To truly be in relationship is a difficult thing. Our greatest desire is to be connected and intimate with someone and so, consequently, our greatest fear is that will not happen. This fear plays out in the many ways we throw up defenses that prevent intimacy from occurring. Why do we do that? Because we are afraid of rejection, abandonment, not getting the relationship we desire. Even when we have what seems like opportunity for intimacy, we protect ourselves from it to avoid risk. The risk is requisite to trust. Even in what we would call close relationships with trusted people, we activate defenses which prevent us from connecting.

How does this look in our lives? Those of us who are avoidant (introverts?) look for any reason to steer clear of relationship and then blame others for not offering us intimacy just the way we want it. Others do not respond quickly enough or the exact way we demand. Others of us constantly seek out connection, but never really wait and trust, needing to constantly check in or determine others’ responses for them, rather than letting them respond in their own way. We move toward others for relationship, but never really open up and trust. These orientations, whether moving away or toward others, are two sides of the same coin. Neither are necessarily trusting.

What happens in a genuine give-and-take relationship is that there is the transmission of something between the two – love, concern, or even just instrumental care. What is needed for this transmission to take place is actually quite simple. The receiver must be open and seek (which requires vulnerability), and he or she must stop and wait for the other person to respond. We do not often do this. We either close ourselves off from connection, or we are constantly seeking and never stepping back and waiting for others to care for us. We never get what we want because we don’t open ourselves, and then wait and trust.

You may believe you are a trusting person, but you have ways you are protecting yourself and preventing connection. This happens in our relationships with each other and with God. The work is to practice letting down these defenses in some of the opportunities before us. Our defenses play out subtly in even our closest relationships. Trust requires risk. It requires gaining insight into how you are self-protecting and for you to let down these defenses on a regular basis.