Dive Deeper Into Intimacy

Day 6 on ‘Dive Deeper Into Intimacy’ of ‘Relationships’ Chapter

From Remembering Series

[Listen to the audio with guided alignment at the end]

“The truth is we human cannot thrive alone. We desperately want to belong to each other and the highest truth of all is that in a universe where oneness is the highest truth of all, there is nothing in this universe that we don’t belong with and there is nothing in existence that doesn’t belong with us.”

Teal Swan

Let’s dive deeper into into-me-see where we explore different aspects of intimacy, how we can have intimacy with others with some techniques we can apply in life.

First, understand that there are 4 aspects of intimacy: physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, intellectual intimacy, and spiritual intimacy.

The 4 aspects are excerpt From: Matthew Kelly. “The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved.”

Physical Intimacy

It begins with a handshake, a smile, or a kiss on the cheek. All our relationship have a physical aspect. Even in a relationship that is completely confined to the telephone or to cyberspace, you are still experiencing the other person through your senses either speaking and listening or sitting, typing, and reading. Our physical bodies is how we experience everything in life.

Emotional Intimacy

“Emotional intimacy is much harder to achieve than physical intimacy. It requires a humility and vulnerability that most of us are simply not comfortable with at first. Even in the best relationship, with the most genuine person, it takes time for us to be convinced that it is safe to let our guard down. And if we have been hurt or betrayed in the past, it may take longer.”

“In the emotional realm, intimacy with self and others is driven by observation—self-observation, in the first place, knowing how certain people, situations, circumstances, and opportunities make you feel; observation of others, in the second place, opening your eyes, ears, and heart to how people respond to you.”

Intellectual Intimacy

“Like emotional intimacy, it takes longer to establish than physical intimacy does. The creation of intellectual intimacy requires both a variety of experiences and a number of experiences. It is established through conversation, by experiencing different cultural and political events, and in any number of ways that draw out our own personal philosophy of life.”

“It is important to note that while people who have similar views may establish intellectual intimacy faster at the beginning of a relationship, you need not have identical points of view on all issues to sustain a vibrant relationship. Keeping an open mind is an important part of intellectual intimacy. Intellectual intimacy is much more than simply knowing what a person thinks and believes about a variety of issues or topics. It is about knowing how a person thinks—what drives, inspires, and motivates his or her ideas and opinions.”

Spiritual Intimacy

“Spiritual intimacy is the rarest and the most elusive form of intimacy. Some couples have identical traditional religious beliefs, while other couples who enjoy this rare intimacy have tremendously different beliefs or ways of expressing their beliefs.
Spiritual intimacy begins with a respect for each other and blossoms in the idea that the lover will do everything within his or her power to help the beloved become the-best-version-of-himself or herself. The first purpose of every relationship is to help each other become the-best-version-of-ourselves.”

“Spiritual intimacy is best approached as an open-minded adventure in which we seek to discover the truth of every situation and to apply that truth as we strive to help each other become the-best-version-of-ourselves.”

The point is that each of the four aspects of a person should be nurtured equally. It is the maturity of all four that creates harmony and fulfilment for the whole person.

Next, we explore deeper on how to be intimate with others, starting from ourselves.

The following sharing except from the book “Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other” by OSHO and the book “The Anatomy of Loneliness: How to Find Your Way Back to Connection” by Teal Swan.

One should be capable of being alone, utterly alone, and yet tremendously blissful. Then you can love. Then your love is no longer a need but a sharing, no longer a necessity. You will not become dependent on the people you love. You will share— and sharing is beautiful.

OSHO

Intimacy with others

When two lovers are really open to each other, when they are not afraid of each other and not hiding anything from each other, that is intimacy. When they can say each and everything without any fear that the other will be offended or hurt. . . . If the lover thinks the other will be offended, then the intimacy is not yet deep enough. Then it is a kind of arrangement, which can be broken by anything.

But when two lovers start feeling that there is nothing to hide and everything can be said, and the trust has come to such a depth where even if you don’t say it the other is going to know, then they start becoming one.

Even lovers rarely become intimate. And just to be sexually related to somebody is not intimacy. Intimacy can be with it or it can be without it. Intimacy is a totally different dimension. It is allow-ing the other to come into you, to see you as you see yourself—-to allow the other to see you from your inside, to invite somebody to that deepest core of your being.

Relating to others

Relationship is a thing: You cling to it.

Relating is a flow, a movement, a process.

The river passes by the side of a tree, saying hello, nourishing the tree, giving water to the tree . . . and it moves on, dances on. It does not cling to the tree. And the tree does not say, “Where are you going? We are married! And before you can leave me you will need a divorce—at least a separation! Where are you going? And if you were going to leave me, why did you dance so beautifully around me? Why did you nourish me in the first place?” No, the tree showers its flowers onto the river in deep gratefulness, and the river moves on. The wind comes and dances around the tree and moves on. And the tree gives its fragrance to the wind.

OSHO

Something to Take Note on

Be the initiator

Many of us are waiting for someone to connect for us, simply because we are terrified of rejection yet we all want connection. So, be the one to initiate the contact. When we get over this tendency to be passive about connection and be willing to go places where we want to connect with, we start to initiate contact with them.

Find common ground

Seek out common ground helps us to build rapport and to socially connect with someone. Seek to understand them by asking questions, deep questions which reflects their inner world of values, beliefs and dreams or struggles. As you talk, you related to them, empathise, be compassionate and find ways to help them feel validated. Remember, to connect with someone, we have to e willing to feel what they feel.

A huge part of connecting is providing a safe space to connect.

Give full presence

Once we have connected with someone, give this person your undivided, unconditional, focused presence. You are giving your full presence of your consciousness, with open body language, look into the eye, uncross your arms and legs, chest facing them, all these will send out messages that “I am open to you and I would like to connect, receive and to be received.”

Speaking from the heart

Bring your thoughts to your heart space, literally imagine bringing them down to your chest area and speak from there. Thus, we will tend to be more willingly vulnerable and more authentic with less defensive or attackin as we communicate.

Remember to express your wants, needs and expectations clearly in your relationship. Because it is not fair for the other person to guess or expect them to read your mind. As well as understanding the person’s wants, needs and expectations. Encourage each other to do the same and commit to meet those needs and wants together.

Committing & Prioritising

To have a strong connection is to take responsibility for maintaining the integrity of the connection, by prioritising your relationships. To commit is a state of dedication to put energy on it. Ask yourself, “what do I really want to be committed to?”

If there is fear towards commitment, pay attention to the inner aspect of self who is terrified of the past disappointments that this inner self wants to stay safe. Send compassion and love to this aspect of self and explain how your desire to commit is because you want the best for it and yourself in the long run.

Repair & Re-establish connection

We experience ruptures in any kind of relationships, where a minor one could be a small preferences on needs, wants, or perspectives; a major one could be a break-up. Now, to repair the link, it has to be the top priority where both parties has to work on to be on the same page. To be a vibrational match to the people in our lives. The most painful form of being is to be in a different realities, vibrationally and being in the same physical space. So, the solution is to find a way to get back on the same page.

It means to be in alignment with each other so side-by-side, we are heading in the same direction. Reaching agreement with the same perceptual reality with lots of effective and on-going communication. To find a way where both does not have to give up anything that is important and creating the third option, not sacrificing or compromising.

Trust , trust, trust

To trust someone is to feel as if you can rely on them to capitlize on your best interests. Meaning not ht they or we will put ech other interests above our own, but that they will capitalize on your best interests. Keep in mind, as we continue the journey, our perspective continues to expand so our best interest will change too. Also, remember, when we hurt someone, we are hurting ourselves. So it no longer capitalize on your own best interest to the detriment of theirs.

Trust is the basis of a connection, when two people agree to hold responsibility for not only their own best interests but also their partner’s as they are unified.

Use the “Energy of Connection”

When we meet people, we can send them warmth and positive energy to make them feel comfortable and welcomed by you. Here’s how, introduced by Teal Swan. As we walk down the street and passes by strangers, you look for specific you like, appreciate or love about this person, and mentally say, “I love you for [fill in the blank with whatever you like about them].” Then, mentally say why you love that about them. And finish it with, “I love you for that.”

When you say these words in the head, imagine sending this energy out of your heart or chest toward them, as if an invisible signal to their hearts. Do this as a silent practice as you walk through the town, with as many people as you can but best to do it with 5 people in a focused way rather than a dozen not really focused way. The bonus is that with this, you are creating ripples in the collective consciousness and see how blown away at how your interactions with people.

Feel the consciousness of each person as your own consciousness.

Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

First, we must see each other as a person, not a ‘thing’ to be manipulated or exploit. Then, feel the consciousness of each person as your own consciousness. Feel that the other’s conscious as the same consciousness that you have. Then, the “other” disappears, only a consciousness flows between you and him or her. You become two poles of one consciousness flowing, of one current.

How to start?

Start with a river, with a hill, with the stars, with the sky, with trees. Once you come to know the feeling of what happens when you become one with the tree; once you come to know how blissful you become when you become one with the river, how without losing anything you gain the whole existence, then you can try it with people.

And if it is so blissful with a tree, with a river, you cannot imagine how much more blissful it will be with a person, because a person is a higher phenomenon, a more highly evolved being. Through a person you can reach higher peaks of experience. If you can become ecstatic with even a rock, with a person you can feel a divine ecstasy happening to you.

But start with something that you are not much afraid of, or with a person you love—a friend, a beloved, a lover—of whom you are not afraid, with whom you can be really intimate and close without any fear, with whom you can lose yourself without getting scared deep down that he may turn you into a thing.

Become the tree, become the River, become the wife, become the husband, become the child, become the mother, become the friend—it can be practiced every moment of life. But in the beginning it will be difficult. So do it for at least one hour every day. In that hour, whatsoever passes around you, become that. You will wonder how it can happen—there is no other way to know how it can happen, you have to practice it.

OSHO

OSHO recommended to feel at least one hour every day to be in empathy with something. I have personally experienced with a tree then a bird, it is phenomenon with no words to describe. Kindly experience it yourself to find out.

When someone’s else happiness is experienced as your happiness, you know you have found unconditional love. This is one of the most expansive feelings on the planet.

Teal Swan

Ready to dance in the storm?

“How are you to know, sitting inside your house, whether you will be able to withstand the storm and the wind outside? You have never been in the storm. Go and see! Trial and error is the only way. Go and see—maybe you will be defeated, but even in that defeat you will have become stronger than you are right now. If one experience defeats you, then another and another, by and by the very going through the storm will make you stronger and stronger and stronger. A day comes when one simply starts delighting in the storm, one simply starts dancing in the storm. Then the storm is not the enemy—that, too, is an opportunity, a wild opportunity, to be.“

OSHO

Cheering,

Abhya