From The Daily Dialogue
From The Daily Dialogue
Broadcast of 12/16/98
Subject: [DailyDialogue #340] Mindfulness & Intimacy
"The subject of intimacy often comes up in terms of relationship, of course, and has become a contemporary obsession. People are sometimes desperate to experience intimacy. But it is extremely difficult to be intimate with someone else until you've been intimate with yourself, and the same kind of thought processes interfere with relationships that interfere with everything else in our life. We build up images of ourselves and of the other, and in a typical interaction, the real people don't meet at all. Practice breaks through all that, breaks through these images to what is really happening in the moment. Real intimacy does not look for some particular experience but sees things as they are."
Larry Rosenburg, Breath by Breath
This morning, I requested that our mile-long walk to the bakery be in silent meditation and Eddy agreed. As we were walking, I was practicing being mindful, and attempting to notice all the sensations and thoughts that were slipping through my mind, without becoming attached to any of them.
I have developed the habit of slipping a cellular phone in my pocket when I'm away from my desk, because I want to be responsive to customers. The phone rang three times as we were walking!
The phone-ringing walk was a metaphor for how I am living most of my life. I have such a strong tendency to become attached to my inner life. My thoughts and emotions jar and pull me this way and that. In the midst of all this pulling and tugging, it's difficult to relate to me, to you, to us.
Experiment: Practice a mindful walk (without your cellular phone) and allow yourself to just notice all the sensations and thoughts that come into consciousness, without being attached to any of them.
Affirmation: We are growing in awareness of the amazing connection between mindfulness and intimacy.
The Daily Dialogue is published each day of 1998 by e-mail. Copyright 1998, Eddy Brame and Marty Crouch, All rights reserved.
