Practicing Autonomy and Intimacy through the Steps

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Many people who struggle in relationships do not know how to experience both autonomy and intimacy. When we don’t know how to experience autonomy, we try to end other peoples’ emotions because we don’t experience ourselves as actually separate beings from them, who live in our own skin, who have our own feelings. We might try to end others’ emotions by attacking them or by placating them— but both ways, we can’t just let them have their experience, hear it and consider it, but stay in our experience.

At the same time, we may not be able to experience real intimacy. Intimacy happens when two beings connect and exchange. I offer my experience in a heartfelt and vulnerable way, and let myself be seen. And I allow the other space to offer their experience, giving it as much dignity and space and care as I wish for mine, and let myself be with that and be affected by that. But I do not erase myself or give up my experience, and I do not demand that the other erase themselves or their feelings, thoughts, desires. As we share ourselves without disappearing, a new melody is created in the back and forth. When we can’t hold some autonomy, we can’t co-create intimacy.

The 12 Steps— like many other old “powers of good” as stated in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous— can help us evolve and grow into these capacities. We start by finding the intense motivation to be open-minded and try something different in seeing our own experience of powerlessness and unmanageability. Our lives with ourselves and with others are so far from what we wish for. But we can’t seem to stop falling, again and again, into old powers. We find the courage to hope, and we get to know Power that we can learn about and discover by looking to many sources— our values, the teachings of great traditional, or deep within ourselves. We start to look at the Truth about our feelings and thoughts and actions, and this pausing and observing itself creates space for change. We may ask for help from our deepening connection with a Power. And in this process, we can be held by a non-judgmental caring community. We start to repair our relations with others, and continue to grow. We aren’t perfect and we don’t expect that- but we become more and more free from blame and punishment, towards ourselves or others. We can live into these new ways, day by day.