Closeness: Intimacy and Soul Nourishment

Our world seems to more and more virtual every day. So much of what used to be face to face is now done online--be it holding meetings, workshops, conferences and even coaching and therapist sessions.

While there are certainly conveniences of being able to participate in events with others from the comfort of your own computer, a lot is lost when we only meet in cyberspace.

Closeness, including emotional and physical contact, is a soul food group, and without enough of it, our souls and spirits can become malnourished. Unfortunately, like frogs in a pot of boiling water, this happens slowly over time, and we may not even be aware of what we have lost as we lose it. We become numb or frozen and start to define that as the new normal.

Eleonora Woloy has written a wonderful chapter called "The Many Faces of Closeness," in a book entitled Closeness in Personal and Professional Relationships edited by Harry A. Wilmer. Some of her points are good food for thought.

She defines closeness as "a nearness to anything, or a coming together to unite, whether the other is another human being an animal God or another layer of oneself." Woloy conducted a study and found that the following elements were key parts of closeness: "something shared, a sudden recognition, an experience often in silence, vulnerability, a sense of freedom and bodily experience."

Silence included "the experience of being with someone in stillness, without conversation, either sharing the same experience or sharing one's own private experience in the company of another." When we are face to face, our energies interact. In silence, this energetic interaction, be it our heart fields, our spirits or both, can become palpable. It leads to connection, and I believe to soul nourishment as well.

Sudden recognition was "a sense of sudden unexplained feeling of familiarity that led to a feeling of closeness." I believe when we share space and time with another person, including speaking and listening from the heart, as well as sharing silence, we feel that we know them better. And both energetically and informationally, we do. We start to see and feel ourselves in the mirror of another person, including energetically. This helps us feel more emotionally and spiritually nourished.

Woloy defines shared experience as "the experience of joining with another in some thought, feeling or particular action." If we really want to get to know another person, or want another person to really get to know us, having shared experiences is important. The act of joining leads to connection and over time, bonding. Is it not a surprise that we form friendships of substance with people who we share common experiences with, be it singing in a chorus, working on a project, serving on a committee, or even doing volunteer work feeding the hungry on a holiday?

Vulnerability is "a capacity to be open and exposed to an other." While many of us fear being vulnerable, developing a sense of connection, including shared experiences, helps us feel safer to let our guards down. When we open our hearts and share more deeply, we naturally nurture connection and intimacy. I believe the soul craves the nourishment that comes from safe, respectful and mutual sharing of vulnerability.

Freedom results from a sense of safe, acceptance and welcome of one another's core being. If we are seen, accepted and welcomed for who we actually are, we have many degrees of freedom to fly, create, express, explore and share.

By having an experience in the body, we can "move out of our normal time frame into circular rather than linear time with a heightened sense of vulnerability and knowing while retaining the freedom to not become lost." Being face to face our energy is shared directly. When we touch--holding hands, in an embrace, a supportive hand on the shoulder, we are very directly communicating presence and care to another human being in a way that just cannot be replicated without being physically together. I believe the soul needs this kind of physical contact and communication to be fully nourished, to be fully expressed, and to find full spiritual peace.

I believe a huge piece of face to face connection comes from being in proximity of one another's hearts. Our heatwaves interact without words and can be felt in their full power when we are 8 - 10 feet from one another. The meeting of our hearts, nourishes and expresses the soul. Meeting in cyberspace just cannot replicate this experience.

The Power of Love in Healing

The Power of Love is a topic that inspires music. Luther Vandross sang a song about "the Power of Love." Burt Bacharach wrote "Love Power." Countless other songs talk about the power of love. Empathy and caring often make the difference in medical care. Many of my clients have noted that a caring, empathic doctor made them feel much better when leaving an appointment than a cold, facts only doctor.

At the 2016 United States Association of Body Psychotherapy Conference, Joan Borysenko noted that kindness is actually good for health and healing, and so are empathy and caring. Tender loving care actually reduces IL-6 and cortisol levels and increases HGH levels. Joan said, "when stress and the false self fade away, you become who you truly are. Loving awareness is a person's essential or true nature."

And loving awareness has a power to heal, both in the here and now and transgenerationally. The field of epigenetics explores how stress is carried through generations. Molecules of emotion cause epigenetic changes that can go our for four generations. If we can create calm, peace and healing, we can not only improve the quality of our lives now, but also we can transform trauma that was passed down to us from past generations, and prevent trauma from being passed down to future generations.

Most all human beings have a need for comfort or closeness. In fact, comfort or closeness can communicate love, and provide healing. Closeness is the root of intimacy. And intimacy can be defined as "in-to-me-I-see." When there is emotional safety, we can open up and let pain, fear and anger out, and love in. And in this process, we not only heal, but also transform our molecules of emotion.

Author Eleanora Wooley defines closeness as "a nearness to anything or a coming together to unite, whether the other is another human being, an animal, nature, God or another layer of oneself." Love can be experienced in all of these ways. Our cats and dogs are often sources of pure, unconditional love, and our personal healers. Aspects of closeness include: something shared, a sudden recognition, an experience often in silence, vulnerability (a capacity to be open and exposed to another), a sense of freedom, and for some, a bodily experience.

As we feel emotionally safe, we can let down our defenses, which let woundedness, pain and other potentially toxic energies out, and nurturing, healing energies in. In the process, we can both know ourselves more authentically and deeply, and be known by another more authentically and deeply. Love allows us to feel more connected, emotionally, physically, spiritually and relationally, and even transgenerationally, whether we can feel it or not. The power and energy of love is truly life energy. And opening our hearts to give and receive life energy is healing, regenerative and transformative.

Bridging the Gap Within: A Key to Connection

"I love you just the way you are, there's nothing you need to do. When I feel the love inside myself, it's easy to love you." --From "I Love Myself the Way I Am" by Jai Josefs

A client of mine recently shared with me a reading from a book that pointed out that the greatest cause of pain in relationship is disconnection. When we open our hearts to intimacy, we seek to stand in a space of connection. What we often don't realize, however, is that in order to stand in a space of connection with another person, we need to first stand in a space of connection with self.

If we look inside and find a disconnect in our relationship with self, we may unearth the root of an experience of disconnection with a loved one. Bridging the gap within through exploring what prevents us from being fully connected to self is the foundation for creating space for sustained connection with another person.

Our culture teaches us to look outward to others to make us happy, to take care of us, and often to define ourselves in relationship to them. There is a place for this in moderation, but if we don't first learn what makes us happy, learn how to take care of ourselves, and define ourselves on our own terms, it is hard to be fully present, happy and grounded in our relationships. When things get messy or go awry, we are quick to blame rather than point the finger internally and ask what we are contributing to the mess.

Relationships are a system. There is my relationship with myself, your relationship with yourself, and the "we" which is a living entity, like an oversoul, that both you and I are responsible for cultivating. If any one of these three parts is not fully attended to, a sense of disconnection, and often pain, can result. If we are not aware of the three players in the system, it is hard to identify where a sense of disconnection originates. If we have an internal gap within ourself, then it is hard to sustain the connection with you or the "we."

How do we learn to bridge the gap within? Here are some important practices:

1. Learn to develop an introspective practice. Meditate. Journal. Draw. A practice that encourages you to dig deeper into your senses, thoughts and feelings, allows you to become more aware of your inner experience and connect more deeply with yourself.

2. Make time for introspective work daily. Introspection is part of self-care. And if you develop a daily introspective practice, you are making space for your deeper self. Just as asking a partner "how was your day?" builds relational connection, asking yourself, "how am I feeling today?" builds connection with self.

3. Slow down and look within as you go through your day. If you find yourself moving through your day with a fast pace, it is valuable to slow down and look within. If we go too fast, we may factor self out of the equation as we do for others and focus on what needs to be done.

4. Become more familiar with your internal landscape and create space to presence and experience whatever you are thinking and feeling. Being able to just "be with" whatever we are sensing, thinking and feeling without judgment, helps us "be" with ourselves. This creates more internal space, which then gives us more space to be present with others.

5. Remove judgment of your internal experience. We may not like feeling scared, sad, vulnerable or angry, but all of these feelings are perfectly human. For us to be whole, it is important to embrace of just "be with" whatever we are sensing, thinking or feeling without judgment. Being able to be scared, sad, vulnerable or angry allows us to embrace more of our full humanness, and have space to embrace these qualities in others. 6. Become more conscious of when you feel connected to yourself and when you feel disconnected. When you feel connected, how does your body feel? What do you feel in your heart? What are your thoughts like? When you feel disconnected what do you notice in your body, thoughts and heart?

7. Learn how it feels when you are spacious and grounded. If you are aware of how you feel when you are spacious and grounded, it is easier to notice when you are not. Learn what helps you stay spacious and grounded, and what distracts you.

As you develop your interior landscape, and experience more spaciousness and grounding, you will feel more connection and wholeness within. And this internal spaciousness and connection will help you experience and sustain connection with others you care about.

Living A Succulent Juicy Life

Now that it is June, the supermarkets are starting to offer peaches, nectarines, plums and cherries--some of the delicious fruits that come with warm weather and summer. All of those fruits can be described as juicy and succulent. When you take a bite into a fresh ripe peach, the flavor and juice cascade out of the fruit into your mouth, bringing a wonderful sensation of joy and satisfaction.

What would it mean if the way we lived our lives was as juicy and succulent as a ripe, flavor-filled peach? Might we engage our whole bodies, our whole hearts and all five of our senses? Might we move beyond the limitations of our heads and brains, letting a sense of abundant sensuality drive us?

A succulent juicy life would never be boring. It might have quiet moments. Our minds might be clear of thoughts or worries sometimes. Or even pondering thoughts and worries sometimes. But full engagement in the moment, with our breath, with whatever is authentic, real and true would be the hallmark, more than idle busyness, running on a seemingly directionless treadmill or feeling pressured to do more rather than be.

I've always loved the phrase, "I've lost my mind and come to my senses." Ordinary life is too mental, cerebral, technological, time-lined and limiting. If we swim in that mainstream, we can become dead inside--numb to our hearts and disconnected from the rich landscape of our sensual experience.

The senses we embrace most comfortably, are in the words of anthropologist Ashley Montagu, our "distance senses," sight and hearing. Our "proximity senses," the ones that allow for greater intimacy and feeling, taste, smell and touch are "largely tabooed." Montagu notes in the preface to his book Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, that two dogs may use all five senses in their communication with a fellow dog. The same can hardly be said about two people.

It follows that if human beings are going to live a succulent juicy life, engaging all of our senses, and even our intuition, is necessary to feel a sense of joie d'vivre, of being fully alive. Finding emotionally safe spaces to take down our armor, to lower our defenses, first and foremost with ourselves and then with others is a critical first step. If we do not feel emotionally safe, we tense our breathing, and distance from the vulnerability of authentic feelings.

I find it very sad to discover how many people are truly numb to their hearts, their senses and their deeper experience when they first come to see me for EKP. After starting a session with a heart meditation, when I ask what is calling their heart's attention, many people answer, "I truly don't know."

Here are some steps we can take to open to the richness and fullness of what an embodied life can be:

1. Becoming safe within our own skin: Often we are uncomfortable with the feelings and sensations that emerge in our bodies and hearts as we go through the day. These feelings and sensations are like an internal GPS: they tell us where we are and where we need to go. Creating our own internal space, safety within our own skin, body and mind, to feel, hear and follow our hearts is a key step in opening to a succulent juicy life.

2. Learning to enjoy our senses: "Intensity" is often a scary experience. Sensual experience CAN be intense. If we feel strongly, we may find ourselves defending against the intensity of the strong feeling Learning to relax, breath and allow ourselves to just be is a practice that can help us enjoy intense sensual experience. Delicate sensual experience can also be joyful.

3. Becoming more embodied: I had a colleague years ago that said, "Whenever I feel the urge to exercise, I lie down until it has gone away!" Everyone in my office laughed. But I was actually sad for my colleague. If we don't move, feel our bodies active and engaged in life, feet firmly planted on the ground or even running or dancing, we miss a wonderful part of the human experience. Becoming more aware of our bodies, how they feel, and whether we are in them or out of them is part of becoming more embodied. The body really is the temple of the soul. And a lot of joy can be experienced in the temple!

4. Learning to enjoy our sensuality and sexuality: Sexuality and sensuality both allow life's energy force to fill and move through our bodies, hearts and souls. Both can bring pleasure and connection with self, the divine and others. Sadly, both "s words," can be the source of shame in our culture. Sensuality and sexuality can be extremely earthy and spiritual experiences. If we can embrace them with love for self and others, they are a magical force of aliveness.

5. Finding means of self-expression: The spirit really does seek expression to feel alive. We are fortunate to have so many different possible means of expression: singing, dancing, painting, drawing, photography, cooking, acting, touching, gardening…..That is only the beginning. Finding modes of expression that feel true and authentic enlivens our experience and helps bring balance to our lives.

6. Becoming touchable and comfortable touching: Our skin is the largest organ in the body. It also is sensitive and sensual. We can feel and know so much through touch. Sadly, our culture teaches us to be touch-phobic rather than touch literate. We learn that if we let someone close, they can hurt us, and sadly, often this is true. We are afraid to reach out and touch another person. Touch is too often taboo. Yet the word touch has emotional as well as physical connotations. When we are connected with ourselves we are "in touch" with our hearts. If someone touches our hearts, we may want to touch them with a hug. If someone offers us a literal helping hand, they also touch our hearts. Emotions and touch go hand in hand Having comfort and fluency in this language allows us more joie d'vivre.

Rating Our Relationships?

Performance reviews are a useful tool to help us evaluate not only how well we are doing in the aggregate sense at work, but also and perhaps even more importantly, how well we are doing on critical components that add up to how well we are doing overall. In our most important relationships, we tend to get black and white when thinking about how well things are going. And it is too easy to focus on a pesky frustration, rather than systematically looking at the many components that contribute to our overall experience. I have heard many a person complain about how bad things are in a critical relationship, but lack the language or the tools to break down what is not working and what can be done to make things better. A Wall St Journal article by Elizabeth Bernstein explored the value of giving a relationship a "performance review." Using a method developed by marriage therapist Sharon Gilchrest O'Neill, both people in a relationship give a numerical rating to key elements, and use the ratings as the basis for identifying problems and talking about how to make things better. * Is there a sense of trust in the relationship? * Do the two people experience a sense of connection and companionship in each others' company? * How is intimacy in the relationship? * Do both people feel the other listens to them and hears them? * When there is conflict, how is it handled? * When something good happens for one person, does the other person celebrate? * Can the two people work as a team on critical tasks? * Does the relationship feel boring or can new activities be injected into the mix? Asking these kinds of questions allows a level of honesty to be reached, and can provide useful information about what is working and what needs to be changed. If you don't know what is broken, it's pretty hard to fix it! Any tools that encourage open and honest communication can work wonders if both parties want to do the work to make things better! And at the very least, two people can determine if they are on the same page or not...and which page they want to be on!

Intimacy and Health

When we think about intimacy, too often our frame of reference is far too narrow: as something that only is part of a "romantic" relationship. While intimacy is often one of the things we savor when it is available in a romantic relationship, it is a quality of "human communion," as author Agapi Stassinopoulos notes in an article called "Why Intimacy is the Secret Key to Health" in the Huffington Post. Being with another person, even for a series of moments, where you feel that you have their full attention, that you really matter, and that deeper levels of your heart and soul and theirs can be exposed, shared and appreciated is a very sacred experience. And it is something our souls crave in relationship to other human beings to be healthy and vital, Do you have a friend who knows just how to respond to you when you are scared or sad? Do you have a friend who knows it is better to just be present and listen rather than give advice when you are struggling? Is there someone in your life who knows your favorite kind of tea or the kind of gesture that makes you feel loved when you are having a bad day--or hard life passage? When someone truly knows and sees you for who you are, and responds to you with a sense of sacred respect and knowledge of what matters to you, intimacy is created. Stassinopoulos notes that when intimacy is created, we are so fully present with another person that the outside world may disappear, and both people might feel they "are in the presence of something almost sacred." This kind of space is one where we are not distracted, and the person we are listening to or talking with might get the sense that they are "the only person in the universe" to us at that very moment. Stassinopoulos reflects that our fast-paced world does not promote the kind of slowing down needed to both open to and experience this deeper sense of connection. If we focus on what is "next," we may very well miss the opportunity available to us in the moment. When we are always focused on what's next, we can live with a sense of anxiety that puts up protective walls to survive, rather than taking down protection to help us take in the moment for what it is. If we go too fast, always focus on what needs to be done, and in the process, forget to look one another in the eye, or extend a helping hand, we start to shut down and numb out--like the frogs in the pot of boiling water. When intimacy is rare, no matter how much we need it deep down inside, we often do numb out in order to survive without such a basic food group for the soul. We need to find ways to make ourselves feel emotionally safe, to slow down and create the kind of moments where we can truly look into one another's eyes and see who is with us in the here and now. If we come to another person with "an authentic unconditional caring," their walls and defenses start to melt, know we can be truly safe and loved. If a person connects with you and responds in the spirit of "I have all the time in the world for you," we are far more inclined to open up, take risks and be vulnerable. Knowing we really ARE emotionally safe, the other person really DOES want to hear what we have to say, and feeling care through a glance, a touch or a hug, melt our defenses and free up life energy. Stassinopoulos invites us to inquire how our world would be different if we consciously initiated and sustained more intimate experiences with one another. My mentor Stan Dale used to say intimacy meant "in-to-me-I see." When another person can offer a grounded, loving, pure and clear mirror, our defense melt and we can feel seen and heard. The soul thrives on being authentic, and it celebrates when it encounters other people who encourage us to be who we really are. If we offer deep caring, patience, a willingness to learn and understand...and bring love and goodwill to one another without strings, not only will our emotional and spiritual health improve, but also our physical health. Intimacy really IS a food group for the soul. And we need our recommended daily allowances.

Anxiety and Abandonment

Have you ever experienced the "push me-pull you" dance in close relationships? Once "new relationship energy" has dissipated, do you find yourself getting close to someone, only to find them pulling away. Or have you been on the other side of this see saw, finding yourself distancing as a person you care about has come in close, perhaps too close for comfort? Most all of us crave intimacy, but it can also be a scary proposition. Relationship experts Calista Luminaire and Lion Goodman write, "Anxiety is the uncomfortable body sensation associated with fear, uncertainty, instability or feeling unsafe...When infants are uncomfortable or afraid, they cry out, expressing their need to be cared for. If their needs are not attended to, they feel anxious." They note that in adults, the feeling of anxiety has its roots in the same primal part of the brain. They write, "Anxiety is a subconscious rattling of the nervous system signaling, 'I need care now!' If you're not certain whether you'll be care for, you feel upset or nervous.'" If when you are scared, you are responded to with love and care, you will feel safe, and your anxiety will "melt away." If your partner has a negative response, including criticism, judgment, rejection or withdrawal, your anxiety will quickly escalate into the red zone. Your primal fear of abandonment button will be triggered, and you may experience the same kind of fight or flight response that comes when something is a threat to your survival. Your partner, who is having their own parallel red zone response, then distances further, and the two of you descend seemingly separately, but actually together, into a downward spiral. Somehow, instead of being two people dancing on an equal playing field, one person has become the "distanced"and the other person has become the "pursuer." Both roles feel pretty horrible, and relationship breaks down. The distancer feels overwhelmed by the anxiety of the person needing closeness at a very primal level. The pursuer feels unsafe, rejected and abandoned. Becoming aware that this dynamic of anxiety and abandonment is starting to play out in an intimate relationship is the first step in breaking the downward spiral, and helping get your footing back on solid ground. If our primal needs for safety, comfort, reassurance and security had been met when we were small, we would feel safer as we opened our hearts and started to form emotional attachments with other people. But when these primal needs were not met or not met consistency, attachment triggers anxiety and abandonment, with an intensity equivalent to questioning our very survival. Important learnings are: 1. We are all human and many of us have unmet needs around attachment and security. 2. If we can get in touch with our own anxiety around intimacy and attachment, we can start to learn what our own inner child needs to be safe and secure. 3. If we feel frightened of someone else's anxiety or need for closeness, likely our own attachment fractures are coming to the surface to heal and transform. 4. The better able we are to have compassion for the scared, anxious inner part of us, be it the part that is afraid of being abandoned or the part that is afraid of being smothered, the better we can manage our own anxiety, whether we are the pursuer or the distanced. 5. The better we understand ourselves and our reactions, the more compassionate we can be with our partner and their reaction. 6. The better we know what we need, the more able we are to translate it into something doable in the here and now. If you tell someone, "I am feeling anxious and would feel a lot better if you held me for 5 minutes," that is giving them a doable task that can make a difference. It is also a contained task, so the distancer will not feel smothered. Learning the steps of the dance of intimacy takes courage, time and often good coaching. It is well worth the personal growth and relational effort to become skilled at this dance!

We Need Each Other: Kindness, Bonding and Barriers to Bonding

Our world can be cold and cruel, and as we increasingly reach out and touch our handheld devices, instead of one another, it is easy to become numb to our basic human need to connect and feel connected emotionally, physically and in real time, to ourselves and others. Dr. Bruce Perry, who specializes in the impact of childhood trauma on our ability to bond and form healthy relationships talks about "attachment," our capacity to form and maintain healthy emotional relationships. Dr Perry believes that at our core, human beings are relational creatures. In fact, he believes the very nature of humanity arises from relationships. Almost everything we learn about what it means to be a human being is learned in a relational context including: how we impact one another through our words, thoughts and actions, how we think and feel and how we express or communicate our thoughts and feelings, how to respond or behave in a given situation and how the world works, both in small details and bigger picture ways. It is both natural and healthy to form special bonds with other people, "attachment bonds." Dr Perry describes four unique properties of an attachment bond: 1. an enduring bond with a special person, 2. involves comfort, soothing and pleasure, 3. loss or threat of loss of the special person evokes intense distress and 4. there is security and safety in the context of this relationship. Most all human beings have the innate, genetic capacity to experience attachment relationships: relationships which develop and stand on a special connection or bond. When as infants we are treated with attentive, responsive and loving caregiving, our genetic potential for attachment and bonding is expressed. When we lack the attentive, responsive and loving caregiving we truly need, our ability to bond or attach can be adversely impacted. This impacts the ability of the child to mature emotionally and socially and develop the critical attachment bonds with self and other needed to be healthy, happy and successful navigating the larger world. Dr Price notes that by compartmentalizing our world, we've decreased the opportunities to have relationships. Initially, if we are socialized to expect bonding, attachment and relational connection, we will feel something very deep missing if we live in a non-relational compartmentalized world. The lack of development of our capacity to attach or bond creates a very deep emptiness inside, palpable in our hearts and guts. However, if we continue to live with this void going unfilled and with our needs for connection going unmet, we eventually numb out to ourselves and our needs and give up hope that our needs will ever be met. This numbing out creates a feral state of emotional and relational being, where we shy away from deep or warm emotional contact and bonding, and try to do it all alone. When we are in this feral state, even if someone approaches us with kindness, we feel more the intensity of the outreach than the valence of the emotional energy that accompanies the outreach. We learn to protect ourselves from the pain of not getting our needs met in the past by keeping up a wall to feel or experience our needs in the here and now. And this protection turns into a fortress that keeps danger out, by also prevents love and care to get in. While we can survive living in our individual fortresses, in time, the heart grows weary and lonely. We need each other. We are not meant to live lives of quiet desperation, each on our own exotic or simple path, independent of other people. When we have healthy and abundance attachment experiences early in life, we can welcome and embrace love, kindness and the bond that grows from both, later in life. If we have not had the safety, love, constancy or care to attach, we may run from true love and kindness, that way a a fly or an animal turns away from the light. We learn to live in a numb, compartmentalized, not entirely human world, where relationships and connection are at the bottom of the list. In this sense, to compartmentalize our lives means to emotionally, physically and spiritually starve. Our fundamental need for interconnection can not be met when we lives our lives of quiet desperation so quietly that no one really knows just how quiet and desperate things have become. When we are this isolated we die a small death every day, even if we think we are tough or strategic or better than others whose lives just don't measure up to our inner judge. We need to be able to soothe our defenses, and regain safety from love, kindness and bonding, so we get the core emotional, relational, physical and spiritual nutrients we need to learn, grow and survive. Loving touch, kind words, honest truth, and emotional constancy should be balms for the soul, not theoretical concepts. As the beautiful gospel song by Hezekiah Walker, "I Need You to Survive" says, "I need you. You need me." We need each other to survive, and surely to live and thrive.

Soul Mates and Wound Mates

So many of us wish to meet a "soul mate," another human being with whom we share a deep connection, with whom the level of intimacy seems rich and endless, and where we may feel like we've known the other person forever, even when we have just met them. With a soul mate, we can talk about seemingly anything,and the potential for joy, growth and fulfillment through relationship seems profound and exquisite. What we often don't take into consideration, and may not be aware of, is that when we have a deep connection with another person, not only do our most positive qualities have the opportunity to shine, but also our shadow parts come to the surface as well. Deep connections, because they are safe and far reaching, allow us to connect with our undeveloped, unhealed and unexamined parts so that we may heal and integrate them as we grow. When we do this critical shadow work, the rewards are soul rendering. However, if we do not realize that with soul connection comes soul work, we may run from this important opportunity for growth, sometimes abandoning ship--our own and the one we share with a soul mate. My colleague Jeff Brown, one of the most brilliant articulators of matters of the heart I know, has made a beautiful and very helpful distinction: soul mates and wound mates. A wound mate may be a soul mate who is not ready, willing or able to do the essential soul work needed to grow, both for oneself and in relationship. As a result, Jeff says the wound mate relationship is sourced "in unresolved emotional patterns, issues and holdings." Instead of recognizing what is being brought to the surface and mining it for gold, "wound mates just flounder in the mud, trigger after trigger, downward spiral after downward spiral." From a soul point of view, this kind of relationship really is a waste. To do our soul work, to point the finger inwards rather than outwards, takes great courage and consciousness. Yet, the fruits of such efforts are sweet and rare. If two soul mates do their work, they can bring out the best in one another and be the wind under one another's wings. If they run from the dark side of the mirror, they can feel as though they are clipping one another's wings and holding one another down or back. How sad it is when instead of recognizing that shadow work can bring us closer to ourselves and our loved ones, we run away, shut down, or reject the very source of love who at first appeared to be a gift from God. Perhaps even having this frame of soul mates and wound mates can help bring more awareness to the delicate dance of love, intimacy and relationship.

Intimacy and Love

Stan Dale, the founder of the Human Awareness Institute, taught me a wonderful definition of what "intimacy" is: "in-to-me-I-see." Our ability to look deeply into ourselves, know ourselves and love ourselves provides a foundation for others to look deeply into us, know us and love us deeply. To be loved for who we are, we need to feel safe and secure enough in who we are to let others see us for who we are. To be able to be intimate, however, requires a kind of steady loving presence, be it with self or other. True intimacy cannot grow in a climate of judgment. Joel and Michelle Levy send out wonderful quotes of the day, and here is one that provides a wonderful illustration of what love really means: "Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused." --African Saying If we have created the intimacy of loving relationship, and we are deeply seen by someone who loves us, they can remind us of our goodness, our beauty and our wholeness at those moments when we may lose touch with these fundamental truths. Intimacy offers not only a mirror of depth and soulfulness, but also a reminder of our inherent goodness, and the true worth and value of who we are deep down inside. I have often felt intimacy is a food group for the soul. Without it, our souls starve. And with intimacy in gentle abundance, we are nourished and appreciated for who we really are.