I have been counseling individuals, couples, families and
business partners for the past 35 years and have numerous
published books on the subject of relationships and relationship
communication. Most of the couples I work with, even those in
deep trouble when starting counseling with me, resolve their
difficulties because they learn to create safe relationship spaces through a process called Inner Bonding (see how to download a free Inner Bonding course at the end of this article).

In the depths of our souls we all yearn for love and connection
with others. That yearning reflects a basic, even biological,
human need. Infants, for example, thrive physically only when
they feel deeply loved and cherished. As adults, we experience
wrenching, soul-level loneliness when we don't have love and
meaningful connection in our lives, yet all too frequently we don't
have these things. Not with our parents or siblings, not with a
mate, not even with a best friend.

We all intuitively know that the highest experience in life is the
sharing of love. However, we often confuse the idea of sharing
love with the idea of getting love. We try to get love when we feel empty inside and can share love only when we learn to first fill ourselves with love. We cannot share that which we do not have within. The wounded part of us seeks constantly to get love and avoid pain, resulting in an inability to share love. Until we each accept the full responsibility of becoming strong enough to love, we will not be able to share love. This means creating inner safety by learning how to love ourselves and take responsibility for our own feelings, so that we are not constantly trying to get love.

Most people have deep fears of rejection and abandonment, as
well as of domination and engulfment. These fears stem from
childhood experiences and from defining our worth externally
through others' approval, rather than internally through spiritual
eyes of truth. We will be unable to share our love to the fullest
extent until we heal these fears of loss of other and of loss of
self. We will be unable to create the safe relationship space in
which to share love, and a safe world in which to live, until we
learn how to create safety within.

Inner Bonding, which is a six step spiritual healing process, is a
profound process for healing our fears, creating safety within,
and for creating safe relationship spaces, spaces where each
person feels free to be fully themselves, to speak their truth and
grow into their full potential.

It is possible in all relationships to create loving connection.
Family, friends, co-workers, employers and employees, who are willing to learn the skills necessary to heal the blocks to
connection can all create safe relationship spaces.

A relationship space is the environment in which the relationship is occurring. It is the energy created by the two people involved. I think of this environment, this relationship space, as an actual entity that both people are responsible for creating. It can be a safe relationship space, which is open, warm, light, and inviting, or it can be an unsafe relationship space, which is hard, dark, unforgiving, and full of fear. The kind of environment in which our relationship takes place is crucial to its success--or failure.

At the heart of all relationship issues is our intent. We are always choosing our intent, but most people are unconscious of the fact that they are making a choice each moment. At any given moment there are only two possible intents to choose from:

The intent to avoid painful feelings and responsibility for them, through some form of controlling behavior.

The intent to learn about loving ourselves and others and take
full responsibility for our own feelings and behavior.

Every relationship has a system. The system may be open and
loving, or controlling and unloving. Relationship systems start
surprisingly early, sometimes within the first minutes or days of
meeting.

A safe relationship space exists when two or more people intend to learn and are willing to take full personal responsibility for their own feelings, while accepting that their energy and behavior affects others. When both individuals fully accept that they are a part of an energy system, i.e., they recognize that each person's energy affects the other, and they are willing to take responsibility both for their own controlling behavior and for their responses to the controlling behavior of others, they create a safe relationship space. Such a space is a circle of loving energy that results from each person's deep desire to learn what is most loving to themselves and others. To create a safe relationship space, all persons involved need to be deeply committed to learning about their own controlling behavior, rather than focusing on what another is doing. Rather than giving themselves up to avoid rejection or attempting to get others to give themselves up to feel safe, each person is devoted to their own and the other's highest good, supporting themselves and each other in becoming all they can be.

Many of us have spent a great deal of time in unsafe relationship spaces. In fact, some of us have never experienced a safe relationship space because many, if not most, of us have not learned to create a safe inner space by staying in a loving adult frame of mind when our fears are activated. When our fears of being rejected, abandoned, engulfed and controlled are triggered, most of us are triggered into a child state and
immediately retreat into our learned controlling behaviors. We
may move our focus into our minds to avoid our feelings; we may attack, blame, defend, demand, explain, deny, judge, criticize, shut down, withdraw, resist, give in and comply, placate, lie, become overly nice, and so on. Of course, the moment we act out in controlling ways, our behavior may trigger another's fears of being rejected or controlled, and that person may then react in controlling ways as well, creating a vicious circle and an unsafe relationship space.

If, when these fears are activated, we focus on who is at fault or
who started it, we perpetuate an unsafe relationship space.
Blaming another for our fears (and for our own reactive, unloving behavior) makes the relationship space more unsafe than ever.

Then both people in the relationship end up feeling bad, each of
us believing that our pain is the result of the other person's
behavior. We feel victimized, helpless, stuck, and disconnected
from our partner. We desperately want the other person to see
what they are doing that (we think) is causing our pain. We think
that if the other person only understands this, they will change--and we exhaust ourselves trying to figure out how to
make them understand.

Over time, being in an unsafe relationship space creates
distance between the people involved. When we have not
created a safe space in which to speak our complete, heartfelt
truth about ourselves, the joy between us gradually dies. And the more we hold back our innermost feelings and experiences, the shallower our connection becomes. Our intimacy crumbles.

In friendships, marriages, and work relationships, our joy,
aliveness, and creativity get lost as we each give up parts of
ourselves in an attempt to feel safe. In romantic relationships,
passion dries up. Superficiality, boredom, fighting, and apathy
take its place. We try valiantly to figure out what went wrong. But
too often we ask, "What am I doing wrong?" or "What are you
doing wrong?" rather than inquiring into the health of the
relationship space itself.

Only when we look at the relationship space will we see what we are each doing to create the unsafe space. The dual fears of losing the other through rejection and losing ourselves through being swallowed up by the other are the underlying cause of our unloving, reactive behavior. These fears are deeply rooted. They cannot be healed or overcome by getting someone else's love. On the contrary, we must heal these fears before we can share love--give and receive love--with each other.

The key to doing this is learning how to create a safe inner
space where we can work with and overcome our fears of
rejection and engulfment. This is a process, not an event.
Practicing the six step process of Inner Bonding gradually
creates inner safety as we learn to take personal responsibility
for our own feelings and behavior. Inner Bonding guides us in
defining ourselves internally through the eyes of our personal
spiritual guidance, instead of externally through performance,
looks, and others' approval. In addition, it provides us with a
clear process for conflict resolution that can be used in any
relationship difficulty. Instead of love eroding with time, love
deepens daily, supporting each person in the sacred journey of
the soul's evolution.

Any two people who are willing to learn to create their own inner
sense of safety can also learn to create a safe relationship
space where their intimacy and passion will flourish and their
love will endure.

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Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of
eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?", "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By My Kids?", "Healing Your Aloneness", "Inner Bonding", and "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By God?" Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com