Ever wonder what intimacy really means? Wikipedia defines it as: “Intimacy generally refers to the feeling of being in a close personal association and belonging together. It is a familiar and very close affective connection with another as a result of a bond that is formed through knowledge and experience of the other.”
An easier way to conceptualize Intimacy is by re-writing it as “Into Me See”. It involves a transparency between two people that allows a person to be seen with all their strengths, their weaknesses, their faults and their insecurities.
It is what we all crave. We crave to be ‘seen’ by another! We want to be accepted for who we are and not what we do or look like. If we look at contemporary stories that are portrayed through books and movies, and particularly the movie Avatar, we can see the longing to be ‘seen’ by another. In this movie, the two main characters Jake Sully and Neytiri at first are plagued with tension, differences in how they view life and treat the world around them, disagreements and finally are able to shift into appreciation and respect for one another. Over time they Neytiri begins to ‘see’ who Jake truly is on the inside, not just his ‘childish’ behaviour which transitions the couple into a stage of relationship of tenderness, care and empathy. Once Neytiri begins to ‘see’ Jake, she leads him into a sacred forest where they look deep into each others’ eyes and say ‘I see you’ meaning that they see beyond the good, the bad and the ugly of one another and can see to the core of that person and accept one another ‘just the way they are’. You can feel the depth and the sacredness of that connection and those words.
In a world that is marred by speed, rush ,impersonality, lack of time, drive for productivity and generally the bigger/better/more lifestyle, we crave to be seen. The only snag to that deep wish to be seen is the crucial factor that requires us to be vulnerable in order to be seen, a characteristic that many people shy away from, are afraid of and will go to great lengths to hide, leaving them craving for someone to truly see them, accept them for who they are (more on vulnerability in my next blog)