller body. When the man I was dating said “too fast”, he was talking about the discomfort of being put in touch with his smaller body. Asking for someone’s emotional experience is not “too fast” or “too much”. It’s the basic step if you want connection. Let me give you an example so the nuances don’t get lost. Let’s say I notice he is becoming sad. I decide to say something like: “I notice you seem sad. Do you want to share?”. If something deep got activated, I understand that it feels too fast to share. IF that’s the case, he will also have reactions about sharing; he might feel scared of being vulnerable, maybe he is afraid of being minimized, maybe his ex-partner used to call him names when he was vulnerable… Sharing THAT will still create intimacy while at the same time respecting his pace. “Too fast” would be to move through the layers of the smaller body at a pace that he is not on board with.

It’s sad that we are so disconnected from our smaller body that becoming aware of it registers as “too much too fast”. That’s our relationship to intimacy and closeness. It’s a NON-relationship.