Intimacy, Truth & Trust
Everyone loves being loved. We bask in it as babies, and even before, floating around in our pre-birth liquid environment. We search for it in our peers as adolescents, dress for it as teens, and seek it out as younger and maturer adults. Why is love often such a challenge when it is so natural? What is the mystery here? Why is intimacy something elusive for so many people? What is this sharing, giving and receiving? What are truth and trust in personal relationships, in world events, in life?
First, it is a fallacy that everyone feels safe in the womb. Many people were conceived in an unintentional manner, then carried to term by an ambivalent woman, who may have become an unwilling mother, whether or not she acknowledged this to herself and/or to those around her. From 40-60 percent of births in the U.S. were from unexpected pregnancies. Many women in their hidden hearts may have contemplated abortion then rejected it for various reasons. So, for many people, the womb was a place of ambivalence, danger and mixed messages, even in the best of circumstances. The baby absorbs this energetically as well as from the blood from her/his mother. The baby is born with these vibrations as part of what s/he has to deal with in this life. This is a legacy that can get passed on through the generations unless someone takes steps to eradicate it.
Second, in life, people encounter disappointment, dashed expectations, concealments. Unless these are processed out, transformed and made peace with, they add to how a person perceives and behaves in the world. The mores of any given culture, religion, group also affect how a person perceives intimacy, truth and trust. If a culture believes that men are superior to women and must be placated by women in order for that woman to survive, she is very likely to do this. If a culture honors truth above all and rewards for it, people are more likely to be so. If a culture considers intimacy to be discussing feelings, this is what is sought. If a culture considers intimacy to be engaging in sexuality, this is what is sought.
Intimacy is the sharing of who one is. This includes emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, sexually. It is often created in increments. It is far from an all or nothing phenomenon, arrived at overnight. It can take time and contact. It is beyond the intellectual. It is both a feeling as well as mental interconnection. It requires being vulnerable, allowing someone into one’s heart, head and body.
To be vulnerable, it is helpful for someone to know that s/he is safe with oneself, with the other person, in the world. How to create this, especially in a world where world, religions and business leaders lie, cheat and steal, then often deny these goings-on, even when they are caught with their hands, so to speak, in the proverbial cookie jar? Create safety within oneself. Create a personal relationship with the cosmos. Create a relationship within oneself. Find someone with whom to build safely and trust. This can be anyone, including a relative, friend, adviser. Love and accept oneself even with all one’s own peccadilloes and idiosyncrasies. Allow the experience of being human, knowing one is spirit on a human journey. Be scrupulously honest and truthful with oneself. Let go of judgment, shame and blame, toward one’s self and toward others. This opens the way to being able to look, perceive and see clearly. Cultivate humor and playfulness as allies on the journey. This promotes being able to be deep and serious, without being heavy and morose. Life is a multi-dimensional experience. We all are it, and have it within.
Use our inner senses. Use our intuition. Be willing to learn from the past, and heal all emotional wounds. Without doing this, you, me, we – the world – continue as the walking wounded, prey and victim to other walking wounded. This is the past twisted paradigm, that has outlived any vestiges of usefulness. There are facilitators of many kinds available to catalyze the process of wholeness along. Even facilitators have facilitators. Anyone can be one, given the correct circumstance and training, of which many are available.
We are at a nexus of transformation. Individuals and relationships are changing. We can remain in dysfunction and complaining, or we can do something about it. In your life, it begins with you. This can be considered work or play, depending on how one perceives it. We can choose either as the context in which to live. It encompasses every aspect of life, certainly including intimacy, truth and trust – spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, sexually, financially, environmentally, locally, globally, whatever. Everyone is involved. No one, not a single individual, not a single culture, not a single race, not a single city or country, is exempt from this. It is an ongoing unfoldment.
When one loves oneself, one can more easily love another. One more easily has the courage to be vulnerable, opening oneself up to actual intimacy – of heart, mind, body and spirit. This also enhances pleasure in all these areas. If more extraordinary orgasms appeal to you, this is one of the pathways to have them!
Truth is paramount in good relationship. What is to be done, say, if one is in the midst of a sexual experience, and he asks she, did you come yet? By the way, if someone has to ask, usually it has not occurred. If she is still on the way towards it, does she tell the truth, so they can proceed? Does she lie, as she may think his ego seemingly needs to be assuaged? Is she bored? What does the answer create? Telling a lie adds confusion, ambivalence and clutter to a relationship, whether or not either of the persons consciously knows that a falsehood was given. There is already something inauthentic in the mix, which clouds what is going on. Being truthful in a caring way gives some kind of foundation, and lets the other know what is occurring. It gives each person an opportunity to be real.
Does this mean that a person needs to give a full life resume on the first instance of meeting someone? No. It means being authentic in all that is said, communicated, implied. It means stopping the double and triple mixed messages. It means creating new ways to have playfulness, flirtations and/or intimacies. It means that if a man says he is going to call tomorrow, that he calls tomorrow. It means that if a woman says no, she means it for what was being asked. It means being courageous to be real, while being centered. It means that if someone is uncomfortable, acknowledge it, and then say/do what is there to be said and done.
Life is an ongoing adventure, in which each and every one of us is a participant. Creating intimacy is delightful and meaningful, and adds to the texture and fullness of life. Let us enjoy this exploration of life, love and one another.
Exercise in Light: Sit or lie down in a comfortable position, loosening all clothing. Breathe into your diaphragm, chest, throat and head. Hold for a moment. Exhale and release from your head, throat, chest and diaphragm. Breathe in again, hold, and slowly and gently exhale and release. Breathe in love, intimacy, truth and trust. Hold. Exhale and release fear, anger, lies and pain, sending them to the Realm of Healing and Light, where they are transmuted and returned to you as transmuted energy. Do this again. Fill you entire being with Love, Peace and Safety. Fill you home, your professional space, your city, your country, the Earth, the Universe with Love, Peace and Safety. Open your heart, and allow Love, Peace and Safety to live there. Know you are Love, Peace and Safety. Ask that this is also what you attract to you. Bless yourself, bless everyone, EVERYONE in the world. Breathe in these blessings. Slowly come back to yourself and your body. Gently begin to wiggle your fingers and toes. Gently and easily begin to pat your body, and slowly stretch. Gently move you head from side to side. Slowly, at your own pace, open your eyes. You are here, made of Love, Peace and Safety.
