How often do we hear over and over again that the key to intimacy is about finding someone to have a close relationship with?

What if I were to tell you that to create true intimacy, YOU are the person you have to become most intimate with?

Here are 3 myths of intimacy, and how to begin having an intimacy in your own life. What if you could create greater connection not just with you, but with everyone and everything around you?

Intimacy Myth #1: Intimacy is about sex.

By now, I am pretty sure most of us realize that we can create sex without intimacy and intimacy without sex . So what are the actual elements of intimacy? I will give you a hint – sex isn’t one of them. The kind of intimacy I would like to invite you to consider having, is a level of intimacy with you that allows you to have a level of caring, kindness and generosity with you that is unshakeable by anyone or anything.

True intimacy begins when you are willing to have a greater connection with you. One of the easiest ways to start having a greater connection with you is to look at you through the eyes of gratitude.

Many of us tend to look at ourselves only to judge ourselves, and not acknowledge ourselves. What if you would start to change that today? Start writing down at least 3 things a day that you are grateful for about you. When you are willing to start looking at you and your life with gratitude, everything begins to have the possibility of becoming greater rather than lesser (including sex).

Intimacy Myth #2: Intimacy means being able to trust someone completely.

How often do we actually misidentify ‘trust’ with ‘blind faith’? Blind faith is when we think if we love or care about someone enough, they will change. But how many times have you thought, “I love this person so much, and when they see how much I love them, I am sure they will change this,” and it never happens?

The only thing that you can trust about others is that they will be tomorrow exactly as they were today.

I am not saying that people don’t change. What I am saying is that if you expect someone to change, you actually make it almost impossible for them to change. Why? Because when someone wants you to change and tells you that you have to change, or even when they just energetically project at you that you should change or be different, what do you do? If you are like most people I know, you say, “No way, I am not going to change! You want me to be different? Forget it, I won’t do it!” Even if you actually desire that change, you still won’t do it, because they want you to do it!

That is one thing you can definitely trust – that just like no one can truly control you, you cannot control or make other people choose to change!  What if you never required anyone to change, especially you? What if there is actually nothing wrong with you, exactly as you are? If you are willing to see you as a gift and not as a wrongness, you will actually begin to open up to a deeper trust of you, that isn’t based on blind faith.

Intimacy Myth #3: Intimacy is when someone won’t reject or hurt you.

Many of us put up barriers and walls to others as we grow up, believing this will protect us from repeating hurts we received in the past. We think that if we find the perfect partner to be vulnerable with, we will finally be able to drop these barriers and have intimacy.  What if the key to not being hurt or rejected was actually your vulnerability, right now? When you keep barriers up, you can’t have intimacy because you actually lock yourself behind walls and cut off everything – the good as well as the bad.

When you are willing to be vulnerable and have no barriers, you get to come out of hiding and receive so much more. There is a joy in being vulnerable, because it is actually the energy of: “Hi, this is me, warts and all!” …where you get to enjoy every aspect of being you, knowing that no one can ever truly diminish or lessen you. It is recognizing that you don’t need to be perfect, nor do you need to judge or hide any part of you, ever.

Vulnerability is an important element of intimacy with you, and it is also potency. If you didn’t have to judge yourself or hide any part of you, would life get easier and more fun? What if you would be the person in your life who never rejected you, or put up barriers to you, ever again?

How much more freedom would that gift you?

Dain

P.S. For the full article published in Balance by Deborah Hutton, please go here!