Kuba: And something else that Richard wrote came up too, which is that without equity one cannot have intimacy. I could see that only from a position of parity I can experience a genuine fellowship regard.
So I allowed myself to step off the pedestal / to remove the distance, I actually had a very wonderful time at dinner with Sonya, a very precious evening because I saw that equity and parity also set the scene for many other wonderful things, such as tenderness which seemed to come naturally. And these things when they are happening, they are so very precious, in fact they are actually priceless.
And so it seems (at least for now) this elitism and resentment is gone, however there is something that has become apparent underneath that. And it is related to what you wrote here :
Vineeto: How on earth can you notice and investigate feelings and channel the affective energy towards felicity and innocuity when you don’t even allow admitting your feelings (so that nobody else will notice).
Kuba: I noticed that there is something like a cap, to how much intimacy I am willing to allow. And it is related to this fear of being seen for the emotional being that I am. Because if I am so concerned with others seeing my good and bad feelings then I will also habitually censor when the felicitous and innocuous feelings are happening.
That fear of being seen to have good and bad feelings it has spilled over to a fear of being seen to want and to enjoy intimacy. Like I have made it taboo for myself to explicitly show to another that I want to be close to them, somehow being “calm, cool and collected” aka distanced is taken as a priority instead. (link)
Hi Kuba,
Thank you for your detailed feedback and description.
And because you said that you wanted to “see where I am at without any of this information, without the map, without the recipe” (link) now is the perfect opportunity to do just that – to be practical, rather than conceptual, and explore experientially the various aspects standing in the way of naïve intimacy.
Perhaps revisiting the description of the actualism method in “This Moment of Being Alive”, especially between the second and forth banner (including tool-tips) is worthwhile, particularly keeping in mind acknowledging that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feeling are ‘me’. This acknowledgement that you are your feelings allows you to channel the affective energy from the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feeling towards felicitous/ innocuous feelings by choosing to be felicity/ innocuity.
Once you get the knack you have no need to express any of your ‘good’ or ‘bad’ feelings, and therefore don’t have to censor them either. But affectively recognizing, acknowledging and admitting those, so far rejected, feelings to yourself is vital.
Enjoy and appreciate the adventure of growing tenderness and intimacy.
Cheers Vineeto