Our precious moments of intimacy with another or with ourselves are deeply nourishing. The very word, intimacy, implies something that is innermost, intrinsic, and essential.
A newborn baby can experience intimacy when she gazes into the radiant love shining from her mother’s eyes. Mother and child melt into each other. It is one of the most treasured moments in our human experience.
We can all recreate this precious state of presence with one another. All of us can learn to develop intimacy within a close, long-term relationship, a new relationship, a close friendship, or even with one of our kids. We can also foster intimacy with ourselves.
The key to creating intimacy is making and taking the time for it.
Unfortunately, most people have lost the ability to be intimate with each other during sex. Sex sounds so deceptively simple when we come of age. So, we never learn that there can be sex with intimacy.
The lack of this education is why my former husband, Charles, and I decided we must share the gift of intimacy with those who didn’t know the gift they were missing.
So, we traveled around the United States for 25 years leading workshops on the Art of Conscious Loving.
During that time, our primary focus was helping our students learn to become more intimate with themselves and, therefore, more intimate with others.
Our workshops facilitated this discovery into intimacy by utilizing the study of Tantra Yoga and Laya Yoga. Laya yoga is also called the yoga of awareness. In this style of yoga, our fundamental core energy awakens through a combination of mantras, asanas, meditation, Tantric practices, and breath control.
Experiencing these practices we led during our workshops, people found a way to reclaim what they were missing – intimacy; not just intimacy during sex but intimacy and connection throughout their daily lives.
Three practices to help you rediscover intimacy right now.
I want to share three doorways for creating intimate connections. I have used these portals personally and in our workshops with great results for many years. Along the way, I have fine-tuned these practices both in the bedroom and the classroom.
First Practice – How do you let another look into you?
It’s important to know in the beginning that the left side of our body is considered our receptive side. For example, my left eye can receive your gaze deeper than my right eye since the right eye is usually the active or giver eye.
As you open your eyes to me, during the video this blog is adapted from, or to your partner, you will find your right eye tends to be doing more of the outward, active looking. And your left eye will naturally be receptive of my gaze.
Using this knowledge of the receptive left eye and the giving right eye can take you to profound, intimate places during your gazing with each other. This practice of eye-gazing breaks the ice very fast.
Eye-Gazing is the most potent exercise of intimacy that I know.
If you need help at home, I highly recommend you watch the video this blog was adapted from. You will find the link below. Watch it when you’re ready with your partner or partner-to-be, and then practice eye-gazing. It is powerful!
Next, the most important practice of intimacy – touch.
The practice of touch I am suggesting is loving touch, therapeutic touch. It is touch given with awareness, not an absentminded pat on the back. Conscious touch is the touch where you feel the other person. You connect with that person as they feel you touching them.
You can change someone’s day – and their life – in five minutes of loving touch.
Loving touch is a caring touch; your caring for the other person is made tangible. Perhaps you touch their head, gently rub their scalp, temples, and jaw muscles, and help relieve the tension embedded in these areas.
You will know you are rubbing and soothing the right spot when they make appreciative sounds and say, that feels so good! Don’t stop!
Everyone loves their feet rubbed.
Perhaps you like to sit on the couch at the end of a long day and talk about how your day went. You can take some lotion you have on the nearby table, just for this purpose, and rub the feet of this special person.
Another great spot for caring touch is the neck and shoulders, a popular place to store our stress and tension. Massaging these muscles can help relax and soothe anyone! Come up gently behind your beloved sitting at the computer and give them five minutes of loving touch.
After a few minutes of loving touch, you could invite them to gaze with you into each other’s eyes for the last minute of this break. Combining these two powerful practices of intimacy will begin to deepen your connection and intimacy to new, delightful levels!
Our third practice of intimacy – the delights of spooning with your partner.
The spooning practices in our workshops were always everybody’s favorite! They are fun, easy, and always make everyone smile and feel great! They deepen our intimacy in a playful, organic way.
Most of us get up in the morning and hit the deck running. We are often – busy, busy, busy – until the evening, which is a perfect time for spooning. It’s the best time to reconnect in a loving, meditative way that is restful and refreshing at the same time.
I don’t suggest this as a way to go straight to sex, but to help us quiet our minds so we can feel our intimate connection.
There are a few practices to try during your spooning time.
Lay down fully clothed, or after you’ve changed into comfortable clothes. You both get into the spooning position, lying on your sides, one person directly behind the other person, both touching, like two spoons in the silverware drawer.
Since this is more like a meditation, it’s fine to lower your eyelids. You can still see, but you’re in a feeling orientation and not so much an observing orientation.
Begin at the brow center, quieting your mind.
As you relax into your spooning position, begin by taking five or six deep, long breaths. This will switch your nervous system from stressful to restful. As you continue to breathe, bring your awareness up to the brow center or third eye energy center, and focus your attention there.
The third eye chakra is commonly known as our center of intuition, self-realization, inspiration, and imagination. As you focus here, you will be able to feel your partner’s body relax and become looser and looser as your body does the same.
Play the visualization game.
With your eyes still lowered, you can play the inner visualization game, where you imagine or see your breath circulating your love and healing energy to your partner and back to you.
Sometimes it’s easy to feel your heart center. So, imagine your healing breath leaving your heart center and going into your partner and then returning back into your heart center in a continuous flow.
Next, the belly center.
Once we have quieted our minds and felt love and healing flowing through our heart centers, we can move to the belly.
Bring your focus down to your belly, and notice as you breathe in, your belly enlarges. Your partner can feel your belly as it expands, pressing into their low back.
As you inhale, you can visualize breathing in your partner’s tension, and as you breathe out, you can send a message to your partner that they can relax and let go.
In our book, TANTRA – The Art of Conscious Loving, you will find a detailed description of our spooning exercises and how to harmonize your moods and energies.
I look forward to sharing more Practices of Intimacy in Part Two of this series.
I hope you play with these practices of intimacy. There is so much more meaning and depth to our relationships when we deepen our intimacy and connections.
We all know how to have sex, which is healing in so many ways. But when we add the sparkle of intimacy and connection to our sexual experiences, it is a different world – a world of high-definition, full-color, surround-sound delight.
Thank you, and see you in Part 2!
Conversation with Caroline adaption and writing by Wordsmith – Peter D. Black