Why is it that the very thing we want most, we often resist? Intimacy, with ourselves and others, is perhaps our deepest human longing and yet so often we resist the very thing we most desire.
Culturally, we have relegated intimacy to the sexual realm and as something reserved for one’s significant other only. Yet this limited view greatly diminishes our capacity and potential for intimacy with all of Life, including our significant other.
People often say to me ‘I don’t have a partner to practice with.’ I say, ‘look around, every person in your world wants real connection, same as you.’
The word intimacy comes from the Latin intimus, meaning inmost. Intimacy is the path to our inmost awareness. It is through our intimate relationships with others that we come to know and love ourselves.
I love how the word itself shares its deeper meaning: IN-TO-ME-SEE. The path of intimacy, like all spiritual paths, is a path of bravery. In order to be experience true intimacy, we must be willing to courageously and honestly confront and dissolve all that stands in the way.
Or in Rumi’s words: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
We are Love. This is our Nature. And our human journey is one of seeing through and releasing the defenses that we believe are keeping us safe from hurt.
This is quite the conundrum is it not? We want to be love and share love and yet we defend against it. I see in myself and others how often we unconsciously respond defensively (or aggressively) whenever we feel threatened.
The good news is that anytime we are willing to face and own our fear, new possibilities immediately open up. When just one person is willing to remain open and loving, conflict can and does resolve itself.
This is of course much easier said than done which is where the practice of Partner Yoga comes in.
As my dear friend and fellow Yoga teacher Maja Zilih says ‘Partner Yoga is a process of healing in connection WITH another human. It is in relationship that we get hurt, and it is in relationship that we can heal.’
Partner Yoga is such a sweet and safe zone to test the truth of these words.
Being in conscious connection with others, whether they are our lovers, our children, our friends or even ‘strangers’, our deepest human need for intimate and authentic connection is satisfied, and we see there is nothing to be feared, only to be understood.
Enjoy and love,
Elysabeth