Our Need for Intimacy and the Patterns We Don’t Know We’re Running
Hypnosis
Our Love Life can be epic but it doesn't have to be an epic tragedy! Emotion always precedes logic when it comes to Love. Hypnosis speaks to this timeline. So what are you waiting for? Are you game to be proactive? It might just be rewarding.
Hypnosis is the great leveller, because it shows us that no matter what our folly, there’s usually a reason shared by all of us: our human condition. And nowhere are our follies perhaps more poignant than through our need for intimacy. When we are “in love”, our illusions may be blissful. Until one day we wake from our slumber. Lucky are we if we wake to discover that reality is even better, deeper and more enduring than that first kiss. But not all of us experience this.
And when the need for intimacy is not adequately fulfilled, the subconscious can become remarkably creative in finding ways to fulfil it.
So what exactly is this need we call intimacy?
If we take our cue from Mark Tyrrell’s little book of needs, The Dark Side of Human Needs: Help Clients Answer the Question “Why Do I Do That?” and Stop Self Sabotage, we begin to see how all kinds of strange things can happen when human beings try to find people with whom they can safely share themselves. And intimacy doesn’t necessarily mean a romantic partner.
We may have an exceptionally close friend whom we trust completely. Somebody who really knows us. Somebody with whom we don’t have to perform. Somebody around whom we can simply be ourselves.
“We know that good relationships matter when it comes to health and happiness,” Mark reminds us.
But our need for connection can also become entangled with fear, dependency, safety, attention, control and our earlier experiences of relationships. Popular psychology has given names to some extreme examples of this attachment under difficult circumstances, such as Stockholm syndrome and the so-called Florence Nightingale effect. These labels themselves are debated, but the wider psychological principle is important: human beings can form powerful attachments in circumstances that, viewed from the outside, appear irrational. Sometimes even an abuser can become associated with the fulfilment of an important emotional need. None of us consciously sets out to be hoodwinked.
We don't ordinarily wake one morning and decide:
"Today I think I'll enter a relationship that makes me miserable."
Yet when important needs remain unmet, our subconscious may accept compromises our conscious mind would never deliberately negotiate.
And this is where understanding pattern matching becomes incredibly useful.
We might unconsciously think: "He reminds me so much of my dad. I understand why he behaves like that."
Or:
"She may not be happy, but I need her here. Nobody else makes me feel the way she does."
Or perhaps:
"At least this relationship isn't as bad as the one I grew up watching."
And gradually, without ever consciously choosing it, we can begin building a life around a pattern rather than around the life we actually want.
So how can hypnosis help us find a mate, and, just as importantly, help us contribute to our relationships fairly, lovingly and authentically?
We all know intellectual understanding alone doesn't always change behaviour.
Many people in deeply unhappy relationships already know that something isn't right.
They can explain it logically.
They may tell their friends exactly why they should leave.
They may even hear themselves saying the words.
And yet something deeper says:
"Stay."
Like an animal sitting inside a cage whose gate has been left open. Why?
And there is another uncomfortable question worth asking.
What happens when we are the one unconsciously creating the cage?
When another human keeps compromising themselves to accommodate us?
When their need for intimacy keeps them close while some of their other needs slowly disappear?
Again, we come back to needs. We've all got them! None of us are immune. But the good news is that even our worst behaviours when it comes to how we find ways to fulfill our needs for intimacy rarely if ever reflect our identities. So we are always empowered to make better choices. This might sound strange but many people have been surprised when they really get to know themselves, and how amazing they truly are, and especially how capable we all are at fulfilling our needs with better pattern matches! Even when it comes to intimacy.
We may remain in situations because the need for intimacy is being fulfilled sufficiently to compensate, at least temporarily, for what is being lost elsewhere.
Faulty Pattern Matches
So what are faulty pattern matches, and what have they got to do with hypnosis? And perhaps the question many people really want answered: How do I find that special someone without repeating the same old story?
Very often, when we find ourselves in emotional turmoil, we discover that more than one need is involved, both in how we got ourselves into the situation and how we might find our way out. Pattern matches are essentially the templates through which we interpret the world. They are constructed from what we have experienced, witnessed, imagined, learned and repeatedly felt.
If Mum and Dad had a long and happy marriage and were attentive to one another, that may become part of your unconscious understanding of what an intimate relationship looks like. But suppose Mum and Dad were fine some days and terrifying on others. Perhaps there were screaming matches. Perhaps there were black eyes. Perhaps everyone learned to walk on eggshells. That becomes information too.
One child may learn:
"I will never tolerate that."
Another may learn:
"If I stay quiet, everything will be okay."
Neither child consciously writes these rules down.
But patterns can quietly become expectations.
And an adult who learned that subservience prevents conflict may later choose a partner who does not treat them as an equal and genuinely believe the relationship is acceptable because:
"At least he doesn't hit me."
The unconscious benchmark may not be:
"Am I flourishing?"
It may simply be:
"Am I safer than I was before?"
Then suddenly the pattern becomes visible.
Perhaps: Having boundaries and speaking up for myself has no place in an intimate relationship. Interestingly, this person may behave completely differently somewhere else. At work they may become forceful. Controlling. Argumentative. Determined to be heard.
Which brings us to another important idea.
The path is through our behaviours, habits and emotions
Imagine somebody who appears to have an anger-management problem but only at work. At home, that same person is endlessly accommodating. Is anger really the primary problem? Or has their need for intimacy overridden their need for autonomy and control so completely at home that their unmet need comes bursting out somewhere safer?
Our needs negotiate with one another. Most of these negotiations take place outside conscious awareness. Yet our lives leave clues everywhere.
Our behaviours.
Our habits.
Our reactions.
The relationships we repeatedly choose.
The conversations we avoid.
The things that disproportionately irritate us.
The places where we cannot say no.
The situations in which we desperately need reassurance.
Even the things we insist don't bother us at all can sometimes be interesting places to look.
And perhaps, as you read this, you might begin noticing one or two patterns of your own.
Not judging them.
Just noticing.
Because every pattern originally had a purpose. At some point your mind learned:
"This helps."
"This keeps me safe."
"This gets me love."
"This prevents rejection."
"This keeps the peace."
And when the subconscious discovers something that appears to work, it tends to repeat it.
Again.
And again.
Until one day we realise that a strategy developed for another time, another person or another stage of life is still quietly making decisions for us.
And this is where hypnosis becomes fascinating
Hypnosis is about you taking control of your mind.
Used well, hypnosis can help us become curious about the automatic processes already influencing us. Because there can be a very big difference between knowing something consciously and feeling it instinctively.
You might consciously know:
"I deserve to be treated with respect."
Yet somewhere deeper there may still be an old association:
"If I disagree, people leave."
Consciously you might think:
"I want a loving relationship."
While another part of you has learned:
"Love means rescuing somebody."
Or:
"Love means being needed."
Or:
"Love means never needing anything myself."
This is why simply telling ourselves to "make better choices" is sometimes spectacularly ineffective. The old pattern may be operating long before conscious reasoning arrives.
Hypnosis gives us an opportunity to slow that process down.
To notice.
To question.
To rehearse something different.
And, importantly, to allow the mind to discover that there may now be more than one way to meet a need because perhaps intimacy doesn't require surrendering autonomy.
Perhaps love doesn't require rescuing someone.
Perhaps being wanted is different from being needed.
Perhaps disagreement doesn't automatically mean abandonment.
Perhaps saying "no" doesn't destroy intimacy.
Perhaps it can actually make real intimacy possible.
And once the mind begins discovering alternative patterns, something interesting can happen. The old response may no longer feel quite so inevitable. There can be a small space between the feeling and the reaction.
And inside that space is choice.
What does healthy intimacy actually feel like?
Perhaps this is one of the most useful questions we can ask ourselves.
Not: "Who will love me?"
But:
"Who am I able to become when I feel safe enough to love and be loved?"
Can I speak?
Can I listen?
Can I disagree?
Can I grow?
Can the other person grow?
Can we be close without possessing one another?
Can I tolerate their independence without experiencing it as rejection?
Can I allow myself independence without experiencing it as betrayal?
Can I say what I need?
Can they?
And can we remain curious about one another rather than assuming we already know?
Because intimacy isn't simply proximity. It isn't somebody being permanently available. It isn't dependency. And it isn't losing ourselves inside another person.
At its best, perhaps intimacy contains something wonderfully paradoxical:
Two separate people who feel safe enough to be genuinely known.
Maybe the most useful relationship work begins not with asking:
"How do I make this person love me?"
but with becoming curious about:
"What does my mind currently recognise as love?"
When we understand the patterns through which we recognise love, safety, attention and belonging, we become much more able to choose rather than simply repeat.
Hypnosis can provide a remarkably gentle place in which to begin that conversation with ourselves. Sometimes we don't need to fight an old pattern at all. Maybe we just simply want to understand what it was trying to achieve...
thank it for doing its job...and show the mind that there are now better ways to meet the same human need.
Our need for intimacy makes us Human. It is celebrated.
The goal isn't to stop needing people, even if we could. What would it be like if we got better at recognising the people, relationships and patterns through which both people get to flourish?
Meeting Our Needs Events - Practical Hypnosis
At Counselling Confidence at Capalaba we run regular 'Meeting your needs get-togethers'. We also run these periodically, depending on numbers, online. Our face to face meetups are limited to 6-9 people at any time. And we also like to keep our online meetups small with these groups.
If you would like to get involved in these you can check out our website or drop me a line and let me know which, or all, needs you'd be interested in throwing ideas around, in a safe group environment. My contribution will be ideas for how you can use hypnosis to reach your goals in any of these areas. Afterall, just about everything we've ever wanted and truly valued can be discussed from the basic need that desire enshrines. You might just discover that you have so many more options than you previously though!t! People do.
These meetings can be really fun, even funny, sometimes there are tears, but mostly we all get to feel more empowered and supported in our on-going quests to really know ourselves and others better.
