Zoë Kors’s new book, Radical Intimacy: Cultivate The Deeply Connected Relationships You Desire and Deserve, is a WINNER.
Her strengths shine during the stories of couples’ struggles where you can’t imagine how they will solve their thorny issues, and then Zoe fixes everything. Radical Intimacy gives a reader hope that no matter how messed up your childhood, how deep your insecurities are, how bloody and weeping your wounds… there is HOPE! Hope for a fulfilling love relationship.
One of the most poignant stories was about Bree, whose shame about how her vulva looked kept her from physical intimacy. Zoë brilliantly explained that Bree had distorted her core wound of being unlovable into anxiety about the appearance of her genitals. It would have been too horrible to be rejected for who she was as a person and easier to deny herself first by hating her body parts.
Woah.
How many people use body hatred to avoid the fear of being unloved?
That’s a PROFOUND insight… and this book is full of those AHA emotional moments. And we all have gaps of maturation in all the areas of intimacy we can work on.
A grid in the book stacks the three kinds of intimacy — emotional, physical, and energetic — with the three levels of intimacy — self, world, and other.
My favorite section is Energetic Intimacy.
Zoë writes, “Energetic Intimacy is the experience of feeling deeply connected to someone beyond the utility of speech and touch. Composed of three pillars, presence, humility, and curiosity, energetic intimacy happens when we are entirely attentive and aware of ourselves or another person.
The achievement of this powerful phenomenon requires the willingness to disengage from all judgment, assessment, and the assignment of meaning in favor of subtle and straightforward observation in each moment as it unfolds.”
What does that remind you of ?
The word I’m constantly using is PRESENCE.
Zoë does a marvelous job describing what actual presence is and how you create energetic intimacy through the practice of staying non-judgmental and in the moment with your partner.
Further, she explains that self-doubt and suffering are most often due to worrying that our feelings are “valid, warranted, and appropriate.”
“Do we feel too much, too little, too deeply? Does the expression of our emotions make us feel too big, too small, too scary?”
In Radical Intimacy, you can begin to get in touch with yourself through her distinctions about our feelings. You can start to more fully embrace both your positive and negative emotions instead of avoiding those that are scary. She explains that we use three strategies to block the feelings that overwhelm us: denial, deflection, and distraction.
I know you can relate. We all avoid painful feelings. And this is where she gets into the ways you begin to be able to sustain and manage your emotions, which she calls “emotional independence.”
There are three critical aspects of emotional independence: cultivating witness consciousness (perceiving yourself), owning your shit (maturity), and taking responsibility for your impact when expressing yourself.
The book has several excellent exercises, including 3 Things I Love About You — a game I’ve been teaching you for years to deepen your romantic intimacy. If you’re not playing it, start now. Life is short.
We begin to have radical intimacy when we can get curious and open ourselves to another and allow them to be seen, heard, and felt without our judgment or ego.
If you’re looking for an excellent new read that will help you experience more connection with yourself, others, and our world, Radical Intimacy is your book.
