What A Person Gets In Proximity - Relationships, Self-development

Intimate relationships are fundamental to personal growth and maturity. They are the psychological air that promotes health and well-being. Meaningful relationships in adolescence and adulthood provide support and challenge for interpersonal and intrapersonal growth on many levels. They broaden our perspective, deepen our understanding of reciprocity, and help us move beyond our own needs. It is in this dynamic connection that we can see the value of agreement and conflict

Trust and psychological autonomy

Close relationships are the environment in which our self-esteem and shared inner experiences of intimacy develop. Over time, we move from self-attitude to relationship. This is an important milestone in the development of personality.

When you are embedded in a relationship, you cannot keep your feelings separate from the feelings you feel in the relationship. As trust builds, the relationship and each individual within it can mature to the point that they have ways of developing differentiation and integration. Both our self-esteem and our relationships are becoming deeper and more complex.

Why does it matter? If the health of a relationship is determined by the initial feelings of falling in love or the emergence of romantic love, then the inevitable challenge of commitment and relationship building will seem like the end, not the beginning of a new phase.

Alternative math

1 + 1 = 3: In the early stages of a relationship, 1 + 1 = 1 in terms of development, because this is what a person gets from a relationship that is front and center. Separate walls of ego disintegration are manifested in the dizzying sense of excitement and the constant intrusion of a foreign being into the present situation. Love songs give this experience the meaning of "you are always in my thoughts", because with crumbling boundaries - "I am not without you." While it's poetic to sing about differentiating and integrating a more complex sense of self, over time we can fix it.

1 + 1 = 3 when we can have relationships instead of being embedded in them. In this new developmental space, there is you, me and relationships. We can be self-reliant in good times and troubled times.

Conflict = an opportunity to grow

With awareness of ourselves and the other, we can develop to such an extent that we understand that we see the world not as it is. We build it based on our understanding. This process unfolds endlessly as you increase your awareness, you see the world in a more complex way, and therefore exhaust your current level of understanding. A new, more complex vision can be envisioned in this space. Development goes on continuously, pushing us against the walls and destroying them. At the same time, our view is constantly expanding. But in the end, no matter how wide it is, it always remains incomplete. As you evolve, you constantly “push the edge” of awareness / ignorance and experience great difficulty in doing so.

"We see the world not so, how it is, and so what we do - or be what set him to see."

Stephen Covey, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"

At the edges of our development, relationships become mirrors for our inner desires to grow and get bigger. The ego / self inevitably touches on ideas and actions that are inconsistent with our current sense of reality, and this often happens during the ups and downs of relationships. There is no need to pursue problems as they often occur in authentic life (differentiation) and belonging (integration) based on meaning.

The map is not a territory

Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity.

In this area, conflicts become predictions of our deepest desires and shortcomings. With time and effort (something that no one ever sees in a relationship on screens), you can mature into self-awareness, understanding conflict as an opportunity to increase your depth as a person and a partner.

Relationships are more than a basic need. They are critical to developing and expanding our self-esteem, others and how the world works. What is seen through this developmental lens is for better or worse parts of the relationship process. In terms of growing and deepening communication, natural ups and downs in relationships with each other have value in the development process.

Based on the article:

Panepinto JC For Better or Worse: Looking at Intimate Relationships Though a Developmental Lens. URL: psychcentral.com/blog/for-better-or-worse-looking-at-intimate-relationships-though-a-developmental-lens/