17 Tips on How Can Self-Awareness Enable You to Develop a Successful Intimate Relationship

In the following 17 tips I explai
HOW BECOMING SELF-AWARE ENABLES YOU TO DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN A SUCCESSFUL INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP.
I show how becoming aware of factors which control you and affect the ways in which you react and behave in dating and relationships is essential to learning how to change whatever needs change and become empowered to develop a successful relationship.

1. WHAT IS SELF-AWARENESS?

Self-awareness is self-understanding and self-knowledge. It’s getting to know your true, genuine self. It enables you to identify and understand factors of which you were NOT aware until now that control your reactions and behaviors and harm your relationships.

2. WHY IS SELF-AWARENESS A PREREQUISITE FOR AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP?

Self-awareness means: understanding and acknowledging the fears, deprivations and needs that rule you; the beliefs, opinions and values that affect you. It means realizing how all these find expression in your relationships and drive you to react and behave automatically with your partners.

3. THE SELF-AWARENESS PROCESS

The Self-Awareness process requires that you have motivation and courage to observe and gather information about your thoughts, feelings, attitude, reactions and behaviors and see the connection between them.
You can then know and understand yourself better; realize how you interpret things, and how you react and behave in ways that harm your relationship or drive you to stay single.

With this awareness you can choose new ways of behaving and expressing yourself, vital to developing a successful relationship.

4. OBSERVING YOURSELF

Observing yourself enables you to become aware of thoughts, feelings, attitude, interpretations, expectations and fantasies that you have about yourself, about partners and relationships.

When you observe and become aware, you can understand how you’ve hurt yourself in your relationships; you can then counteract the tendency to react automatically - as you did in the past - and choose new reactions and behaviors.

5. RECOGNIZING THE MASKS YOU WEAR

Masks are the image that you present to yourself and to others. They’re the self-image that you adopted during your childhood, due to social conditioning. Often you are NOT aware that you wear them, making it difficult for you to be “who you really are”, authentic and genuine.

6. GETTING IN TOUCH WITH YOUR WILL

When you get in touch with your will, with what’s really important for you, you feel empowered to be “who you really are” and express your authentic, genuine self. Consequently, you are capable of developing an intimate, healthy and satisfying relationship.

7. BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF

Self-awareness enables you to understand the reasons which prevented you from being true to yourself in the past (such as: needs and fears), and realize how these harmed your relationships. These insights motivate you to get up the courage to be true to yourself. You are then authentic and genuine and behave according to what feels right to you, out of a sense of personal empowerment and self-worth.

8. MESSAGES YOU INTERNALIZED DURING CHILDHOOD

The many messages you absorbed from your parents and the society in which you grew up have impact the way in which you perceive relationships and behave with your partners. Having internalized the messages at a young age, and used to react and behave according to them since then, you are often NOT aware of the way in which they sabotage your adult relationships – unless you become aware of them.

9. YOUR REPRESSION, DENIAL AND PROJECTIONS

When you unconsciously repress and deny traits, qualities, emotions and behaviors which are nonetheless part of “who you are”, you project them onto your partners and accuse them of harming your relationship. Such blame might stir arguments, fights, alienation, and eventually cause the end of the relationship.

Developing Self-Awareness enables you to realize your repression, denial and to stop projecting them onto your partners.

10. YOUR PERCEPTION OF REALITY

Your perception of reality is your subjective point of view, which has developed based on past experiences, messages you internalized during childhood, beliefs, needs, deprivations and fears that drive you and influence your thoughts, feelings, attitudes, reactions and behaviors.

As long as you are stuck in your perception of reality and insist it is the “right” one, you liable to find yourself in power struggles and emotional battles, thus sabotaging your relationship.

Observation can help you become aware of your perception of reality, resist the urge of being "right", halt automatic reactions and behaviors and consider new ones.

11. THE FEAR OF BEING ALONE

The fear of being alone often drives you into unhealthy behaviors, such as: jumping from one partner to another; getting into or staying in relationships that aren’t good for you; not being true to yourself; sacrificing and victimizing yourself, and other harming behaviors. You are often NOT aware of the power the fear of being alone exerts over you, thus causing you to sabotage your relationships time and again. Becoming aware of your fear enables you to de-activate the power it exerts over you.

When you take the time to be alone, observe and get to know yourself, you can understand the needs, deprivations and messages which drive your fear of being alone and impel you to behave in ways which sabotage your relationships. With this understanding you can develop the personal power that enables you to seek, find and develop a healthy and intimate relationship.

12. THE FEAR OF BEING HURT

Vulnerability is natural, but also entails pain and suffering. That’s why you might have adopted different ways of behaving to avoid being hurt: you either stay out of relationships or quickly jump into new ones, and once there are either controlling or cautious. Whichever way you use to combat your fear of being hurt, you usually do so unconsciously, and are likely to sabotage any possibility of developing a healthy and intimate relationship.

When you take the time to observe yourself, respect your own worth, and understand how vulnerability controls you and sabotages your relationships, you become able to overcome the fear of being hurt.

13. THE FEAR OF CHANGE

It is very likely that you are controlled by the fear of change. When you have a relationship that isn’t satisfying, you are afraid to make changes or leave and give up the known and familiar, fearing pain and others’ reactions. When single, you hesitate to look for a partner out of fear of changing a way of life you have grown accustomed to and facing an unknown, uncertain situation.

In either case you use rationalizations and justifications for NOT CHANGING.

When you become aware of the fears which withhold you from making a change and overcome them, you become empowered to move forward.

14. THE DAMAGING POWER OF EXPECTATIONS

Expectations you have from yourself, your partner and your relationship may sabotage you. You are liable to behave according to social conventions and NOT out of your own judgment; to become dependent on your partner for fulfilling your expectations; to be hurt if your partner doesn’t “guess” your thoughts and to manipulate him/her in order to get what you want.

When you become aware of what you expect of yourself, your partner and your relationship and share these expectations with him/her while remaining true to yourself, we can develop an authentic, healthy and intimate relationship.

15. THE DECEIVING PROMISE OF FANTASIES

If you can’t distinguish between fantasies and reality and try to mold your situation into what you would like it to be, you will ultimately sabotage your relationship.
Self-awareness enables you to understand which needs, deprivations and messages your fantasies have latched onto and acknowledge the gap between fantasy and reality.

16. EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS

Emotional and behavioral patterns that you have unconsciously adopted during childhood might withhold you as adult from developing an intimate bond.

Paying attention enables you to increase your awareness and identify your emotional and behavioral patterns. When you have the courage to acknowledge what you see and hold back automatic reactions, you will be able to better deal with your emotions and find other ways of behavior that will enable you to develop a healthy and intimate relationship.

17. UNCONSCIOUS CHOICES

The “choices” you make when choosing a partner as well as when reacting and behaving in a relationship are often unconscious and affected by many factors from the past which control you, and are liable to harm your relationships.

When you develop Self-awareness you can identify and understand the factors which impact your “choices”. It empowers you to make conscious choices in finding and cultivating a healthy and intimate relationship.

SUMMARY

The 17 tips in this article emphasize why it is important that you become aware of a host of factors which play a role in controlling you and sabotaging your relationships.

As you develop Self-Awareness and observe yourself you can identify the specific factors which exert power over you and drive you to sabotage your relationships. You can then de-activate their power and become empowered to find, maintain and develop a successful intimacy.