Monday Prompt

Emotional Intimacy: Fully Alive and Connected to our Deepest Truth

Which requires a big dose of radical honesty and lots of trust

Love is like breathing. You take it in and let it out. ~ Wally Lamb

Sometimes it pays to admit your ignorance.

This appears to be one of them. As a happy ‘party of one’ why do I need emotional intimacy in this relational context? It’s just me in here.

I’m happy to put much of this touchy-feely emotional stuff on a high shelf where it won’t distract me. So I can get my all-important writing done.

But if I’m having that inner conversation with myself, who am I talking to? There’s more to this than meets the eye.

Thank goodness I had the willingness to admit Google may know more than me on this topic.

Look what I just found:

Intimacy is not something that just happens between two people; it is a way of being alive. At every moment, we are choosing either to reveal ourselves or to protect ourselves, to value ourselves or to diminish ourselves, to tell the truth, or to hide. To dive into life or to avoid it. Intimacy is making the choice to be connected to, rather than isolated from, our deepest truth at that moment. ~ Geneen Roth

Geneen Roth is a writer-healer who struggled with weight issues till she gave up dieting and transformed her relationship with food. Her seminal book, When Food Is Love, explores what happens when we look to a drug, food in her — and often my case — to meet our needs for love and intimacy.

No surprise then to see her name after those riveting words.

Intimacy’s not just this relational dance involving two or more people, but a way of being alive. It’s a way to connect to our deepest truths. After all, If I am clueless about what those are, how can I share them?

So intimacy starts at home.

With me. Me, Myself, and I, given the voices yammering in my head non-stop.

I get to ask myself — am I being completely candid with my thoughts and feelings? Am I hiding some of them from myself? If so, why? And what are they?

I have a book called Radical Honesty. The author, Brad Blanton, Ph.D., advocates the practice of being completely, even brutally, honest — at least with ourselves. Which makes sense.

When we know what we’re feeling, we can be at choice with who, if anyone, to share it with, and when.

If we don’t start without ourselves, those hidden shadows of anger, resentments, fears, jealousies, etc., may come back around to bite us in the butt. Or make us sick. Or pop out in destructive behaviors. We could hurt someone — ourselves most likely.

The other reason is, the repressed emotion may be a cue to take action. Fear points to gathering more information. Anger points to setting a boundary. Sorrow and grief cry for comfort.

What does resentment point to? Taming my ego? Getting a life? Connecting with Spirit?

No wonder I like to hide from my feelings. I might have to totally rebuild my life from scratch. But if that’s in the offing, wouldn’t it be good to know?

Emotional intimacy depends primarily on trust.

So says Wikipedia. Amen to that.

I haven’t told a soul about my get off the island message. Probably because it’s the lid on a Pandora’s Box of high octane anger.

A superficial top layer of it’s aimed at specific people and events. Anger at folks who need a lot of what I call hand-holding — reminders, tech- support, more reminders, more tech-support, and lots of prayer to do what they sign up to do.

Which tempts me to just go ahead and do the task myself. Which feeds into some huge resentments and lots of labeling. And a whole litany of assumptions and conclusions about our ability to grow and thrive.

But the deeper layers of that anger are aimed at myself.

For not being more effective.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, it’s for not being more patient, loving, and prayerful. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, it’s anger at myself for still being there. On Sunday, we have worship where it all gets washed clean, only to begin again shortly….

I have other angers that don’t pass through the prism of my church, and therefore, may not be as finely nuanced. I’m present to anger about being stuck in some areas of my life, including the tender loving care my living space sure could use more of.

Anger at myself for inconsistencies in my self-care, for what I’ll call workaholism, but may more accurately be write-aholism. When the writing takes over at the expense of exercise, a hot meal, or much-needed sleep.

But it works both ways.

I’m angry at myself that my novel edits trudge along so slowly. I let the next shiny object distract me from what I claim is a top priority. In fact, I’ve been advised to work on editing before my daily Medium post But guess what I’m doing right now!

The kind of overhaul my life might really benefit from, if not take off and soar, frankly overwhelms me.

Which brings up the other biggie — fear. Fear of dying with my music (or books) still in me. Fear of being incapacitated. Fear there’ll be no one to take care of me since I forgot to have children. Not that that’s why to have them or anything like that…

Fear of not making the changes that I’m too scared to make. Go figure! But emotions don’t have to be logical. Which may be why they’re so scary to share.

They seem to come in pairs.

Fear of speaking up and setting boundaries. Fear I won’t find the courage to do that and end up taking on way toooo much. Fear of going on bucket-list life adventures like a clowning mission with Patch Adams, MD. Fear my fear will have me miss the adventure of a lifetime! And on it goes.

What about deep sorrow? I so appreciate when something external triggers my tears. Once they flow, I seem to know why I so needed to cry. Most of the time it takes that outside event to prime my pump.

There is such a deep well of sorrow in me. My fear is I could turn it on and it would never turn off. Which is one of the reasons somatic clowning is so healing for me. I pour my heart’s grief into the persona of Duddles, my sad clown. I can’t tell you how good that feels to do.

Sorrow about past relationships not working out. Sorrow about not having children. Then there’s that seldom mentioned miscarriage.

Guilt — how did I get this far without her rearing up? Guilt for not being closer to my family. For messing up my marriage. For my addictive antics. For all the harm I’ve done others over the years. Even after making copious amends, some of it still haunts. A deep cleanse calls to me here.

And of course, there’s joy!

I believe that taking a deep dive into these ‘ugly’ feelings first clears the palette so as not to miss the sweet and spicy flavors of my all joys.

Joys in celebration of life. In communing with Spirit. In the rich textures of play — be they dancing, clowning, or art-making. In intimate moments with friends and family — some of which is way past due, thanks to COVID.

And, of course, the joy of self-discovery in the writing of pieces like this one.

Plus, the joy that comes from stretching myself creatively, welcoming what the muse brings me, and loving to be surprised by it all. Wow! I wrote that! Let me read it again!

You’re writers. You know that soaring song! That happy dance!

Let’s bring poet-writer-speaker John Donohue in here. He’d like to say this:

Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It never exposes its secret trust and belonging to the voyeuristic eye of a neon culture. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the soul is reserved. ~ John O’Donohue

The soul indeed!

I should have known that’s where this was going. And I’m so glad! Thanks for coming along for the ride. This is one way intimacy grows, my friends.

May we meet in person someday. For now, let this be my kiss to all of you!

Thank you, 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊. for this deep dive into emotional intimacy!

Marilyn Flower political humor and satire to delight socially and spiritually conscious folks. She’s a regular columnist for the prison newsletter, Freedom Anywhere, where she writes about faith and prayer. Five of her short plays have been produced in San Francisco. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!