***The Dance of Intimacy

The Dance of Intimacy

This week will be all about Valentine’s Day and can be a time of great romance or great pain.

Many people put their children first and of course while this is necessary and honourable is it at the expense of your own relationship?

I remember a great friend of my Mum and Dad’s Nuala Gannon, telling me something that shocked me but has lived with me since I was 16.

She told me that in her amazingly good relationship with her husband Pat, the children came second and their relationship came first.

She told me that the children needed their family’s foundation to be solid first as that underpinned the whole ethos of their family and from that firm basis the girls could grow, feel secure and model a happy intimate relationship for themselves – learning from their parents as powerful role models.

Anyone in a long-term relationship knows that the dance of intimacy involves coming together and moving apart. Sometimes we grow at different speeds in our relationship and sometimes in different directions. But what is important is to press your pause button, like on your DVD and take a look at where you are.

Children are tiring, demanding and challenging so it’s really easy to lose sight of your relationship with your partner. But what’s so different in the “early days” is the intense periods of closeness that you naturally share -that is what can get so lost as your relationship deepens and kids come along.

A sapling tree gets a lot more attention than a full-grown tree, but an established tree also needs nurturing and watering because work, family, friendships, ageing parents and Life takes up a lot of our attention and often our relationships suffer.

To keep a long term relationship healthy and growing you need to feed it with laughter, jokes, playfulness and respect turning towards one another regularly, with the same curiosity, attention, and relaxed intimacy of earlier times and make time for yourselves away from the kids.

In a busy and demanding world full of obligations we sometimes lose track of our primary and most important relationships, thinking they will look after themselves but they won’t - they’ll become like my cyclamen all dried up and dead.

We may have the best intentions when we think about how nice it would be to surprise our partner with a gift or establish a weekly or monthly night out. Yet somehow, life gets in the way.

We may think that our love is strong enough to survive without attention. But maybe it won’t.

This week on my blogs I’ll be looking at some ways to rekindle that fire, and get some genuine humour, laughter and intimacy back into your relationships so your kids can feel safe , secure and nourished in a happy, vibrant and growing, healthy family environment. n

Here’s a powerful poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer from the bestselling book “The Invitation” that my great friend Val Weir gave me a long time ago.

The Invitatio

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache fornand if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a foolnfor lovenfor your dreamnfor the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrownif you have been opened by life’s betrayalsnor have become shrivelled and closednfrom fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with painnmine or your ownnwithout moving to hide itnor fade itnor fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joynmine or your ownnif you can dance with wildnessnand let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toesnwithout cautioning usnto be carefulnto be realisticnto remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me nis true.
I want to know if you can ndisappoint another nto be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayalnand not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithlessnand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beautyneven when it is not prettynevery day.
And if you can source your own life nfrom its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failurenyours and minenand still stand at the edge of the lakenand shout to the silver of the full moon,n“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest mento know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get upnafter the night of grief and despai
weary and bruised to the bonenand do what needs to be donento feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you knownor how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will standnin the centre of the firenwith menand not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whomnyou have studied.
I want to know what sustains younfrom the insidenwhen all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone nwith yourselfnand if you truly like the company you keepnin the empty moments.nnn© Mountaindreaming, from the book The Invitation published by HarperSanFrancisco, 1999 All rights reserved.

February is Pass It Forward Month! So if you have found this blog helpful and thought provoking please pass it forward to your friends, colleagues, schools and nurseries....... because as they say ....“Alone we can do so little together we can do so much”