When Did Intimacy Become A Bad Word?

When I was younger being intimate meant getting naked and doing sexual stuff, you know?

Of course, now I know that being intimate doesn’t always revolve around sex, even if I still behave that way… sometimes.

So what is an “intimate moment”?

I’m probably going to get a lot of flack about this but believe that there are degrees, levels if you will, of intimate behaviour.

Just as you love chocolate ice cream differently than you love your mother, there is intimacy with friends, family and lovers that are different.

So, if you can be intimate on different levels with different people, why is it so bad to say that you have an intimate relationship with someone?

Does intimacy have to be sexual? Of course not.

Do you need intimacy in your relationships? Of course you do.

How will someone understand the “real you” without being intimately familiar with who you are and why you’re the way you are?

But I’ve gotten off track, as usual.

Intimacy, in varying degrees, affects every relationship and interaction you have with another person.

There, I’ve said it.

Now, to why intimacy is lost in today’s world:
- People try hard to protect themselves from loss and rejection. They try to not be intimate to keep themselves free from worry about what someone actually thinks of them.
- People try to not expose themselves to ridicule, keeping their words guarded, and their emotions in check.

If you keep yourself encased in a hard shell you will never be intimate with someone because they cannot get in. And you lose because you cannot have real intimacy without opening yourself up to the possibility that someone may actually not like you in the same way you like them.

Intimacy, is its most potent form, involves not only the sharing of your body but your mind and soul as well. It’s this very real fear of being exposed that intimacy has been dragged from its pedestal to the ground as something to be avoided at all costs.

“Bury your feelings!”

“Keep yourself free from rejection!”

You can hear the screams from so many dating artists and gurus that the deafening rush of noise drowns out all real and personal thought.

Take this one question test right now:
- When was the last time you told someone you loved them?

If you had to think longer than 2 seconds for an answer, then you’re one or all of:
1) Lonely
2) Very afraid, and
3) Unhappy with your own real potential for love.

Intimacy actually frees you from your fear of intimacy! When you can climb down the tree and hug someone, and mean it, then you are on the road to “intimacy recovery’.

Intimacy means caring for someone else’s well-being, no matter if you’re a salesperson or potential lover. Putting someone else ahead of your fear creates a new person in you: a person ready to be exposed and not be afraid of life and love; of personal responsibility for the happiness of yourself and another at the same time.

Intimacy deserves not to be a word and action that you are afraid of, rather an action and emotion that frees you from the slavery of the emotional shackles that hinder your personal growth.

Intimacy, by its real definition, creates a new being, a new soul, between two people that share an understanding, an event and a bargain: that both will gain in the exchange of the intimate moment, regardless of the level of intimacy involved.

Intimacy can be described as a line that connects you with all people that come into your thoughts, into your world and into your influence. Intimacy zigs and zags as relationships are formed and tossed away.

Intimacy exists in the calmness of your tranquil life and also in the chaos of exchange between you and people during events that are seemingly out of your control.

Intimacy is hated because it demands that you are bared to the control of another, you are taught that intimacy cannot exist in a state of change but intimacy is change! The cycles of your life can be traced through the intimate moments that you have shared with others, from birth, through sadness and joy, and into death, the final intimate revealing of emotions and feelings.

You can become a person that welcomes intimacy into your life.

You are not lost to the emotion that does not rule your life but rather enriches the moments that bind you with others, not in battle but in friendship and more.

You can learn intimacy, one step at a time.

Start at the beginning and try to remember the first time you felt uncomfortable around another person. What threatened you? What scared you? How can you gain control type of event again?

When you can master intimacy you can also protect your emotions by being tied to your revelation of intimacy. Showing intimacy commands acceptance or rejection. There can be no other response.

The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.

The attraction of intimacy is not sexual but emotional, a reliance on another to receive what you cannot create by yourself.

If have the hope that you will take at least one thing with you from this writing of mine: Ownership.

Ownership of what you feel and why you feel it.

You are the owner of your emotions; you are the revelation of your “self” to others. You are the central atom that attracts intimacy, just as a hydrogen molecule revolves around an oxygen molecule to create water, your life is the central force for how you enjoy and permit intimacy as others revolve, enter and exit your life.