Our deepest work.

Our deepest work is to learn to open in the places we are inclined toward closure, and our most intimate relationships hold the keys to where those places are.

These are the most painful parts of intimacy, and the reason many avoid it at all cost, or run the second it gets hard. And if we can lean in and open in those places, they will also reveal the biggest gifts.

It’s a humbling thing indeed to admit to ourselves that we might have behaviors that are destructive. Well, I’m here to report that we ALL do, and the sooner you are willing to take an honest look at those behaviors, the sooner they will stop governing your life and the dynamics in your relationships.

Relationships are the most powerful mirror we have to show us our most destructive behaviors — the places we go when we feel the most vulnerable, the most insecure, and the most scared. Until we learn otherwise, this will remain our instinctive response to the closure of our hearts, because ouch! That hurts!

Some people isolate and emotionally hide. Some people project onto others and refuse to take responsibility for their own impact. Others deflect, escaping the very drama they created. Others become cruel, hard, and emotionally numb. Others lean heavily on detachment and are so aloof that intimacy feels elusive. And others still become so absorbed in self-pity that they create an entire vortex of victimhood around them, mastering the art of complaining.

The closer you get to someone, the more likely one or more of these traits will float up to the surface, giving you the humbling opportunity to begin freeing yourself from its reigns.

Learning to know what closure looks and feels like for you is the first step. The second is noticing it when it’s happening. The third is choosing to lean in and open when every cell in your body wants to lean out and close off, and to keep leaning in, over and over again, until your heart is no longer able to close ever again.

This is the work we do in Unbound. 🙏🏻❤️