So I thought I will write a bit about how this is progressing now rather than from memory later. Vineeto’s suggestion to play the “how close can we get” game has been brilliant and fun. It is a weird one because I am not sure why this fear of intimacy, of getting close. It kind of made sense in the past when I would want to hide the grotty ‘me’ from others.
Also in the past there was always the fear of going back into love but those things are no longer of any concern. I can indeed get close to others safely, this is one of the wonderful aspects of a virtual freedom.
The fact is that 99% of the interactions I have on the daily are amicable and fun for all concerned, this I take for granted now, it seems this fear of getting close was more habitual than anything.
This game of “how close can we get” I have been playing in all circumstances too, with the customers that ring at work, with my training partners, with the hen parties etc. Of course it is in my interactions with Sonya where it can flower fully.
It was a bit of a sad reflection of what has been going on up until now when Sonya remarked that I am being so affectionate and that she is so happy… The thing is that I have not been trying to be loving or anything like this, rather I have simply allowed myself to get close. The wonderful thing is that this intimacy is lasting, it is not taxing in any way, like love is. I am not trying to create any grand gestures or manufacture some kind of a feeling, rather I am just allowing myself to get close, what I wanted all along anyways!
And playing this game of “how close can we get” is like travelling up and down the gradations of intimacy that Grace suggested :
The gradations of ‘her’ scale were, basically, good, very good, great, excellent, and perfect – whereby, in regards to intimacy, ‘good’ related to togetherness (which pertains to being and acting in concert with another); ‘very good’ related to closeness (where personal boundaries expand to include the other); ‘great’ related to sweetness (delighting in the pervasive proximity, or immanence, of the other); ‘excellent’ related to richness (a near-absence of agency; with the doer abeyant, and the beer ascendant, being the experiencing is inherently cornucopian); and ‘perfect’ related to magicality (neither beer nor doer extant; pristine purity abounds and immaculate perfection prevails) – all of which correlate to the range of naïveness from being sincere to becoming naïve and all the way through being naïveté itself!
This is why the game is fun! Every moment is an opportunity to slide along this scale with no expectations on the other or oneself. What I noticed very quickly is that any sorrow or malice immediately obstructs one’s ability to get close. Of course I cannot get close if I resent or fear the other, only felicity and innocuity offers the safety to get close like so. Which means there is an immediate feedback loop - “I am not able to get close to the other, why?” and immediately I get an answer - because there is some sorrow and malice in the way. Then it is impossible to hold onto it, no matter how small, because it is patently clear that it is standing in the way between me and others. This makes utterly clear one point - that one must be both happy and harmless. Also when another is involved it is easier to put aside any of ‘my’ self-centred agendas and simply proceed towards felicity and innocuity - where intimacy is possible. Because now it is not just for ‘me’ but for everybody.
So the past couple of days it’s like I have been thawing out those remnant bits of ice that were covering ‘my’ being. I realise that all those fears I had about “what would others think when I am actually free” etc These are so silly, shouldn’t I rather be excited about finally getting actually close to my fellow human beings? (what I have always wanted). And so there was a distance that I was trying to somehow jump across, but to no avail. Instead I can virtually remove this distance whilst still remaining an identity, and when I am so close there is no fear. How could I possibly fear my fellow human beings? Daring to get close means that I begin to experience this person in front of me as they are, there is nothing to fear there. And what I also found is that when I dare to get close, to actually pay attention to this person in front of me, then it is impossible to dislike them, or to get sour about this or that, for I see that they are a fellow human being just like me, so intimately involved in this business called being alive.
The other thing that became clear this morning is that this intimacy (with one’s partner) seamlessly flows into sexuality. Before there was the ‘normal’ which was this “comfortable distance” and from that place we would jump towards sex. But the distance that needed to be jumped across was uncomfortable, it would be like a task. This morning I allowed the intimacy to simply slide up the scales and boom, sexuality begins to flower effortlessly. Then it is a lot of fun, no hard work at all 