Facing Our Fears Around Intimacy

Last year I wrote a blog post about becoming an intimacy scientist.  It was my Research & Development approach to intimacy that occurred over a one week period at a Tantra workshop.

A year later I realize that this was merely a scientific experiment, performed and completed in a laboratory, but it was not the real thing when it comes to facing our fears around intimacy.

True Intimacy is not so cut and dry.

It is complicated and messy and forces you to face your fear, of opening up your heart, knowing that it can be broken….again.

Intimacy is not a given…it doesn’t come gift wrapped when you enter a relationship or make wedding vows.

Many people have never really experienced intimacy even though they are in decades long relationships.

The dictionary defines intimacy as “a close, familiar, and usually loving or affectionate personal relationship”.

I don’t know about you but I have had many loving and affectionate personal relationships with friends, family, and even some lovers that I would not define as intimate.

Hell I was in a marriage for two decades that had some affectionate moments but never really was intimate in the true sense of the word.

My experience of intimacy is of a deep opening, of undoing layers of fear so that I can actually experience my feelings.

Intimacy shows up for me in my whole nervous system…I literally can feel my body quake when I allow my vulnerability to surface.

When I experience intimacy with my partner, everything and everyone else melts away…it is only the two of us and our present experience.

Intimacy allows me to truly experience another person..to feel them in the depths of my soul.

It helps me to deeply connect with my truth and come to terms with my fears….fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough, and fear of abandonment.

Facing our fears of intimacy is scary…sometimes even overwhelming.  But running away from it does not solve the problem.

We end up in passionate-less relationships where we feel empty and lonely.

Or in a string of meaningless relationships or in no relationship at all.

As Sheryl Sandberg has wisely said, the only option we have is to “lean in” and face our fears so that we can experience true intimacy… when we get to the other side.