2 Simple Ways to Practice Intimacy Daily
Intimacy is a skill that increases, deepens, refines, and is enhanced with committed practices.
Everyone is seeking connection. Everyone. We all want and need it in different ways, sure. But the deepest and most honest part of being alive is interconnectedness. We cannot survive, or thrive, without being in relationship with the things around us.
Whether we choose to be active participants or passive receivers has a big impact on how we feel, think, express ourselves, and open towards the world outside of us. Everyone has experienced some kind of rejection, heartbreak, and shame in relationships. That’s just part of it. And these interactions shape who we are just as much, if not even more than the ones that hold us in love, joy, and with an open heart.
Intimacy is not exclusive for sexual connections. It’s not meant to be contained to romantic encounters or solely for one person to prove our devotion and loyalty.
Yes. We all will choose and need to experience relationship agreements differently and in collaboration with the person right in front of us who we are choosing to build bonds, trust, and care with. Relationships are containers designed for such things. But what we’re talking about here, right now, is intimacy. Which is a practice, a tool, an embodied feeling, a guide that gives us the footing to open our heart and experience life deeper.
Intimacy is our greatest teacher in the human journey. It is our most powerful healer. It is the medicine that binds our heart-soul to our mind-body to shape us in ways that we can feel and become fully whole.
Intimacy is a skill that increases, deepens, refines, and is enhanced with committed practices.
But it doesn’t always feel easy to access intimacy. And it often actually feels really overwhelming, scary, and hard to share intimacy with others. We have to navigate many complexities to open the doors to something that is close and within reach. The thing I’ve found to be most powerful and that has allowed me to shift from feeling isolation in my desires for closeness with others and towards feeling more openness, depth, connection, care, and love - even without the container of committed partnership is practicing intimacy in my every day life as a part of the way I live, not as an exclusivity that is reserved for the right time or person.
Yes. There is intentionality and discernment needed as we choose to reveal and share more of ourselves with the world. We must move from a place of clarity, hold boundaries, and not fear messing up. But, we must also decide that we are going to try. And try again. And sometimes, what we need to start and move from the contemplation into the trying is a blueprint - a model to test and then shape into our own.
Here are 2 things you can add to your daily to practice embodying and sharing intimacy.
EYE CONTACT
Eye contact is truly one of the most intimate things we can exchange. I believe it is a window into our heart and soul. And it can truly allow us to feel and be seen in ways that supersede the care that words can hold. Eye contact can settle and soothe us when we are feeling distress or overwhelm. It can warm our hearts when we are seeking love. It can validate and bring security to any feelings of insecurity. It can bring connectiveness forward and allow us to build trust.
Why it’s hard: Eye contact can be very vulnerable. And when we make eye contact with someone else, it is an agreement of shared vulnerability. I experience energetic connectivity which is deeper and more intimate than physical touch for me. So when I choose to make eye contact, I am choosing to open up, reveal parts of myself that are not always accessible on the surface and to see and hold these parts of someone else.
Pace + Practice it: Eye contact doesn’t have to be exposing. And it can be. We get to choose what we reveal, how things make us feel, and what we are ready and willing to share with others. When we avoid practicing eye contact, we have less of an ability to use it in ways that align with what we want, need, and are available for exchanging.
Design your formula for intimacy with eye contact:
• Mirror Work: Commit time daily to yourself, your mirror, and your own eye gazing. I do this while I brush my teeth, do my hair, put on my makeup, and after a shower or bath. I also take moments every time I pass a mirror to spend a few seconds with myself and my own eye contact. When I am having a hard time accepting or processing something in life or about myself, I commit some time to sit in front of my mirror and to look deeper into my own eyes. This practice has shifted my ability to feel comfortable with making eye contact with others and allows me to let other people see and connect with me with more openness. Mirror work also has helped me find separation between myself and others when exploring intimacy. It has given me the ability to have intimate moments and to let them be just that - moments that intimacy was felt. It has helped me understand and communicate the difference between connection and invitations for more.• Passive Eye Contact: Making eyes with strangers. Which doesn’t need to have hidden messages. And it can. The truth is the reason why we are making eye contact isn’t because we want to get someone into bed. It may be one of the reasons, but when we are truly seeking to live more intimate lives, we are choosing to meet eyes with others because we want to see and be seen. Practicing passive eye contact strengthens and moves our edges of comfort so that we can experience deeper and more layered levels of intimacy with those we choose to exchange this type of connection with. Let it flow as naturally as you can. When you’re out in public - make eye contact with a passing stranger and count to 3 before you look away. That’s it. If you want to connect with them more or further, you can return to eye contact if they do the same and exchange a smile or hello. The intention is to build our resilience and ability to hold discomfort with the vulnerability of seeing another and being seen so that it is easier to access and we can feel our own differences in what this type of intimacy means to us.
INTENTIONAL CONVERSATION + COMMUNICATION
Language is a glue for connection. It helps us translate what we feel, think, and desire in ways that another can understand. It helps us shape experiences and translate what we like and dislike to bring us into deeper connection with the world. Conversation and communication are different things. They sometimes entangle, but they serve unique purposes that empower us to open up more and expand the ways in which we come together with others daily. Conversations help us find common interests, ideas, desires, and values. Communication designs the boundaries, edges, collaborations, and separateness within a connection and how we are willing and wanting to spend our time. We all exchange in conversations and communicate daily. But when we practice it with a specific intention, it helps us expand our experiences and find more fulfillment and alignment within connections so that we can experience more intimacy.
Strengthen your ability to speak with intention
• Intentional Conversation - Conversations are something we exchange with others as a primary connective tool. To have intentional conversations means that we are setting standards, guidelines, agenda, or goals with the words that we exchange. We can practice this daily with ourselves through prompted or topic-centered journaling, audio notes, or artistic expression. We can practice this frequently with others by creating space for setting an agreement and container to discuss certain things. Both give us the opportunity to share with intention. And when we share with intention, it also gives us the chance to explore intimacy in ways that feel manageable, contained, and safer to go deeper. Intentional conversations have a beginning, middle, and end - which provides a boundary around what is being discussed and helps us hold vulnerability with greater ease. They allow space for rules or limits with what and how discussions happen and they also allow us to expand our perspectives, ideas, and understandings of others, ourselves, and concepts of the world more openly.
• Intentional Communication - Communication helps us find ways to open towards intimacy and vulnerability. This can be practiced on our own with ourselves so that we learn more about the language and feedback from our body and mind. And it can be expanded as a tool that allows us to open up and deepen connections with others. Intentional communication gives space for us to reveal truths vulnerably and builds trust so that we can come closer with ourselves and others. We can set up containers for discussions on topics that feel hard, scary, activating, or messy. When we set a container for intentional communication, similar to the container of intentional conversation we build it with a beginning, middle, and end. Because communication can feel more intimate, exposing, and ties more closely to our personal needs, desires, emotions and boundaries - we may also want to set up preparation, aftercare, and check ins. As you first begin or begin exploring with a new connection - pick one topic at a time. Allow space for each person to share and practice active listening. Give room for processing what was said and for questions to be asked. Commit to sharing this time and framing feelings and ideas around using “I” over “you” statements. The intention is to share more of ourselves, focus on what we want to expand, create room for what we feel and need to be known, and to express any boundaries around what we don’t want to experience. When we practice intentional communication, we can deepen our understanding and confidence in ourselves and also create room for more intimate connections with others.
Intimacy is a skill that we develop by centering platonic intimate acts. When we create room to practice, we become better at it in our every day lives. And this expands the ways in which we can express intimacy within relationships of all kinds.
Living a life we desire is an active + intentional choice that gets to be creative, fun, and playful. Let’s design it together.
Come create a blueprint that included your own unique formula for living a more passionate, present + pleasure centered life inside the INBODY LAB group mentorship. And for the deep-deep divers, you can expand the work you’re exploring in the group container through 1:1 Mentorship or Small Group Classes. 1:1 and Small Groups include a membership to INBODY LAB and access to the portal.
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1:1 Mentorship //
Go deeper with euni. 1:1’s can be extremely impactful and curate rapid opening in the ways you embody + experience intimacy and connect with your body-mind-heart-soul. We accept applications seasonally for personalized exploration when it’s a powerful fit for us both. If your application is approved, we’ll reach out to you with a link to schedule a connection call with euni. 1:1 work is available for 90 Day containers at $1111/monthly. Click here to apply.
Small Group Classes //
Integrate with others. Small Group Classes create a container that allows you to integrate practices + technical skills for intimacy and connection. If your application is approved, we’ll reach out to you with a link to schedule a connection call with euni. Small Group Classes are available for groups of 4-6 and can be joined as a pre-existing group or assigned to an open group. Each container includes 5 group classes accessible at a group rate. Click here to apply.
Come drop in and let’s create a beautiful, present, pleasure centered life.
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