THE SECRETS OF INTIMACY + DEFENSE
CONTEXT
A recent Mirror Session participant (now friend) posed a series of powerful questions. These questions centered on the theme of intimacy + the fear of opening up so fully to the liabilities of our ever-changing lives.
The response that met her questions rose to meet them like a sprout. There was a tenderness, and yet the confidence of something reaching towards the sun from still-wet soil.
In truth, the tone + value of the words that I delivered held the clarity of experience freshly lived. They grew out of my life, and rose to meet her in her own.
They contain the greatest lesson of my recent inner journey through the pangs of transformation. I know that they’re important.
And this is why I’ve chosen to transcribe them here for you. Enjoy the ride.
TRANSCRIPT
And this leads me to our final point: on intimacy. This is so important. It’s just so so very important. We simply cannot afford to close ourselves off to intimacy. Our very lives depend upon our capacity to open up + to receive life - to receive the gift of Life. If you are defending against potential dangers, if you are closing yourself off in any way because of fear, if you have built a fortress around your heart, then you have not yet fully lived. This is a fact. A life lived in this way is a life lived only in part.
The only way to experience life - the only way to become fully human - the only way to step into your power - the only way to receive all of the beautiful things that you have read about, that you hear about, that you desire - the only way is to open up + to receive. And there is a deep vulnerability in that opening. That opening is the truest form of intimacy.
You will experience + practice this form of intimacy so many different ways throughout your life. Sometimes it will be relational, and you will open yourself up to another. And that will put you in a very vulnerable position, and sometimes you will be hurt.
Other times, you will open yourself to the movement + the flow of your own story, and you will become intimate with an experience - with a professional experience, with a recreational experience, whatever the case may be.
CONTINUED…
You have, in every moment, a single choice. And this choice is an easy one in that it’s always binary: you’re either going to open yourself up, or else close down. You’re either turning towards your life + opening in order to receive, or you are turning yourself away in cold retreat. Every single moment of your life, you revisit these same two options. Every single second - every heartbeat - meets this question: “Will I open myself up to what this moment holds, or will I close myself + fearfully defend against the possibility of being hurt?”
Of course, everything in your experience is going to say, “Oh my god, defend. Fight! Go to war with your life; build a fortress around your fragile heart. There’s no other way to survive!” Everything in your experience is going to support that story. And everything that you will ever hear from me - everything that sends chills of recognition down your spine - everything that you will ever receive as confirmation of the Truth that’s held within you, is going to tell you its perfect opposite: is going to remind you to slow down, to soften, to open up + to receive what is rightfully yours.
And this is the most terrifying thing that you can do. It’s just the most terrifying thing to do.
CONTINUED…
And yet, there is a secret that so few will ever meet. Against all logic, you will find that your position of greatest power is rooted firmly in that place of greatest risk. It’s a paradox - perhaps the most important contradiction of our lives. It is the unexpected realization that your place of truest security stands, unflinching, at the heart of apparent risk.
Intimacy is the way forward for you. Every possible expression of intimacy is yours to explore, to open yourself up to. If you can do this, your life will transform at a rate beyond comprehension - at a rate beyond description. It will feel as though you have been strapped to the back of a rocket ship.
If you have been making careful progress over these past few years on a linear trajectory of self-development, choosing to open yourself up to life in this way - choosing to meet each moment with that intimacy of embracing the dark unknown - will create of that linear trajectory a parabolic shift.
Everything will begin to change for you, and this change will happen quickly. You will, in fact, become swept up into the story of your own important life.
CONTINUED…
I hope that you can find a way to kind-of sit with this + allow it over time to put down roots inside of you. I hope that you will hear it more than once. I hope that you find ways to get creative about how these themes can be explored in your own life: in the every-moment progress of your ordinary life.
There’s one last thing that I would like for you to know. It’s that: I’m taking this extra time with you because I can see how much you matter; I’m taking this extra time because you’re worth it. So own this, ok? Really find a way to make it your very own.
CONTINUED…
Intimacy is your Doorway. Open it. Step through. Become alive.
There is only love here for you; I hope that you can feel it.
Bye for now.