Welcome to another exciting day! Our topic for today is “Mental Intimacy”. To be honest, I was hoping it would be Emotional Intimacy, but I guess you’ll have to tune in tomorrow……wink.

Where I come from, the humble shores of the country Nigeria, anything “Mental” is typically shied away from, not discussed, rolled under the rug, etc. Whilst I’m a big fan of changing the bad wrap mental health has gotten over the years, today’s topic is a little lighter. i.e. it doesn’t delve into mental health too much. I hope one day in the near future, we’d be able to discuss this, as it’s a very important topic to me.

Enough about me and what I think. We did say this series is about YOU. So let’s dive into what Mental Intimacy means. It is the meeting of the minds, which can be stimulating, satisfying, or even challenging. It can be expressed through meaningful conversation, shared values, or interests.

Have you experienced or had that friend that told you, they had a mentally stimulating conversation with someone and fell in love with the person for that very reason? That goes to show how powerful mental intimacy is or can be. This intimacy can be shared without lust or involvement of physical intimacy.

My dad who is sadly now deceased was one person close to me that I know utterly valued and cherished mental intimacy. He lived to have deep meaningful conversations with people and developed life long connections that way. You’d hardly find anyone that knew Him that he didn’t attempt to build a connection with through the meeting of the minds, be it politics, Arts, Education, World News, etc. That’s not to say he was always successful, but he always tried.

How do you show up in conversations with people? Do you try to connect with them mentally, or is it always surface level? If it’s surface level, would you like to change it? Food for thought. Today, we’re giving you a break from commenting (feel free to, if you so desire). We want you to soak it all in today and look forward to catching you on the next post.

Welcome to another exciting day in this series. Today we’ll be covering “Physical Intimacy”. Physical Intimacy has gotten the wrong wrap for the longest time. Most people tend to assume that intimacy needs to be physical. I’m certain that if you’ve been following our series, you already know that there are different types of intimacy and Physical Intimacy is only one of them.

For those that know there are different kinds of intimacy, there tends to be the assumption that physical intimacy needs to be sexual in nature. While physical intimacy can be sexual, it is not a requirement and again, is one of the forms of expressing physical intimacy.

Physical Intimacy can be expressed in multiple ways, including close friendship, platonic love, romantic love, sexual attraction, holding hands, kissing, sexual activity etc. I’m sure you get the gist.

For most, Physical intimacy tends to be the first type of intimacy we get exposed to, even though we may not realize it. As humans, we all need a level of physical intimacy. We have a deep desire to be intimate with people (non-sexually), but sometimes have a hard time expressing it because of fears, past experiences, etc. Rest assured we’ll be diving deeper into this later (barriers of intimacy). We experience ebbs and flow in the way we express physical intimacy. If we focus on the sexual aspect for a bit, our expression of physical intimacy can be affected by other types of intimacy. It can be affected by our beliefs (Spiritual), emotions, or even our state of mind (mental). You’ll notice that it can be affected by the other core types of intimacy we covered earlier.

Our question for today is – Do you think every sexual encounter involves intimacy or can you be sexual without being intimate? We’ll love to see your views on this – please comment below and we look forward to catching you on the next post.

Welcome to a brand new day!

We’re so excited to continue our journey in this series and more excited about our topic for today. Yesterday we established that there are 4 core types of intimacy. Today we’re beginning our journey of exploring and dissecting each one. Guess which one we’re starting with?…….drum roll – you guessed right “Spiritual Intimacy”. Spiritual Intimacy is opening your heart, the essential and central parts of it, to God. It’s having a deep connection, deep relationship with God.

As with any type of intimacy, it requires intention, takes time (i.e. it’s a process), and has its benefits (we’ll cover on another day). For some, this may not be understood, known, and may even appear strange that one could forge a relationship with God. Rest assured you’re not alone and we won’t leave you hanging. Whilst we are covering Spiritual intimacy at the surface today, if you stick with us, we’ll get into more granular levels in the next coming weeks.

I’ll start with my journey on Spiritual Intimacy. I grew up as a Christian child – going to church every Sunday and having a daily devotion with my family. You would think that by that, it may have laid the foundation of solid Spiritual Intimacy – so wrong! It was all religious activities – I didn’t even know there was an expectation of a relationship with God. At the time, God was the being I prayed to, when I had done something wrong or needed something, period. It wasn’t until my adulthood, that I realized this was a “thing” and that there were expectations that required “intention” and more importantly – that “God” desired this relationship.

I do believe that Spiritual Intimacy ought to be our utmost priority, however, be of good courage – there’s hardly anyone that ever starts here. Think of it – How can you forge a relationship with a “God” you don’t see with your physical eyes, without first establishing a relationship/relationships with other humans.

As you can tell – there’s so much to be covered on this topic. Some may be asking questions like – where do I start? How do I know I’m developing a relationship with God? What benefit is it or will it be to me?

Hello World!!!

Today’s discussion — the four “core” types of intimacy. There are way more than 4 types of intimacy, but we’re choosing these four because they are the main ones, and so we can focus some time in dissecting each one. In the next coming days, we’ll be taking each one and breaking them down. Again, focusing on what they mean to YOU.

The exercise for today is simple! Can you please share the order of the types of intimacy to YOU – i.e. the highest priority, to the lowest. Also indicate if it’s the order they currently are in your life, or where you’d like them to be.

I’ll Start :

Where I am

Spiritual –> Emotional–>Physical–>Mental

Where I’d like to be

Spiritual–>Physical–>Emotional–>Mental

I look forward to seeing yours !

Hello World!!!

We’re back as promised, and we’re kicking off this journey with understanding what intimacy means. More importantly, what intimacy means to YOU. The dictionary defines intimacy as “Close Familiarity” or “Closeness”, but we all know it’s much more……so much more.

To me – intimacy can’t be confined to a sentence, it’s too deep for that. However, let’s start somewhere. Intimacy to me, is deep relationship, so deep that all flaws can be exposed without guilt or fear. A relationship where you’re free to be the REAL YOU. Not the version everyone sees, but the real you that’s on the inside, mostly hidden and is only show cased when fear is removed and you’re free to be YOU.

I said this was going to be an interactive journey. In a few words can you summarize what intimacy means to you? I look forward to your comments below. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, can’t wait!

Hello World!!!

I’m super excited to be introducing this new series on intimacy. I welcome you on this learning and discussion journey. I want to share my views and lessons on intimacy and learn from you as well. You can look forward to questions that really get you thinking, quotes and tid bits. I want to make this interactive, which means your participation is needed. Look forward to catching you on the next post!