I Want to Hold the Hand Within Your Heart

"I want to hold the hand inside you. I want to take a breath that's true."

Mazzy Star, Fade Into You

Lasting relationships have strong foundations, and those foundations are built gradually from within. They’re built by two people who are willing to be sincerely vulnerable—emotionally naked, completely honest and genuinely truthful-- before each other. They’re built by people who recognize their individual limitations, and own them the same way they own their personal assets. These are people who honestly say to each other “Here I am. This is the REAL me. Love me as I am and I will love you as you are. Together, let’s build a strong relationship that will weather the sandstorms of our shortcomings and thrive on the rainbows of our strengths. Accept me as I am or walk away. I don’t waste my time with fakes.”

Before such lasting relationships can be built, however, both persons involved must be emotionally mature; meaning they’ve taken the time to go soul-deep inside themselves. They know who they are and they have no shame about who they are. They’ve sifted through their baggage from the past, gotten beyond their guilt, polished-up their wisdom and thrown their emotional-garbage into the merciful flames of Unconditional Love. They wear themselves well by being kind and compassionate with themselves; by loving who they are. And their new enlightened state of being has allowed them to empathize with the shortcomings of others in the same way they are compassionate with their own shortcomings. They no longer look for fault in others and they are prepared to accept the faults of others as they encounter them; knowing that real love looks beyond all imperfections.

Emotionally mature people long to hold hands physically, but even more so, they long to hold the hands inside each other. They long to hold hands within by sharing the truest inner-workings of their hearts. They want to share their every fear, their every discomfort, their every quirk—their total dark side the other, knowing that they will be accepted and loved despite all of their imperfections by the other. It’s the deepest desire of their entire being to remove the mask imposed on them by family, religion and society—to truly be free to take that breath that’s true and to float like butterflies into each other’s accepting arms.

If you long for such genuine intimacy, such tremendous freedom to be the very person that God created you to be, then start by being genuine with yourself. Do your emotional homework. Decide to be completely open with yourself and then with the someone who feels safe. Give them space enough to allow them to reciprocate—or to walk away. If they reciprocate, you’ll begin the journey to eternal fulfillment. And if they walk away, you’ll have wasted little time on someone who isn’t right for you. After feeling the initial disappointment, you’ll find the Inner-Strength to face your loss, grieve it and move on till you find that person who’s longing to know the real you. And emotional paradise can begin.


(Mazzy Star is an American Indie band from Santa Monica, California. "Fade Into You" is from their 1993 album So Tonight That I Might See.)