INTIMACY – Into me see – To connect with another person, you really need to be able to see into me, and I have to be able to see into you. You have to look into where they are and focus completely on them, putting your own personal agendas on the side.

Seeing Deeply
What does it mean to really know and understand another person? How many of us take the time and mental space to thoroughly and deeply get to know the other person, especially our partner?

Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “We don’t love other people, but we love our version of them.”

Knowing You on Your Terms
We create a version of our friend, our space, or our child in our mind, and that is what we love. But do I ever take the time and energy to get to know you on your terms and not just on my terms?

Disagreeing Can be a Source of Enlightenment
Interestingly, a person can sometimes help you, and vice versa, by disagreeing with them, by being against them. That doesn’t mean you should walk out disagreeing with everyone. Especially with those close to us, we often see disagreement as a source of contention, but it should be seen as a source of enlightenment.

Broadening of Horizons
Disagreeing with me allows me to broaden my horizons and see a larger perspective on life. So why do so many of us go crazy when someone disagrees with us, especially if that person is in our house? The greatest blessing is a challenge that demonstrates a perspective we may not have instinctively embraced due to the limitation of our character. And which character is not limited?

However, if I’m only against you, it won’t work. If I want to help you, part of being there for somebody is that we often disagree. We have divergent personalities, divergent views, and it’s when I can create space for your view and your perspective that my own life can get enhanced. I don’t become a prisoner of my own stereotype, my own narrowness, my own ego, my own insecurities. Then I can actually get to know you and understand who you are. It does, however, take time to study who your partner is.

And the same is true of other relationships. The real ability to know who that other person is, not only how you define them on your terms and what you expect from them, but rather listening deeply to them and being there for them on their terms rather than yours.

If I Don’t Love Me, Then I’m Empty
Somebody who is loved knows what it means to give love to someone else. But if I don’t feel loved, I can’t give what I don’t have. If I hate and despise myself in a very deep place, can I love you? I could love you out of guilt or because I feel there is nothing in me to love. But if my ‘I’ is really shattered, and my ‘I’ has no real value, can I truly embrace you as another human being? You can only give what you have to someone else.

But it goes a step deeper – when a person doesn’t really respect their core identity, they could never really love because they can never afford to suspend themselves and create space for others. They are always trying to fill a bottomless pit, an endless void to feel their own value.

On a practical level, if I’m in a conversation with you, my spouse, or a friend, I’m always searching for validation, recognition, approval, somebody to tell me or at least intimate to me that I’m good, I’m worthy, I’m fine, I’m lovable, I’m a great guy, I’m skinny, I’m handsome, I’m slim, and whatever other adjectives you like. But the bottom line is that I have to fill that void because I don’t have it on my own. I don’t feel that I really exist because I don’t like myself.

If my “I” is shattered, then how can I really be here for you?

So when the spouse comes home and starts sharing their day and how difficult it was, it’s very hard for this person to listen and empathize because they are waiting for their own void to be filled by the other person. They’re waiting for compliments, accolades, approval, and validation. It’s very hard for me to be here for you when my ‘I’ is completely shattered or partially shattered.

Only when I’m in a wholesome space with a clear mind, can I suspend myself and really be here for you on your terms. And now I can be here for you so you can be here for me.

Nothing can shatter the Universal core of who you truly are. 
If someone does feel that void, it’s because they lack the understanding of a clear mind to find it within themselves. A clear mind is the realization that there is an unconditional love of the universal intelligence behind all life. Nothing can shatter their core dignity. No force, no abuse, no aggressor in the world can take away the infinite value and dignity of your core soul.

Going Beyond the Compliments
No abuse can destroy the universal intelligence behind life, no aggression can deny you from your essential divine, sacred, and wholesome core of who you truly are. It’s nice to get compliments, validation, I love it. But the question is, am I dependent on it? Do I need it like oxygen? How do I deal with it when I don’t get it? If I have a clear mind, then I can love, I can just be there for somebody else.

Dropping of the Ego to Get Clear About Who We Truly Are
Sometimes people carry around a toxic message of self-sabotage throughout all their relationships without even realizing it. They have these washing machines on their shoulders with negative self-sabotaging thoughts spinning around. They can never really breathe and listen to the other because there’s so much internal unresolved pressure. This is where a clear mind comes in. Many of us are experts on everyone else except ourselves. We know who everybody else is, but it can be challenging to drop our own ego and get clear enough to discover ourselves.

In relationships, it’s even more toxic because couples project on each other things that have nothing to do with the other person, it has completely to do with them.

If my “I” is dependent on your you – then I can’t authentically be there for you.

The Rabbi of Kotz once said, “If ‘I’ am ‘I’ because you are you and you are you because ‘I’ am ‘I,’ then ‘I’ am not I, and you are not you. But if ‘I’ am ‘I’ because ‘I’ am ‘I,’ and you are you because you are you, then ‘I’ am ‘I’ and you are you.”

And now we can begin a relationship. The Rabbi of Kotz, one of the great Chassidic masters Rabbi Menachem Mendel Morgenstern who lived in the 19th century and passed away in 1859 said this, and I think he meant this:

If my entire “I” is defined by you, then “I” am not “I,” and you are not you. If your you is based on “I” and my “I” is based on you, there is no relationship. There is such entanglement, so much toxicity, so much blame, there is so much lack of transparency and lack of clarity that real relationship doesn’t take place. 

Love with Boundaries 
On the other hand, if ‘I’ am ‘I’, and you are you – let’s talk. Now let’s fight, let’s argue, now let’s joke. But now you and I both have boundaries. And to develop those honest boundaries is a great feat. Every couple I know either complains – there is no passion or there is so much passion we’re killing each other.

What Really Gets You Angry Is Not What You First Think 
In any relationship where somebody makes a comment and it gets you really upset inside, and your brain goes haywire, you implode on the inside. When you’re angry, it’s hard to think inside. But when you calm down, and you’re willing to go deep down inside yourself and be brutally honest, you will usually find that what was ticking you off wasn’t the actual word the other person said; it was your thinking about what they said that triggered some past memory from yourself. So when you’re getting upset at the other person, they are just bringing up something in you that is an old past thought that stressed you out.

Laughter Is the Key 
What really gets people to laugh? The truth, discomfort, something sharp. A joke has a form of release through contrast and paradoxes. The great comedian takes you to the unexpected, and you laugh because it’s something unusual that’s usually not in your daily experience.

The Secret of Happiness Is the Ability to Laugh at Your Own Differences 
All humor comes from the unexpected. It’s natural for people to get into a conflict. I have my Ego, you have yours. I have my idiosyncrasies, you have yours. For a couple to get into a fight – that’s natural, that’s expected. When you can laugh, you can have a successful relationship. What does it mean to laugh? Celebrating the unexpected. It’s natural to have fights, but the secret of happiness is the ability to be able to laugh at your differences.

All Creations Are Predictable Except One
It’s the purpose of creation because before creation, everything was predictable, and even within creation, everything is predictable. Every creature and everything, excluding quantum mechanics, but at least everything we can observe is predictable, except for one thing – that’s the human race. We have the ability to be unpredictable and therefore make the universal intelligence behind all life laugh.

I may be in the mood of not buying flowers for my wife, and despite my mood, I buy the roses with a beautiful card. And the universal intelligence behind life laughs because that was an unexpected phenomenon.

Happiness Occurs When We Can Acknowledge Our Differences and Laugh It Off
Our paths are divergent. For us to separate, that would be normal. For us to get divorced, that’s normal. A guy comes to his Rabbi, “I want to get divorced!” So the Rabbi answers, “who doesn’t?” 

Conflicts are created by human beings. We fight, and we all have issues. The uniqueness of a powerful relationship is the ability to laugh, the ability to create an unexpected punch line.

We Were Created to Do the Unexpected
We were created to challenge our Egos. So next time someone says something that upsets you, what would happen if you would realize that it is just your interpretation which could be laughed off rather than taken so seriously? One of the fundamental rules of the mind is that when you change the meaning and interpretation, everything changes.