It’s time for another episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions.

In episode 54, I cover:

We Were On A Break!: That infamous episode of Friends where Rachel asks for a break during a fight but then realises she doesn’t want it, reunites, and then discovers that Ross slept with someone else in those hours, reminded me of some of the factors that we need to consider if we ask for or agree to a break, including how it’s got to be a one-time thing, the need for boundaries, and some thought to the parameters of success.

About Intimacy:

• Are you playing a role? Is there inferiority or superiority?
• Do you struggle to have and live your boundaries and values?
• Are you trying to be perfect or expecting partners to be perfect? Are you waiting for a partner to change?
• Do you avoid conflict, criticism, rejection or disappointment?
• Do you have resistance around recognising, expressing and sharing your feelings?
  If you answered yes to any of these, these are blocks to intimacy

Key points include:

• You can’t experience intimacy if you’re not being you so intimacy is about striving to be you instead of preempting the possibility of not being liked or accepted.
• No boundaries, no intimacy.
• If you only focus on superficial aspects of a person or even you, you can’t experience intimacy because intimacy comes living your core values and recognising someone else’s and co-existing with them.
• The whole idea of intimacy is the joy of realising that you and they are not perfect and still being in it anyway.
• Recognising, expressing and sharing your feelings is vulnerability, which goes hand in hand with intimacy.

Here’s the recent post, Intensity Isn’t The Same As Intimacy where you can also learn about the stages of relationships so that you don’t get caught out by intensity again.

Substitution heuristics: Heuristics are shortcuts that we use to make judgements and decisions. One type that stuck out for me is what’s called a substitution heuristic. This is when we answer an easier question than the one that was posed and this got me thinking about how we write off potential partners because they don’t fit our image of one.

Listener Question: Manuela asks, How can we deal in our everyday life with people who clearly feel superior?

Resources mentioned: 100 Days of Baggage Reclaim | Unsent Letter guide | How To Self-Soothe Guide | Get Out of Stuck

What I Learned This Week: A few weeks after feeling very stressed by back to school and new routines, I’m feeling much happier and at ease even though while there have been some changes, a lot of the same stresses exist. I share what I’ve been reminded about by self-care.

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Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com and if there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know!

Nat xxx

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