• Your shame
• Your shadows
• Your sexual desires
• Your dreams
• Your love
• Your fears 
• Your passwords
• Your past
• Your boundaries 
• Your truth

Do you agree with the above? What would you add to this list?

What has been your experience with hiding yourself in an intimate relationship or having discovered your partner has been hiding parts of themselves from you?

Have you ever considered the type of relationship you truly desire?

Are you afraid to be seen in your truth for fear of judgment, rejection, or humiliation?

Some may say to not divulge all of who you are in a relationship. But where does this actually come from? Fear from the past. Perhaps you have been hurt in the past and are afraid to be hurt again?

Perhaps you seek control because that provides you a greater sense of safety, so you manipulate the situation to your advantage?

If you are grounded in higher self-worth within yourself, couldn’t you just be you? If you believed in what you offered and were confident and less attached to the outcome of how someone or something must be, why would you hide?

I was this person, seeking excessive control, manipulating the situation, hiding my needs, fantasies, and desires. Wanting it all my way in order to feel significant. It wasn’t fair on others, for they wanted the real me and fell in love with a “pretend” me. They fell in love with what I presented, which wasn’t entirely real and was more of my potential than my actual.

Once I took myself through multiple ego deaths (and counting) I was able to just be me. Yes, sometimes it would hurt if I shared my truth and it wasn’t agreed or resonated with AND I discovered I was more than okay. And I preferred that level of honesty in intimacy than to pretend, contort or control.

Ego deaths are where we choose to believe that there are other ways to identify in the world. We needn’t be so unhealthily and obsessively attached to only one or singular way of being. We are not threatened by change or apparent “rejection”. We embrace transformation and choose to adapt.

There is more, but it begins here.

What are you willing to step into in order to have people really see you?

One is glad to be of service.

Photo: https://unsplash.com/@jfelise

STEFANOS SIFANDOS

Relational Alchemist, Speaker & Author