Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us. Like a chemical mixture, if one of us is changed, both of us will be. Will we grow in self-actualization, or will it destroy us? The one thing we can be certain of is that if we let ourselves fully into the relationship for good or evil, we will not come out unaffected. Rollo May
About This Quote

Letting someone in can be a scary thing. Maybe they’re the one you want, but you’re not sure how they will change your life or make you feel. You might be afraid that they will judge you and make you uncomfortable. Or maybe it’s the other way around—you might be afraid that they won’t love you back if you trust them.

Regardless, the big risk is that it will change you. You might end up feeling vulnerable or exposed or embarrassed or vulnerable all over again. It is easy to feel vulnerable after letting someone in, but it’s good to remember that vulnerability is what allows intimacy to blossom and soaks every relationship full of strength and beauty.

Source: The Courage To Create

Some Similar Quotes
  1. In advising the heads of state to learn from tragedy rather than perpetuate its existence Robert Kennedy excalimed, "Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live." We have a tendency to dwell on tragedy and use... - Megan Karasch

  2. To wisely live your life, you don't need to know much Just remember two main rules for the beginning: You better starve, than eat whatever And better be alone, than with whoever. - Anonymous

  3. Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. - Nelson Algren

  4. I don't know what to say to fill the silence. I don't know how to fix this. It seems wrong to leave him, but I have to. There's no compromise, no alternative. Things just weren't meant to be, which seems like a pansy-ass thing to... - H.M. Ward

  5. The seeking of a mate shall be undertaken with due preparation and care. A life-bond should never be contemplated as a light thing--unlike a legal union or sanctified joining, the sealing of souls CANNOT be severed. When a mate is SOULBOUND to another-- L I... - Deidre Knight

More Quotes By Rollo May
  1. It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when they have lost their way.

  2. We in our age are faced with a strange paradox. Never before have we had so much information in bits and pieces flooded upon us by radio and television and satellite, yet never before have we had so little inner certainty about our own being....

  3. Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us. Like a chemical mixture, if one of us is changed, both of us will be. Will we grow in self-actualization, or will it destroy us? The...

  4. Tenderness emerges from the fact that the two persons, longing, as all individuals do, to overcome the separateness and isolation to which we are all heir because we are individuals, can participate in a relationship that, for the moment, is not of two isolated selves...

  5. It is interesting to note how many of the great scientific discoveries begin as myths.

Related Topics