Connection equals intimacy

What keeps your romantic relationship strong? What efforts do you invest into your romantic relationship? What could you do to improve on your romantic relationship?

I have been in a long distance relationship since February 2014 and building intimacy through a screen as we chat each day has been one of the most challenging things we do yet it is absolutely necessary.

Why is it necessary to build intimacy? Without intimacy, our relationship would have died well before now, where we are connected and that gives us a solid foundation for our LDR aka long distance relationship.

Some people think that long distance relationships never work yet it is due to the lack of personal development in them, for them to have such a conclusion.

The majority of us do not know what it takes to make a relationship work as we were never taught from our parents. If our parents had no intimacy in their relationship,  it is highly unlikely that we shall have intimacy in our romantic relationships, unless we work hard on ourselves to build intimacy with our self first. Then we are equipped with the necessary skills to create intimacy in our romantic relationship.

It has been said that the way a couple interact with each other shall determine whether their relationship shall last or not. I am very aware of this fact as I observe how my parents have interacted with each other since I was a child.

They rarely listen to each other with the intent to understand. There is no intimacy, only intensity. There is no mutual respect or acceptance of each other. There is no words of support, recognition, encouragement, understanding and love in their relationship.

Listen to how a couple talks to each other and we can pick up on so much about their relationship.

Intimacy is not merely physical as we have been misled to believe from our society, our culture, our set up, our peers, our past relationships and without the curiosity to learn how to build intimacy, we shall never get it.

I never had true intimacy in any of my romantic relationships until I began to work hard on myself when I embarked on my journey with self development in June 2011.

What a transformation this phenomenal journey of personal development has been for me!

I shifted from a critical, judgemental, toxic and nagging female to a funny, intelligent, attractive and crazy lass full of fun! My sweetheart fell hard for my ability to have fun wherever I go, whoever I am with and that is what keeps our LDR going strong.

We may not have the physical intimacy most couples have, who are physically closer, yet due to our long distance, we cherish the minutes we do get to share with each other through a screen. We talk to each other with the intent to understand where each of us is coming from. We agree to disagree. We compromise. We do whatever we possibly can, with whatever we have, to make the other feel loved, valued and important.

We have had our fair share of conflicts due to the lack of physical intimacy yet we are more than capable of resolving our challenges. It is through these challenges where we learn more about each other and our love for each other grows.

We connect through active listening and talking with the intent to understand each other. We give each other the space to express our thoughts and emotions. We use all the tools available to us to help us to connect and feel the love deepen and grow.

We pull the weeds in our garden of love as much as we possibly can to nurture our relationship. We have movie nights where we feel we are in the same room watching our movie together and we are laughing so much, we pee our pants! Haha

We get mushy, sweet and thoroughly enjoy the moment of staring into each other’s eyes and say nothing. We connect through our hearts. We express our emotions and allow them all,  good and bad to come through.  We acknowledge each other’s emotions as they come through. We never deny each other of our right to our emotions as they are merely vistiors telling us we are disconnected with our heart. We feel comfortable with exposing our weaknesses, flaws and vulnerabilities with each other.

We always put fun into our relationship and the banter is so crazy, loud and out of control. We seem so crazy yet it is a vital ingredient to maintaining our relationship so that it grows from strength to strength!

How connected are you in your romantic relationship?

 

Our society is trained to presume

 

Shopping for an outfit this morning for my dinner party with Toastmasters next month to celebrate our club successfully being chartered, I went into Quiz, in my local shopping centre.

A female assistant approached me with ” how can I help you”? as I was browsing through the rails of clothing.

So I told her “I am looking for an outfit for my dinner party next month, I prefer separates so that I am able to get more wear from them after the dinner party, I am not a girly girl, I go for comfort and if I do come across a dress that I fancy, I will try it on”.

After informing of the female assistant of what I was looking for, she helped me the best she could by pointing out a dress that came in different colours. I studied the dress which was beautiful and had a great length, not too short, not too long, just sits at the appropriate length for this average height Chinese girl!  However, there was ONE big disadvantage to this blue and white dress. So,  I told her that I was very uncomfortable with bearing my arms due to my insecurity. To this end, she told me what they had in store to solve that issue in order to upsell, a technique I am very aware of from my experience with working in retail.

We eventually decided upon a white full length top for me to wear over the blue and white dress, in order to cover my arms. As we were walking towards the fitting rooms, this obviously knowledgeable female assistant suggested that I try the dress on with a pair of bling heels and so I told her “I do not do heels” to which she replied, “it’s just to give you an idea of how the dress looks” so I repeated myself “I do NOT do heels”. She was unaccepting of that fact and was rather reluctant to let it go! So I was assertive and said “I want to try these flats” and grabbed a silver bling shoe so she asked “do you want to try the pair”?……..trying the pair would be the sensible thing to do right?

I was then led into the fitting room whilst the assistant grabbed my garments plus a silver bling shoe.

She left me to try on the dress and whit full length top whilst she told her colleague she needed to pop upstairs to grab some shoes. I put on the blue and white dress and covered my arms with the white full length top and walked out of the cubicle. By now the assistant was back with my flat silver bling shoes so I put them on.

Wawwwwww!

I looked stunningly hot and sexy!  No need for heels to look like a million dollars as I looked into the full length mirror in front of me! My inner confidence was more than enough for me to feel great about myself. My sexy smile as I looked at myself in this beautifully designed white and blue dress was more than enough to tell the world that “I feel happy with myself, warts and all and I do not need heels to lift up my moods“!

Why do we presume that we need heels in order to look hot in a dress or in any other outfit?

I believe it is society that has trained us into believing that we need to be dressed in a certain way to look hot and sexy!

To me, heels are only a nuisance that causes me intense physical pain when walking or dancing in them so why would I put myself through such intense pain in order to “look great” when I look great with flats?

My comfort comes first over “great looks” because I have never been a follower of fashion or anything else!

Running on empty!

 

When was the last time you had felt that you were merely existing for others and to fulfill your responsibilities?

Today was one of those days for me as I have had a rather challenging few months since the beginning of the year. I have made tremendous progress and wearing my blinkers in order to focus on achieving my goals. Yet, life throws set backs, challenges, hurdles, curve balls, issues, problems and brick walls at me to test me!

The emotions that comes through during each and everyone of my challenges are the most trying times which has taken a toll on my overall health. I feel those challenges are coming through in threes. It never rains, it pours as they say!

My sleep was disturbed each night last month due to my tremendous progress. I have settled with that and other challenges are coming through. Challenges with work, home, relationships and finances are the main ones that has had a gargantuan impact on my health and sleep.

During my day, I felt I was running on empty, feeling dead inside with nothing to give, even to myself. I found it so damn difficult to smile and that dragged me down until I had a soak with my Radox in the bath for a short twenty minutes as I always feel much better from it. I felt emotionally exhausted and slept for three hours after getting Calvin, my youngest son to school.

I have found that movement of any sort sets me up for a more productive day. I walked to and from bus stop, to pick up some food, then to meet with my lawyer regarding an important issue. I then picked up Calvin from my parents and the walk to and from helped to pick me up even though I had a headache and my thinking was fuzzy due to my pms.

I took two paracetamol tablets to help with my headache yet it lingered on for two hours or so,  until I took a bath with Radox. I felt like a completely different person when I came out of my bath!

I feel I have something to give to myself and others now! Thank goodness.