In our mother’s womb, all of us were just ourselves, with no conditions. As adults, we continue to long to be received by others, just as we are. Since we’ve all been hurt by life, our place of intimacy is often an area of both great longing and deep anxiety.
Continue reading Growing in Intimacy
All posts by Sergio Milandri
19 June – Intimacy with Ourselves and Others
We’re deepening our understanding of intimacy. How we are with ourselves affects how we relate to others.
Join us at the barn tonight for an interesting session on connecting with ourselves, with God and with others. Sessions typically involve asking questions, reflecting on your experiences and sharing what you feel ready to. Continue reading 19 June – Intimacy with Ourselves and Others
Our Deepest Longing
We are creatures that are made to give life. At every stage of our relating to others we are making choices which will either be creative and life-giving or destructive. The investment we make to create a positive, loving space is essential to our union with others.
Intimacy starts with us, for we can only be as connected with another as we are able to value and trust ourselves. We will not be able to respect or love others if we have a low estimate of our own worth. Life batters and bruises all of us, but we are meant to persist with bringing light and healing to the world. Intimacy is a hard-won reality, but it is very worthwhile. Continue reading Our Deepest Longing
Longing for Intimacy – Into Fear
If we picture ourselves as a house, we can imagine the different relational spaces as rooms we inhabit. Reflection on these can reveal how connected and how at home we really are in ourselves.
Within us may be areas that are full of light, while others may be closed off to ourselves and to others. These rooms are of differing sizes depending on the gravity we have given them. We may only occasionally feel able to show some of them to others. For example, what does the room of our body feel like? Are we satisfied and at peace, or are we carrying painful things in relation to our bodies? Continue reading Longing for Intimacy – Into Fear
Life Without Conditions
Risking taking off our training wheels
We can hardly imagine our lives without conditions. Even though they keep us bound, we feel that at least we know and can more or less predict an outcome. For, “if we do this…then that will happen.”
What pattern do we tend to use to get ourselves to perform in a certain way? Do we have high expectations so are hard on ourselves if we don’t reach them? Continue reading Life Without Conditions
Fences and Frameworks
Risking a deeper level of trust
Though conditional love has been in the framework of our existence, deep in our cellular system we know that somehow unconditional love is possible. However, when we think of it, this can sound so amazing that it may move us into an unreal space. It sounds very nice to say, “God loves me unconditionally”, but it can remain just a theory. How many of us really believe it at a deep level?
Continue reading Fences and Frameworks
Living with Conditions
T&Cs Apply
All of us have learnt to live with conditions on the way we behave, but often we don’t realise how many of these we carry. We relate to the world from inner and outer controls and these have become very much a part of us, so much so that we hardly know they are there. Continue reading Living with Conditions
Unconditional Acceptance
Can we, with God, learn to love the less-than-lovely parts?
As we come to see ourselves more and more clearly, we choose either to accept or reject that self. The big question is whether we are able to find increasing acceptance for what might not be acceptable in our society’s eyes. Since few of us experienced truly unconditional love, many don’t know what this actually looks like. We have been taught to turn away from ourselves or others when the less-than-attractive becomes visible. We’ve also been habituated into always trying to show what is nice about ourselves to others and of not feeling at all comfortable with their seeing our less-than-lovely parts. Thus, we have imprisoned ourselves and others in this well-known societal game as we continually judge those negative parts and inwardly criticise our ambivalence. Continue reading Unconditional Acceptance
A Sample of Life
Looking at just one day will show us what we truly value
Even though our dreams are often beyond our awareness, we all have guiding images which lead us. These are with us all our lives, shaping and directing us, and giving our everyday life substance. These are very necessary, as with no defining images our lives will become more and more fragmented. Since we can so easily fool ourselves, it is useful to imagine being an observer of one day of our lives. By doing this we will soon see what we are investing the bulk of our time on. Through what we do we can understand what we value the most, what we are giving ourselves up for. Through looking at one small sample of our existence, we can realise what’s guiding us through it and causing us to make the choices we do.
Continue reading A Sample of Life
What guides us through life?
Reflecting on dreams which so affect our life journey
The countless dreams that motivate and energise us give us our life direction each day. We need to know our guiding images to understand what is inspiring or frightening us, where we’re being reactive or compliant. We tend to view dreams as being positive, but some can be enormous, yet unconscious, burdens if they are driving us to fulfill another’s expectations. Continue reading What guides us through life?