To see within is the most beautiful gift we can give ourselves. To not just look, but to truly see. To be with ourselves and honour our reality and who we are in this very moment.
Affording ourselves such deep presence—presence untainted by anything that’s outside of the now—is true intimacy. We think of intimacy as of something we share with other people, but true intimacy really is with self rather than other. And the extent to which we can be intimate with ourselves is the extent to which we can be intimate with other people.
True intimacy is the dissolution of the self into the present moment. It’s being, without the illusion of the wrongness of being, without any thought to what we’re being or how we’re being. What prevents this experience is fears, concerns, worry–our mind wandering outside of the now to regret the past or fear the future, to miss the past or dream the future. Intimacy is the loss of the sense and wrongness of self and the boundless peace that emerges with that—perhaps rather similar to when we’re watching a film and we’re so absorbed in it that we forget ourselves.
We are intimate when we are self-less with ourselves or another, as paradoxical as this may sound. And this way of being is the most beautiful way of being. If someone is sharing something with me, I am intimate with them if I’m fully listening to them. And to fully listen is for my entire attention to be focused on them—for there to be nothing at all outside of hearing and seeing them that my consciousness contains, no thoughts about this and that, no planning what I’m going to say..
True intimacy is presence. To grant ourselves the intimacy of really being with ourselves or another is the most beautiful gift we can give. And possibly, one of the most slippery ones we can master.