Editor’s Note — Scott Kalechstein is an old friend from John Dewey High School. He turned me onto many books (and other stuff), including A Course in Miracles. Scott and I were partners in the creation of many parodies — he’s a funny guy and has a Piscean innocence that I wish I had a bit more of. He created a career for himself as a New Age troubadour, minstrel and minister and is now raising a family in California. This is his latest missive, which arrived in my mailbox today. You can visit his website at Scottsongs.com.
By Scott Kalechstein Grace
Opening up. Getting close. We are made for it. And many of us walk through our days on guard against it. Or, we are so hungry we leave ourselves while reaching out, and intimacy slips through our fingers like a wet bar of soap.
Is intimacy synonymous with getting physical? Plenty of people are sexual companions, but not really intimate with each other. Companionship doesn’t automatically mean letting someone in. And rubbing body parts together does not automatically create intimacy.
True intimacy is not a meeting of the minds or bodies. It’s between hearts and souls. It opens us to a whole other world, one rich with feelings, and one where the intellect takes a siesta. This is heavenly, what we long for, and what we are made for. Then, we are disappointed. Our unhealed wounds and romantic expectations put stars in our eyes, and we get attached to the yummy other person as the cause of our experience. We forget that they are just another messy mortal, and that opening our heart and getting out of the confines of the ego mind was the cause of our grand feelings. Intimacy, like all of life’s goodies, is an inside job, arising from a state of consciousness, not another person.
When we believe that Mr. or Ms. Right is the source of our warm and fuzzy feelings, fear of loss becomes the driver of our behavior, bringing attachment and clinging. When fear is not leading the charge, intimacy can lead to sweet and soulful bonding, with a noticeable and refreshing absence of static cling.
That kind of bonding begins at home, inside yourself. Before reaching out, reach in. Say a gentle and compassionate hello to your hopes, fears, loneliness, and desires – everything that is present for you. Extend loving kindness and acceptance towards all your feelings, making sweet room for the entire spectrum of your humanness. If you are not self-validating, you are probably self-invalidating. So, turn it around. Release the hypnotic cultural taboo against self-love. Validate, validate, validate.