Introducing the most evolved definition of “intimacy,” which will change your assessment of every one of your relationships.
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At every moment of a man’s life, with the women from his past and present, he exists in varying degrees of relationship, most interpersonally with parents, siblings, friends, lovers, children, associates, peers, etc. Because we experience with one another limitless diversity in varieties of age, gender, orientation, skin and hair color, culture, ethnicity, language, religion, spirituality, education, life experience and more.
Yet in every interpersonal encounter with every individual woman we meet, we are almost immediately able to sense and feel the energy within ourselves and between us become at least mildly, if not extremely enhanced or depleted. We ideally want every relationship to enhance rather than deplete our life force and the energy we experience to enable the rush of aliveness, openness, trust, safety, interaction and personal intimacy.
But intimacy is a concept most often assumed, hoped, or feared to include some degree of sensuality or sexuality, and those assumptions and feelings whether positive or negative, limit us and constrain our ability to truly connect with women. I want to both clarify and share the most wonderful and evolved use of the word “intimacy” I have ever learned, which perfectly defines the way I have tried to live and practice in every relationship with every woman I’ve had in my life.
In the Co-Active Leadership Program offered by Coaches Training International, we learned the maximization of honest and open interpersonal intimacy is earned and enhanced by the minimization of power over or under one another, and the minimization of sexualized energy between or among one another—unless of course, the latter is expressed and experienced mutually in a loving partnership. This safe and deeply trusting form of interpersonal intimacy is depicted most simply in the triangular graphic below, where the amount of authentic interpersonal Intimacy filling the triangle becomes 100 percent when both the Power and the Sexuality in the field remain at zero percent:
You can hopefully recognize how every relationship you already have with zero percent power and zero percent sexuality makes possible an enormous amount of authentic, safe and friendly personal intimacy—in which you can trust the mutuality and co-creation of true connection. What an exciting and hopeful way to imagine each of our relationships with each woman in our life!
It is in this consciousness you can imagine how every relationship with a woman that includes a natural extent of power from a parent or an employer (which should already have zero percent sexuality), can become safer and more honestly intimate if you are able to mutually co-create conversations in which this natural power is reduced to zero percent.
Similarly, you can also imagine and even experiment in whatever relationship you are in, and that includes a natural extent of mutually-desired sexual attraction (which ideally should already have zero percent power over or under one another), how starting first with zero percent sexual energy can create 100 percent honest and authentic intimacy that will only deepen with the exploration and inclusion of beautiful and co-created sensuality. In such a way, when non-sexual and non-power-based intimacy has been experienced first, the inclusion of natural and mutual sexuality can result in a depth and breadth of mental, physical, and spiritual connection beyond any ever before experienced with another or even together—way beyond just sex.
“To love another person is to see the face of God” ~Les Miserables
The sentiment expressed from Les Miserables is exactly what can be felt and experienced when there is no power over or under one another, and when intimacy initially begins with zero sexualized energy. Only then, when interpersonal intimacy begins with and is regularly built upon clarity and honesty of zero power and sexuality, can deep and mutual sensuality become a true catalyst to your love and intimacy. In such a connection, our spiritual and emotional oneness can be more amazing than ever. The awesome beauty of our lover’s soul, as our eyes open wider than ever, is only possible when each partner both sees and feels more, when each is viewed with pure safety, trust and love.
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What skills and sensitivity make it possible to feel so much LOVE?
One key is to learn how to recognize and accept, with no shame and no blame, one another’s contribution to every co-created moment in the relationship, no matter how difficult, challenging, or even embarrassing. We must learn to own 100 percent responsibility for our own individual contribution to that moment, whether it’s 10 percent, 50 percent, or 90 percent of the “problem.”
Perhaps my greatest transformational gain in relationship consciousness came from hearing, feeling and practicing the words of Jennifer Welwood in her Mystery School, which suggests every couple needs to be able to say to one another:
“I hereby release you from my projection that you are the cause of my feeling this way,” and
“I also release you from my expectation that you are the solution to my feeling this way.”
The release of such a projection of cause and/or expectation of solution has an enormous impact on both individuals, especially when each of us can recognize that we have felt that way in other relationships—all the way back to our childhood. This is especially true when we recognize and accept with 100 percent ownership and responsibility that our feelings and our reactions to our feelings are not exactly the same as anothers’ diverse feelings and reactions. When triggered (not caused—but triggered—try noticing and feeling the difference) by those very words or actions, one person’s reaction might be to cry while another’s may be to laugh, fight, run, shut down, etc. Just practicing those two sentences with one another changes everything in your relationship!
Only when we each own our individual part of the process and outcome can the other feel safe enough to explore, discover and own their individual part. Merely starting this process opens one another’s heart, mind, eyes and ears to both send and receive love. A bridge is then constructed piece-by-piece between our hearts, minds and soul—and yes, then even our bodies. At this level, our sensuality of seeing, touching, and sensing each other becomes so enhanced it leads rather than follows our physiological sexuality.
Another way of deepening your relationship is when you learn Less is More, which can transform both partners’ intimacy even further. When so much authenticity, honesty, safety and the fuller ownership of one’s own piece of every moment has been gained, then one begins to recognize not the kind charity, but the personal self-interest and benefit in first hearing and honoring…and eventually noticing and sensing accurately when one of us has a different thought, feeling, desire or comfort than the other. It becomes a gift to oneself to finally experience when one desires less than the other, and the result of honoring less results in additional gratitude, trust, love and intimacy, which is either less sexual, but more intimate and tender, or sometimes more sensual and connecting than any one physical sexual pleasure could achieve.
The truest and most appropriate intimacy and connection in every relationship a man has with a woman is co-created with 100 percent responsibility for one’s own sense and management of one’s own and one another’s energy. It is never primarily about power or sex, alone.
Photo credit: Getty Images
True im so happy when i did with some 1 i love
One of the best articles I’ve read here… And they are all good
As my first article with the Good Men Project, I want to share with other men the amazing self interest and benefit in learning how giving space for a female to be comfortable and ready for their own expression of intimacy results in a male receiving even more affectionate sensuality than would have been experienced by imposing our own desire on our partner before they are open to it. 🙂 Lewis