Deep Intimacy | Healing Next Steps
I’ve said before that healing is solo work.
And I stand by that. But there comes a point when you can experience healing best when you have someone in your life who can be a mirror for you. Who loves you unconditionally.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know how rare this is. I feel like I’m just now truly learning how to love unconditionally, or at least understanding what unconditional love looks like. Actually doing it is a different story. But now that I know the difference between attachment and love, I feel compelled to intentionally chose true love.
One thing that’s been helping me choose (yes, choose! Unconditional love isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice, and usually an action,) is taking the time to remove myself, my ego, my wants and needs from the situation completely. Genuinely saying to myself, “okay, what would it look like if I responded with actual unconditional love? How would I want someone to respond to me? How would I speak to my daughter or to my sons?”
For example, I recently had a friend lie to me. It was a little white lie. This person didn’t want to hurt my feelings. When I realized the lie, even though it really was little, I was hurt. I wanted to call and ask this friend questions. I wanted to catch this friend in their lie. I wanted to humiliate them. I wanted to hurt them like they hurt me. And then I thought, “Wait. If this was my son or my daughter, how would I respond?”
I would genuinely try to learn why they lied. I wouldn’t react selfishly. I would sit with it and try to learn about them. I wouldn’t assume it was about me. I would believe that there was something deeper going on with them.
I did a little research (you know on trusty ole google) and realized that people who tell white lies have an avoidance issue. Maybe when they were growing up as a child they told these white lies to avoid conflict in their home. This is a learned behavior out of survival. They don’t even realize they are doing it. In fact, the white lie can show that they care about the relationship because they don’t want to risk it by hurting me.
So instead of coming at this friend, making it about me, wanting to humiliate them, I came to them saying, “Hey. I know you lied to me. I also know why you did it. I’m not mad at you. I understand why you did it. You didn’t want to hurt me. I need you to know that I’m a safe place for you. I can handle anything as long as you tell me the truth.”
Once we got that conversation started, it became a place for me to dig a little deeper, because I was able to make it about them and not me. It became a perfect circumstance for me to ask, “do you do this a lot? Do you think this is something you picked up in childhood? How can I help you with this avoidance?”
What I've realized is that most marriages are conditional love. We expect something from the other person. We allow our happiness to hinge on how well the other person meets our expectations— expressed or otherwise— for that day. No wonder we are disappointed, disengaged, and distant.
So how can we transform our romantic relationships into hubs for unconditional love? Sometimes it takes stepping away, finding ourselves, healing on our own, doing our own work, learning to hear ourselves again, and then coming back and truly trying to make every effort to come from a place of unconditional love, feeling so whole and healed in ourselves that we can offer care and presence without expectation or manipulation.
In some households, child/parent love is conditional. “I will love you if…
you get good grades
you keep your room clean
you don’t lie to me
you obey the first time, every time
you become who I always imagined you’d be, or who I wanted myself to become but failed
We can hope for these markers of a “good kid” while still offering unconditional love if (and when) they fall short. Back to attachment v. love:
When we know who we are and aren’t depending on someone else to create or support our identity, we free them up to be who they were made to be.
In our work life, everything is conditional, transactional. Here is what I expect of you, then and only then will you receive compensation. Of course, this his how jobs work, but when you find your identity and self-esteem in your work, this can be incredibly damaging. Most of us probably have attachment relationships with our jobs.
Unconditional love is rare. I think one of the most precious ways we can experience it is with a true friend. Someone who has their own life (which we respect), someone who we don’t have to speak to every single day, or know every single thing about them. Healthy friendship can be a tool for learning what it looks like to want the best for someone else even if it doesn’t benefit us at all.
If you want a friend like this, try to be a friend like this. If you want to get started on that journey, here are a few quotes and thoughts that have helped and inspired me to learn how to foster deep intimacy:
“Healing naturally occurs when two individuals share deep and safe intimacy. Intimacy is like medicine to our soul, it soothes our pain, it brings our core traumas to the light, it allows us to evolve in consciousness.
Our society suffers so deeply because true intimacy has become rare. We swipe through dating apps, we talk nonsense and call it small-talk, we act as if we are happy on our own, pride ourselves in our independence, yet deep down we are lonely, isolated, deprived from true intimacy.
We have forgotten what it means to love, to love so deeply that our heart cracks open and blossoms under the sun. We came on this earth to experience love in all its infinite shapes, and intimacy is the vehicle, the conduit of love. Reclaim you desire, your yearning to experience deep intimacy, Fee it fully. Follow its calling, as this will lead our society out of tis despair and chronic loneliness.” - Lorin Krenn
“Deep intimacy is not just passion and attraction. Deep intimacy is the most powerful healing force in this universe.
It is the medicine to all our wounds, all our patterns, all our conditioning, all our limiting beliefs, there is nothing that cannot be healed through deep intimacy.
But this medicine has a price. It can only heal you if you stop closing your heart, stop running away from deep and safe love and face whatever needs to be faced until your heart is so cracked open that the only way forward is to open it deeper, and deeper.
Those who truly experience deep and safe intimacy have a different glow in their eyes as they carry an ancient depth within them. The intimacy they experience nurtures their soul at such a deep level that oftentimes they create revolutionary change in human history and the collective as they operate from the feeling force of love. They become so free internally that the entire universe bends toward their will, as their will is one with the will of the universe.” - Lorin Krenn
“The idea that you have to heal all your wounds before you can experience deep intimacy is a self-created victim mindset.
While it is true that if you have never worded on your wounds they will hinder you from experiencing the intimacy you long for, the belief that you have to heal all your wounds creates far more damage.
This is rooted in victim consciousness, as you will always be a victim of not being healed perfectly and therefore are not “allowed” to experience the intimacy you desire.
This is entirely self-created. Only you can give yourself permission to experience the intimacy you yearn for in this moment, no matter how “wounded” you perceive yourself to be.
The universe cannot give you what you want if you create rules that do not allow you to experience it, as you are the universe, and YOU decide.” - Lorin Krenn
“Profound healing occurs when we are loved for who we are and accepted as we are, and even more profound healing occurs when we realise that we don’t need such approval as an even vaster love lays deep within our own heart.” - Lorin Krenn
“It is not intimacy that we fear, it is the exposure of our deepest wounds that naturally occurs when we experience deep intimacy and connection.” - Lorin Krenn
“Oftentimes those who have been through the worst, those who have known pain at the deepest level, bring the most love and depth into their relationships as to know pain fully means to understand the true nature of love.” - Lorin Krenn
“When two people love one another wholeheartedly they evoke profound healing of core traumas, naturally learn to become compassionate to their inner wounds, and access higher states of consciousness effortlessly.” - Lorin Krenn
“Intimacy without safety isn’t intimacy, it’s trauma.” - Lorin Krenn
Intimacy doesn’t mean there is never conflict. In fact, the more you allow someone to see of you, the more opportunities they’ll have to see the good, bad, and ugly, so make sure you are someone and you choose someone who is a safe place. Even when someone tells you a little white lie or does something to hurt you. Even when you tell a little white lie and do something to hurt someone else.
True intimacy is what can grow when you’ve done the work to heal. True intimacy is what can flourish when you’ve done the work.
And man, is it worth it.
Find all of the How to Heal series blog posts here.