Leaning into Me: Intimacy I
INTIMACY, In 3 Parts I’ve been spending time, intimately, thinking about intimacy, since last time I posted about falling into me, and opening up physically. I’m sharing these diary entries because I know my feelings are not unique. We are all beings, with feelings. Maybe by sharing mine, you won’t feel so alone in yours. After a year of uprooting my past, finding stillness, and learning to just BE with me without doing, I feel more clarity: RADICAL SELF LOVE is what I seek and it starts and ends with me. After I posted my last story about intimacy, a client called to ask, “what does vulnerability even mean?” To which I replied, “Just start listening.” Be it with yourself or another, we can only connect to the extent we’ve connected to ourselves — physically and emotionally. I will always be learning. I am listening to my heart and my body. Intimacy is an inside job.
Part 1 : November 23, 2021
Open my heart + reconnect to my body: my intention September 12, 2020 for my first psychedelic assisted therapy. Sounds vague, but at the time, I didn’t know I was traumatized, severely. But as I heal myself, it’s happening. We met on a full moon, three moons ago - I was wide open, until I stopped feeling and started thinking, a default for me. When we met, being together felt easy. But it wasn’t “him” that cracked me open - it was me. I was finally ready to see into me, to experience, all of me: intimacy. We can’t see another until we see ourselves fully. And just as I was ready, he arrived — it happened quickly.
I allowed myself to be seen and he saw me. Call it timing or divine alignment, and together we felt into ourselves and each other, deeply, opened, emotionally, sexually, intellectually. And slowly I learned to receive — his love, for all of me. Our connection and conversations deepened and I asked questions he’d considered but hadn’t been asked. And as I asked him, I asked myself.
But intimacy is an inside job, first at least. Vulnerability starts and ends with me. Within two months it felt like we’d known each other infinitely. But as life does unexpected things - our relationship was shaken unexpectedly, by something he began experiencing. He got a gut punch to his reality — his ego shaken, for the first time. Me? Not really. This past year threw me a barrage of black eyes, figuratively, it will take a lot to shake me. But he internalized and I rationalized and for the first time in our brief romance there was a disconnect. He retreated into his personal life, and I subconsciously felt abandoned and then pushed back to protect myself. I rebuilt the walls around me, subconsciously, becoming the guarded side of me that he hadn’t met. And for the past few weeks I’ve been stuck in my head.
A new relationship is fragile, no doubt. It’s easy for a a small shakeup to result in one of us bailing out. I considered. After another trying series of failed dates and poor communication, I shut down. We woke up in the morning and had it out, another deep talk, trying to figure “us” out, if we could move through the tension that became a dark cloud. We felt stuck, I felt stuck, even my body felt like it needed to be kneaded out. We talked for some time as he massaged the knots from my backside. “Yoga at noon?” He asked as he walked out the door, “Maybe.” Instead, I stayed in my robe for the next seven hours, sat Indian style on the floor, lit candles— journaled, meditated and channeled my spirit guides, including my grandmother Honey who I miss by my side, and four others, who have held me along my healing ride. With their energy I prayed for clarity. Day turned to night and I made dinner, hearts of palm pasta with melted anchovies, capers, tomato paste and white wine — and fell asleep deeply, vivid dreams interrupted my sleeping, but I rose nine hours later, re-embodied. But the stuck feeling stayed with me. My tummy was tight, anxiety ridding my jaw, and a slight headache in my right temple, clouding it all. I brewed a decaf Nespresso and cut an overripe papaya, my grandma’s favorite, sprinkled with maca and spicy honey. I landed on the floor with my journal and wrote a quote I read somewhere,
“IF YOU LIVED IN YOUR HEART YOU WOULD BE HOME RIGHT NOW.”
My connection to my body is extreme. I was stuck in my head, not my heart, overthinking everything. I prayed again, before meditating and self-pleasuring to release any stuck energy. So much of my healing journey, has been re-embodiment practice, learning where I store emotion, physically. As a sexual trauma survivor, my vagina never actually felt like it was a part of me. Feeling into me, sexually, and understanding how to experience pleasure alone with me, is even less about sex and more about owning my pleasure, my power, my body! (Notice If this makes you uncomfortable but, self pleasure is a normal thing!)
My work with psychedelic assisted therapy was the catalyst, but healing is a product of the time I’ve spent in between, the hours in quiet, I’ve spent facing me. These are the embodiment practices I use to learn myself more intimately: journaling, praying, movement, meditation, masturbation, massage, and the food I choose to feed me — all require self inquiry.
I reemerged from my cave after a day of self inquiry — realizing how focused I became on “if we’re meant to be,” my thoughts were heavy, my body in knots, until I found clarity. After hours of stillness, alone facing the fight in my psyche, me vs. me: “I got it!” I declared — triumphantly: I stopped playing.
When we start planning the end game,
We stop playing .
When we start playing to win,
We stop playing.
the end game
Isn’t real.
Stop planning.
Start playing.
I got stuck in my head and started planning for what’s next instead of staying, here. I started worrying if we were “meant to be forever” instead of just being. When we started dating, I leaned into me: a trust fall, opened my heart, unafraid to fall. I let energy lead, without worrying about it “working.” But there was a hiccup — a wrench in the road - and my heart got muted and my head took control. We were moving “quickly” and I didn’t come up for air, because breathing felt easy, until it didn’t.
REAL TALK: I want LOVE, true love kind of thing, with a house, kids and a ring.
And while I preach and practice presence, it sure is challenging to not get lost in planning for my dreams. My fear got the best of me, stuck in questioning, “what if” he’s not my forever—what if this is just temporary? Because he stopped being present with me. I speak to non-attachment often, embrace impermanence as a practice, but then suffocate myself from feeling now in favor of next, because anxiety. What a hypocrite!
And with that realization, my stuck and stale energy released. My meditation became less taxing, my breath stuck in my chest, moved down to my belly. My balance returned to my feet. I got present. I used to run miles, box, sweat buckets before I could find stillness within. And now I embrace stillness - inner knowing, before moving. Clarity is an incredible thing. As I laced up my sneakers to head out the door, I noticed the beautiful flower arrangement he gave me a few days prior, complete with green stalks that were horn shaped, now sticking up like antennas. As if my horns shifted from defensive to knowing. With a revitalized feeling, a pep in my step, I hadn’t felt for a moment, I ran out the door to face myself forward, allowing myself to be led, by my heart. What happens between us is not up to me. But being present is, and that is the only place I can be. As I found my feet, I recommitted to just be + breathe, reminding myself that I have everything I need. “If you lived in your heart you would be home right now.” Intimacy — starts and it ends, with me. Less planning, more playing — Olivia, just breathe.
Keep Reading:
Intimacy II
November 28, 2021
Thanksgiving // Misbehaving // Re-flecting on Past Co-dependent Tendencies
Intimacy III
December 5, 2021
A different type of intimacy // A New Psychadelic Assisted Therapy // Cleansing
**And past dating diaries, that are funny, but not intimate, at all: Liv Sexy. Oh… the evolution !!