About intimacy

Many of us think of intimacy as having sex, being physically or emotionally close or exchanging deeply held confidences. But if specific behaviors such as these produce intimacy, then why don't we experience intimacy each time we do them? What makes one sexual encounter intimate and another not? If cultivating closeness is an avenue to intimacy, why do so many couples who have attained it report flatness, boredom, loss of vitality or a sense of being "stuck" rather than feeling passionately alive in each other's presence? If confiding in another is supposed to bring about intimacy, why does one communication make us flush to our roots while another leaves us untouched and unmoved?

On gender differences

In our work with hundreds of clients-individuals, couples and groups-we have found that the intrinsic capacity for intimacy is the same in women and men, that men are just as willing and capable as women of moving through their defenses. Gender conditioning can delay this inclination in men, but once they recognize this and experience intimacy, the work of identifying and dissolving their defense structures is exactly the same as it is for women. We have also found…

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What is our essential self?

In the work of cultivating intimacy it is helpful to draw a distinction between our essential self and our essential nature. In many of the world's spiritual traditions, the most profound realization, the culmination of all spiritual quests, involves directly experiencing our essential nature. Variously referred to as the Absolute, The Ground Of All Being, our True Nature or our Original Face, this is the underlying nature of all existence. It is the impersonal, formless, timeless and changeless aspect of who we all are. Our essential self is our uniqueness. Think of a …

The role of compassion

As we begin to unmask our negative self-images, we can feel a great deal of hurt and the fear of being hurt further. We may also experience self-loathing rising from the shame and assumed ugliness associated with our initial inability to absorb this new information. Usually, we contract around these feelings. We want to ….

Closeness, a safe container

There is nothing wrong with using our relationships to work through issues of dependency. In fact, relationship may be the best place to work through them. What we are concerned with here is not that we are dependent but the level and duration of the dependency. The ability to move beyond an "other-focus" requires…

Agreements: How they can prolong closeness and prevent intimacy

A partnership rooted in the healthy closeness stage values equality; the couple places an emphasis on creating and maintaining a foundation of "shared-power" as opposed to "power-over." Since we choose to take someone else's desires into account, we negotiate instead of simply taking or being taken from. This ability and desire to compromise, however, can lead to more sophisticated approaches to maintaining our defense structure. Surprisingly enough…

Dissolving our defenses

If we are to realize our potential to know ourselves as whole and loving, to express the open, present beings we are, and to love ourselves and others from the undefended core of our being, we must turn and face all the places where we are stuck, wounded, withholding and contracted. We must…

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Intimate allies

Exposing ourselves to what we expect will be emotional annihilation is not easy. It means staying with an issue in the presence of our partners when continuing is the hardest thing to do. It means stretching to stay open even if shutting down is our main line of defense. It means …

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