How our Inevitable Fear of Life prevents us from commitment
Commitment & Intimacy
Commitment
in a relationship is not just hard for men, it is for everyone. When
I say commitment, I'm not just talking about getting married, being
in a monogamous relationship, buying a house, having a dog and kids
together. It has to do with commitment to yourself and to life
itself. It's being intimate with your partner on a profound level
that few people achieve, yet everyone has the capacity.
Whether
your Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Atheist or Agnostic and
you've read the Bible or the Qu r’an a hundred times or that you
believe in reincarnation or none of the above. No one REALLY knows
for a fact what happens when we die. You can believe all you want,
but you'll never be able to be 100% sure of the outcome. The only
thing we are actually sure of is that we are born, we live and then
we die. That is one of the reasons that people are afraid of truly
living.
Fear
of Life
True
commitment to life is investing your entire self to making the most
of the few years we have on Earth. It's feeling joy, sadness, anger,
passion, love, having a good taste of what life has to offer us. You
could think that it's an easy task to achieve for most, but think
again. Since we only have one life to live that we are sure of, we
could imagine that we would all want to be happy and enjoy it to the
fullest. What most people don't want to admit in enjoying life to
its fullest is that it comes with a huge risk...you
lose it all
when death comes knocking at your door. That's a hard feat for anyone
to accept and go through.
Commitment
to your partner
What
does commitment to your partner have to do with death or our fear of
life? Commitment to a relationship is putting effort and hard work
into building something with that person. These « team
projects » that you co-create with your lover bring lots of
joy, sometimes disappointments and at the end you feel a sense of
accomplishment. You grow closer, more intimate and your feelings
deepen for one another. The love you have for yourself, your partner
and potentially your kids create a sense of fulfillment. Knowing that
you may never know or feel that sensation again can be quite scary.
It's quite understandable not to want to lose such a thing, so
better to never have it at all.
Therefore, people escape from commitment to a partner not so much
because of the hardships it sometimes entails, but of the happiness
it can make us feel.
How
can I overcome this?
Some
may want to know how you get passed your fear of life and commit to
yourself, your partner and life! Unfortunately, there is no easy
answer, because we all have to go through and passed our anxiety of
death in our own way. Each of us has chosen
a path to take and we have to live with the good and the bad of each
of the situations.
Interested in knowing more about commitment, intimacy and our fear of life: Read on these books from which this text was inspired from.
Do you want to be more intimate with you partner and establish a profound commitment with yourself, your partner and life.
Visit
the workshop description on Intimacy and desire and subscribe
Francois Renaud M.A.
