Marni welcomes the Founder and Chairman of the Optimum Health Clinic which is one of the world’s leading integrative medicine clinics. Alex is also the creator of the Therapeutic Coaching Methodology and the In Therapy with Alex Howard, Youtube series. They discuss what may be keeping you stuck from having deeper, more intimate connections.
Key takeaways from this episode:
Breaking free from who you think you should be Finding your authentic self Unpacking and healing childhood patterns Trusting the divineLonging for a Deep, Intimate Relationship [3:16]
Alex was mired in his inability to have a happy, lasting relationship. He suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome as a teen. As a result, he proactively began a long-term healing journey. He trained to become a therapist. He discovered his first true love in life was psychology. In his mid-20s, after he had attained everything he thought he wanted out of life, but was miserable when it came to relationships.
Alex started to believe he couldn't have a long-term relationship. He found dating healthy but he wanted something more.
The problem, he determined, was how he was showing up in relationships. He was being the person he thought he needed to be instead of who he truly was. He was coming from an inauthentic place, his idealized self. It wasn’t serving him because he couldn't sustain that image in a long-term relationship. He also had an idea of who he thought he needed to be with.
Men long for deeper relationships too!
Masks that Block Emotional Intimacy [17:42]
Alex points out that both men and women develop masks derived from how they were treated as a child, as coping strategies. We may wear a mask of independence because we were scolded for being weak as a child. Or, a mask of a helper because as children we were adored when we did things for other people. The problem, he says, is in our relationships those masks can keep us trapped. What we need is to have others relate to us as our authentic selves.
The vulnerabilities we feel we need to hide from the world are often the ones that create the most intimacy in relationships.
How to Break Free From the Mask [26:18]
Building intimate relationships with another person requires building safety with one another. Alex says the key to breaking free of the masks behind what we are trying to hide is:
Awareness — Soften the grip of patterns by recognizing them when they happen and consider why you are hiding.
You can’t heal what you don’t feel.
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