Seven Practices for the Arts of Everyday Intimacy

As an intimacy coach and educator I am privileged to talk with people about their most personal experiences. In these sacred conversations I've discovered many different definitions of intimacy. For most folk their "intimate" experiences are very narrowly defined and usually of a short duration, happening within a particular context. What I know for sure is that intimacy energy that's been stuck into a box tends to loose its lifeforce, its passion and warmth. We wonder where the passion goes.

I've been teaching Kissing School since 1998 and in every class I've witnessed people blossoming when intimacy gets taken out of the box and is freed to become a rich undercurrent of every day; so here for you are some ideas for cultivating the arts of Everyday Intimacy just in time to warm up your Valentine's Day.

I would like to offer a more dynamic definition of intimacy. As many of you know, I usually relate to the world from the viewpoint of its underlying energy, the dynamic that holds something in place. Intimacy is a particular resonance, a particular arrangement of energy fields that we give ourselves permission to experience. It's a chosen arrangement of our energy frequency, like a particular sound you are choosing to make as you play your guitar.

Artists of loving strum the vibrations of "intimacy" well to the degree that they know the tune, and know how to conduct that frequency through their body and the instrument. Our instrument of love is actually the body/mind/heart and soul, and the energies of intimacy are what we will play through it. In fact, you'll play the resonance that matches your current definition of intimacy. Consider gifting yourself and your beloved with an expanded definition, and share an expanded experience this year.

Take a minute now to begin trading up, and feel your way into a clear intention to claim an expanded relationship to intimacy. Declare your desire to take up your instrument and learn to practice the skills that ring with the resonance of  sweet, hot, satisfying energies of intimacy.

Your experience is always a matter of what you practice feeling. Learning to experience everyday intimacy is an art, so groove with the tools, find finesse  as you practice, and make the expression uniquely your own. 

Practice regularly, until the music, the resonance, the vibe flows easily from your bodyheart. Our relationship to the instrument and our intimate expression becomes a dance of surrender, connection, transparency, presence, compassion, tenderness and appreciation. These are the energies of intimacy that tune the instrument, guide the fingers, feed the heart and send the music soaring.  

1) Surrender
Open hearted, open minded, open in our breath and body, we're available to be met. The walls between you and I are down.

2) Connection
I am connected to the fullness of me and I share this with the fullness of you. There is a meeting in the energetic space between us and it fires our attunement with the fullness of each other.

3) Transparency
The masks are off. I am willing to see you and be seen by you, whatever arises.

4) Presence
I am in touch with, and grounded in, my fullness and I share it with my physical touch, my heart's embrace, my generous warmth, the openness of my mind and the presence of soulfulness. I am here and now.

5) Compassion
I recognize that I have stood in similar shoes, I recognize your predicament, and I stand along side of you in support, arms open and heart warm.

6) Tenderness
Intimacy is largely a matter of sharing. Closeness develops naturally when you express the tenderness you feel in your words and deeds.

7) Appreciation
Appreciation is the magic pixie dust of intimacy, blossoming each other open. Become a master of enjoying each other out loud.

 

I invite you to be more intimate with each other, more intimate with your life.  mmmm, Happy Valentine's every day!