Having just viewed the film, "Brokeback Mountain", I am still feeling its impact. Love and aloneness, connection and separation, tenderness and rage, emotional shutdown and intensity, lightness AND darkness...each theme was presented in such a raw, complex and honest way…a true to life way. Because of this, I was mesmerized, and, at times, moved to tears.
I see the power of this story being in its telling from a heart-filled place. There’s an intimacy that’s created in just watching it unfold and feeling part of the experience of the characters on the screen. We got to see their realness. We identify with their humanness. Even its actors gained our admiration by risking being so vulnerable in controversial roles.
Two trains of thought emerge for me. Firstly, intimacy is born from the sharing of this kind of vulnerability and honesty. When I deeply share what’s happening for me, I feel connected to myself; hearing someone share at that level with me, I feel close and open to them. What I’ve learned is that level of transparency can shift a relationship to deep levels of intimacy that being ‘strong’ and hiding our true feelings do not touch.
This level of sharing isn’t about blaming or analyzing or trying to control the other person. It’s about being connected to oneself and sharing from that place just for the sake of being seen in a real way. As Susan Campbell writes in Getting Real, "The goal of authentic self-expression is not to get the other to change".
I remember being with others who I labeled as controlling because they would get angry if I didn’t say what pleased them. I felt like being in their presence meant walking on eggshells…carefully choosing my words and actions so they wouldn’t get angry with me. Since then, I’ve learned that I, too, was controlling by trying to control their reaction to me. My intent was to feel safe, be right, look good…instead of being real. I was looking to others to feel whole rather than being "at one with myself’.
What have you noticed when you share with someone from a deep place in yourself? When you stay with your own experience and share that, what changes for you and your relationships?
The other line of reflection that the film, "Brokeback Mountain" takes me is toward the exploration of loneliness. In my own journey, I know the feeling of being in love…and I know the feeling of loneliness within a relationship. There were times in my life that my wanting to avoid the feeling kept me in relationships longer than was healthy. The bottom line is loneliness and separation is a feeling that most of us want to avoid. And running from our loneliness doesn’t work. It follows us whether we’re in or out of relationship. When we own our loneliness and allow ourselves to feel it, we may stop old patterns that actually stop us from having real intimacy in our lives.
How alone do you feel when you are wearing a mask to hide your true self? How do you believe other people truly love you if you know that they rarely get to see who you really are at your core?
Being with all parts of us is risky. Sharing all of who we are with the people in our lives with whom we want to connect can be a gamble. Usually the path is toward real intimacy, beginning with us. ~
