Radical Intimacy

AUTHOR’S NOTE

My family has graciously granted me permission to share their names and stories. All other names and identifying details have been changed to protect privacy. All pronouns used in this book reflect the ones used by the individuals in real life.

In the interest of full transparency, I am a white, cisgender, mostly heterosexual woman of Scandinavian and Eastern European Jewish decent. I am a credentialed coach, certified by the Co-Active Training Institute. I’ve trained extensively in hatha yoga, bhakti yoga, and meditation in a variety of disciplines. Additionally, I trained and practiced tantra with the late Psalm Isadora and have been initiated in a Sri Vidya lineage. I’ve dabbled in Zen Buddhism since I was sixteen years old through my own self-directed study. In the past several years, however, I have formalized that training at Upaya Zen Center, receiving the precepts from Roshi Joan Halifax in a jukai ceremony. Currently, I participate in an ongoing Socially Engaged Buddhist Training with a focus on alleviating suffering before, during, and after death. To that end, I volunteer regularly at a hospice in Los Angeles called Caring House. In my work, I often draw from the various disciplines I’ve studied. It is through the lens of my identity, education, and lived experience as a white woman that I write this book. I offer stories, concepts, and perspectives from cultures other than my own ancestry with humility, respect, and the recognition of my filtered perspective.

I SEE YOU. I GOT YOU. I LOVE YOU.

THERE IS A SPECIFIC MOMENT THAT HAS BECOME INEVITABLE IN THE hundreds of workshops I have facilitated. It happens every time, and it goes like this: Each participant pairs up with someone they don’t know. The nervous excitement is palpable. I ask them to take turns sharing something that is hard for them to admit, something they’ve kept secret from the rest of the world and maybe even themselves. I instruct them how to skillfully listen, support, and witness each other. Apprehension gives way to vulnerability. After their mutual share, they look into each other’s eyes for a good ten minutes without looking away, and finally I have them say to each other I see you. I got you. I love you. This is the moment I am referring to. It’s marked by tears of joy, relief, recognition, and appreciation. Having taken an oath of confidentiality and willingly shed any hint of pretense, it’s as if, communally and individually, we step into a space that feels safe enough to be exactly who and where we are—unapologetically real, raw, and rough. It’s just us, it’s tender, and it’s profound. This is radical intimacy.

Part of what makes these moments so powerful is that they rarely happen in the context of our daily lives. How many times have you brushed off a tense interaction with your partner because you didn’t want to incite the same argument you’ve been having over and over again, maybe even for years? What about when you catch a heart-wrenching glimpse of yourself in the mirror in spite of your efforts to avoid seeing yourself naked? Do you have your own version of escaping into a gallon of ice cream and Netflix instead of experiencing the discomfort of your feelings? Moments like these aren’t troublesome as isolated incidents, but the collection of them in repetition, over time, creates a persistent low-key disorientation. We skim the surface of our lives pretending there isn’t a swirling bog of unresolved energy growing underneath, the neglect of which leads to anxiety, depression, and loss of purpose.

In my many years of supporting individuals and couples as a sex and intimacy coach, I have come to know, firsthand, the ravaging effects of this kind of distraction, deflection, and denial. Maybe you know it too. Has your spouse suddenly announced they are leaving you for someone else after a lifetime together of raising kids and creating a family enterprise? Or maybe you are knee-deep in the aftermath of a divorce wondering how you once loved the person you now despise with every cell of your body. Perhaps you finally settled down with a “good guy,” only to end up in a sexless marriage still fantasizing about sex with the narcissistic hot guy. Maybe after years of being with your partner, you feel more like roommates or siblings than lovers. Or have you always thought you would get married one day but just never found “the one”? If any of this sounds familiar… Welcome. You’ve arrived in the right place.

The long-term consequences of distracting ourselves from the practice of sustained intimacy on many levels aren’t specific to gender, sex, orientation, or relationship status. Everyone at one time or another has asked themselves if this is all there is. Everyone has wondered how to sustain desire, enthusiasm, affection, and respect for our intimate partners over time. And everyone has, at one point in their lives, looked in the mirror and wondered where the person they used to know has gone. Our thunderbolt, 140-character, hyperstimulating, same-day-delivery, mobile-order-half-caff-venti-one-pump-sugar-free-vanilla-coconut-milk-latte kind of world provides an environment inhospitable to intimacy, with others, with ourselves.

We can talk about truth telling, authenticity, badassery, self-love, self-care, and slaying the day. We can apply the law of attraction, love languages, and every hack in the world. We can do all the yoga, workshops, and retreats we can make time for. But without an underpinning of intimacy, our experience lacks the kind of specificity necessary to truly know ourselves through and through. With intimacy as the foundational principle of our existence, we can build a life based on what we truly need, not what we have been told we need, think we need, or think we should need. No matter who you are and who you like to have sex with, my intention is to arm you with a new tool kit and consciousness for cultivating the deeply connected relationships you desire and the life you deserve.

ON NAVIGATING THIS BOOK

The concepts presented in this book build on themselves chapter by chapter. For this reason alone, it is advantageous to work through the material sequentially. If you are like me, you will pick up the book and blade through it, all willy-nilly, looking for snippets of words and pictures that grab your attention. That’s okay! I honor your curiosity. If you are particularly drawn to a certain chapter or section of the book, I offer the following guidance: familiarize yourself with the Radical Intimacy Matrix presented in Chapter 3 as a foundation for navigating the book either in the order it’s presented or randomly. This will give you context as you light a match, illuminating various areas of opportunity for greater intimacy and self-knowledge.

ON SAFETY, SUPPORT, AND SELF-RELIANCE

In reading and embracing the practices in this book, I am inviting you into tender territory, much of which you have successfully resisted for some time. Thoughts, feelings, and even somatic (physical) experiences are likely to arise in which you feel vulnerable. Like the safe space in my workshops, you will want to feel protected in your experience. Any transformational journey is deeply personal. Not everyone in your life will understand and be able to support you. In fact, some are undoubtedly invested in the status quo and will be threatened by your desire to evolve and grow. It might feel lonely at times, but the gift is the relationship you are building with yourself and a new kind of self-reliance. Alternately, you might read this book with a bestie or a circle of friends with whom you journey into the world of Radical Intimacy together in a supportive community.

ON GENDER

When a baby is born, the first question many of us ask is, “Is it a girl or a boy?” From the moment a child enters the world, we are expected to relate to them as a gender, rather than as a person. Everything we perceive about them is through the filter of our ideas about gender. The binary model of gender expression is a key underpinning of our patriarchal social structure. Sexism is the prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination on the basis of sex. In order for sexism to thrive, it’s required that there be a clearly defined difference between the sexes. As you move through the exploration of the many influences on your sexuality, much of what you are going to be dealing with has to do with gender conformity—how you are supposed to feel and behave as a woman or a man. This is challenging enough for a cisgender person—someone who identifies as a man or woman and was born with genitals that align with that identification. It’s exponentially more confronting for people whose gender identification falls somewhere other than solidly in one or the other of the two binary extremes.

In Western culture, we have long operated under the assumption that if you are born with a vulva, you are a girl and will grow to become a woman. And if you are born with a penis, you are a boy who will become a man. Conventional Western culture’s historical intolerance for nuance and subtlety has never allowed for the possibility that there might be a gray area here. Reorganizing our understanding of gender to allow for more nuance might not obliterate gender tropes and the way we stack our expectations against what we misunderstand to be innate identities, but it would present an array of options for how we inhabit our bodies. Think about it for a moment. Given the opportunity to explore your own gender identity, would you describe yourself as 100 percent feminine or 100 percent masculine? Would letting go of rigid gender roles shift the way you dress, speak, behave? Societal gender chaos is perhaps a risk worth taking for the benefit of a more diverse set of criteria by which we discern and understand who we are and how we relate to each other.

ON THE COMPONENTS OF CONSENT

No one is entitled access to your body without your permission. Full stop. Consent should be a no-brainer, but somehow it persists as a very murky subject. I am including some basics about consent to support you in the physical intimacy exercises in this book, as well as in your life beyond. Borrowing from Planned Parenthood, here are the five components of proper consent—FRIES.

1. Freely Given: Consenting is a choice you make without pressure, manipulation, coercion, or the influence of drugs or alcohol.

2. Reversible: Even if consent has previously been given, you are entitled to change your mind with no explanation required. Even if it’s for something you’ve done before. Even if you are both naked in bed. Even if you are in the middle of the sexual act itself.

3. Informed: You can consent to something only if you have the full story. You have not consented if someone says they will use a condom and they don’t or if they neglect to disclose that they have a sexually transmitted disease.

4. Enthusiastic: When it comes to sex, you should do only stuff you want to do, not things that you feel you’re expected to do.

5. Specific: Saying yes to one thing doesn’t mean you say yes to anything else.

Couples often communicate in a kind of shorthand they develop over time. While understandable and appropriate, if you are embarking on this journey with your long-term partner, I urge you to err on the side of caution when trying the exercises presented in this book and to step up your level of sensitivity to your partner’s experience. To be honest, the same applies to physical intimacy with yourself. Check in regularly with yourself and make sure you are comfortable with the pace and intensity of your exploration.

ON TRAUMA AS AN OPPORTUNITY

Trauma comes in many forms. At one end of the spectrum, it can be a single act of violence that is nameable and knowable or many years of sexual abuse or harassment. At the other end, it can be a subtle but persistent manipulation of our inner dialogue and self-esteem. I have treated a client for whom a single comment from a past lover about her body caused such deep trauma that it lived at the root of her compulsive self-harm behavior for decades after. Our suffering is not a competition. One person’s trauma does not diminish another’s. The last thing you need to feel is that your wounds are not valid or deserving of your attention. Your body holds valuable information about opportunities for healing. Follow its clues.

As you journey into the world of Radical Intimacy, you may elicit what looks and feels like a trauma response. Clinically, this is your nervous system reacting as if the threat that caused the original trauma still exists in the present moment. To determine if you are having a trauma response, look for the classic signs of Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn. There are many techniques available through the magic of the Internet that help you to calm your response and regulate your nervous system—breathing techniques, mindfulness exercises, weighted blankets, and more. I’ve included a small tool kit of basic exercises for self-soothing here to use in a pinch. If your disregulation persists, put the book down and seek the support of a trauma-informed therapist to help you process what is triggering your response. Please listen when I tell you that this doesn’t mean you are broken. Nothing needs to be fixed. You simply need more care and healing before you continue on the Radical Intimacy journey.

ON THE TRIP YOU ARE ABOUT TO TAKE

Are you the kind of person who sets your navigation app to your destination and then takes each turn as it comes? Personally, I can relax only if I zoom out and get a snapshot impression of the entire trip before I begin. If this is you too, here is your snapshot of radical intimacy. There are three kinds of intimacy: Emotional, Physical, and Energetic. And there are three levels of intimacy: Self, Other, World. The intersection of these kinds and levels creates nine areas of opportunity to deepen intimacy. For instance, “emotional intimacy with self” is an opportunity to master your emotional life. “Physical intimacy with the world” is an opportunity to explore how your environment penetrates you through the vehicle of your five senses—stop and smell the roses, yes, but how do we taste the wind? You can refer to the diagram provided here to see all nine combinations. I’ll be guiding you through these areas with information, stories from my practice and personal life, as well as exercises that will help you embody the concepts you’ve just learned.

I invite you to dive deep and work your way through each of the chapters, focusing on one at a time, with no concern for how to weave it together into a cohesive system until the end. I urge you to simply be in the experience of each chapter and each exercise and adopt an attitude of noticing, allowing, and accepting. In this way, reading the book and then interacting with the information contained within it becomes your first experience of radical intimacy.

Bon voyage, happy trails, vaya con Dios, dear reader. May you enjoy a richly rewarding, deeply moving, life-changing journey home to yourself.