Picture this: you have an Island that is filled with all the attributes of an intimacy paradise.
What qualities are important to you in a relationship? What does intimacy mean to you?
In this episode, we share mapping out your intimacy priorities and how to communicate them in a connective way. We discuss effectively removing toxic dialogue while still expressing authentically.
Audio Version
Video Version
Hi. Welcome back to our podcast Relationship Alkemy. I’m Jordan Bessaignet.
I’m Olivier Bessaignet.
We’re married.
I should say SpottedElk, because you got my name. But think you have a cool name. I mean, traditionally, the wife takes on the name of the husband, but I think we could go both ways on this one, right?
I don’t know if that’s allowed.
Okay. We’ll discuss this off camera.
I like the idea.
I just love the name. Anyways, we married.
And today we’re going to be taking you along. Our talk that we’ve been doing called A journey into Intimacy and conscious communication.
Right. So why this podcast? Well, we want to talk about relationships, about intimacy, and especially, we bring together a community of people who value conscious communication who value self reflection and compassion and empathy over being. Right. So all these disconnections, we try to bring consciousness and differentiates what brings connection and what brings disconnection and self reflection is a big part of it. So that’s mostly the intention that we’re bringing in today.
All right. So let’s get started, shall we?
Okay. So last month, we did a workshop on intimacy and conscious communication. Here’s the handout. I know maybe some of you are listening to it in audio only, but that handout started with a turning into intimacy and conscious communication. So how do you approach that first? Why talk about intimacy?
So I actually did a poll on Instagram, and I asked because we had a lot of ideas floating around in our head. We have a lot of stuff we want to approach with this, and we’re not sure where to start. We love talking about all of it. And I did a poll on Instagram. And you the people said that you guys want to talk about intimacy first.
Yeah. The other choice was triggers.
Let’s get into the juicy stuff before we get into the harder stuff.
Yeah. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to distinguish them. They are so intricately connected. But. Yeah. So first of all, what is intimacy and intimacy, I suppose, is very different for each person.
For me, my definition of intimacy is the oogoo of relating that feeling that comes up when you want to go deeper with someone, whether it’s your partner, it’s your sister, it’s the person on the street who you have a connection with. So it’s not necessarily like the dictionary definition, but for me, that’s how I define it. Yeah. How do you define it?
Well, that’s going to be the whole subject today. Inside. It’s an intimacy for me. Yeah. It’s a depth of connection. It is definitely a depth of connection. So it’s about knowing the other really well inside of intimacy, there’s also sex, right?
Yeah.
But it’s possible to have sex without really caring about the other person. Right. Yeah. And so what’s the difference between sex and intimacy? Well, when we have intimacy and we have sex, hopefully that sex, sexuality or relating communication, everything goes through a certain filter. And for me, that filter is really connected. Nession connection is the most important.
Yes.
And I don’t know when I feel disconnected, it feels excruciating on how many relationships you guys had. But through my trials and I’ve come to redistinguish what feels connected and what doesn’t feel connected, I want to share something personal about that. Is that my 20s, since I was a teenager, I felt really awkward socially, right. And I always wished I said this instead or not said that instead. And so I did not realize. But I had this ongoing trigger. My reality was actually a disconnected reality. And so I was disconnected from myself.
And so when I was getting into a relationship, it was not that easy to connect with the other. And I’m be fully connected to myself. So for me, intimacy and conscious communication and conscious relationships includes all that. And so it’s a very vast topic. Problem is, where do we start?
Right. Where do we start?
So we thought of starting in a little journey.
Yeah. So we were in bed one day prepping for this upcoming talk. And like Olivier was saying, the topic is so vast. Where do we start? And he had the brilliant idea of approaching this like a journey from another country, right. Yeah.
Let’s say you are in your hometown like that you grew up in and everything so familiar. And it’s the routine and the programming of everything that we’ve been taught by our parents, our education, our school, our Church, whatever it is that has programmed or molded our minds and our beliefs. Okay. I would call that the mainland. And I had many relationships where I was still in this familiar mainland country, where I was approaching relationships in the way I was programmed. So everything looked familiar. But then I was not satisfied.
Right. So the idea is to take a ship, take a boat and journey to this Virgin Island, the one you want to imagine, the one you’re ideal. Right. Because then you can start from scratch and say, this is what I want. This is what I do not want.
Yeah. I think that’s such a good idea. And so when you travel to this brand new island, nobody lives there. You are the first inhabitant, and you get to decide. Okay. What do I want on my island, along with mapping the territory, figuring out the language that’s spoken on the island and the customs and culture of the island that you get to help create.
Right. So I’m French. And so let’s say we’re in America. It’s great. And so we’re from America, and we want to travel to Europe or France or I don’t know, Asia would you want when you go to France to speak only English and only eat hamburgers and chicken filet, whatever.
You used.
To just go to a community of Americans that would be in the map and you’re not going out and explore. We don’t want to learn the language, not learn the language and only speak your own language. And would you want to not discover the custom cultures? Intimacy the land of intimacy. Does it have the same language and at work?
Right.
I hope not for business, right. The stranger in the street. Do you talk to them the same way than your partner? No. I think there’s a specific language and there are customs and cultures, and it’s not the only episode, right. We’re going to do a series. So we’re not going to get to language and custom cultures today. But for example, one of the customs would be to place a healthy boundary. Right. And that’s different because that’s what we want in our island of intimacy that is different from the mainland, for example, where maybe there’s a dependency and not healthy boundaries.
What are the different ways that the acts and reacts? What’s accepted what’s not accepted? Right? In my world of intimacy, I do not want to accept codependency and unhealthy boundaries. Okay. So we approach this idea with going to a new country because maybe it’s so different from what we’re used to. So I like to differentiate and say, let’s not do like we used to and really map out our dream destination.
And I like the way of approaching it as an island because I find that a lot of these topics can be kind of too heavy, and they are very conceptual topics, and they also need to be brought home. And I feel like everyone has experience traveling somewhere, whether it’s a new country, the town 2 miles away. Sparks for those people that live here in Reno. So I feel like this makes it super relatable and kind of helps you filter and understand things more.
Yeah. So for those who not seeing it visually, we have a little volcano and I had to have a shark and a partship there.
I would just like to say that Olivier drew this island himself. I came home one day and he showed me look at what I do, and I’m actually super impressed. So if you get a chance, check out this hand out. I think we’ll post it somewhere on our page.
Speaking of which, yeah. Totally. If you go to relationshipalchamy. Com and either like, upcoming events or class at the studio and you scroll down, there’s a receive updates and downloads here, you can download actually everything we’re going to talk about today. Okay. So go to recent shipoutkemy. Com. You can download those handouts and print them if you want. There are exercises you can fill in the blanks and do it with us. So we have this island and we’re taking a boat to this island. I could not resist on the mainland putting like a factory that’s outputting zombies, and they all look the same, right?
To symbolize the programming that the majority of us receive about relationships.
How do we learn intimacy and how do we learn relationships, right?
Yeah. For me, the way that I learned about intimacy and relationship was the model that was in our household, my parents relationship. And I picked up a lot of not healthy habits because that’s what I learned. I thought, oh, this is how you do a relationship. This is what a relationship looks like.
Yeah. And you had to go on your own journey to I want to say, rid of the dark side of the soul, like the Heurist journey through the cave, through the volcano to find your identity and your power to redefine what was originally defined. It’s true that I mean, if you have parents that have healthy relationships, that’s awesome. Congratulations. You’re so lucky. But most of our friends in our community, basically, their parents have a very dysfunctional relationship. Right. And so they work on redefining what is true to them.
And that’s exactly what we want to talk about today. Okay. So let’s first start to map the territory.
So with this, we’re going to leave the mainland of Mediocrity, and we’re going to design our island of intimacy the way we want. So the question is, which qualities do you want to cultivate on your island? And before you invite anybody else there? And I think that it’s important to have a clear understanding before you go into a relationship, what you actually want from this relationship. Would you agree with that?
Yeah. For me, one thing that’s very important about relationship is flexibility and adapting to the other. But how can I adapt to the other if I don’t know what is real and true for me and what I want and what I don’t want and where my boundaries are, where it stops, where my flexibility stops go like, no, I can’t go there. So you got to know your own territory before you meet anyone or invite anyone in this beautiful island that needs to be created with two people, of course.
And I don’t want to narrow it. We’re monogamous. We’re straight. I don’t know what you say heterosexual, right. But you have different interests.
Yeah. We are monogamish. I would say so with each person brought into the relationship, everyone has a different playing field. And it’s important to see where you guys overlap, where you guys align, which qualities you guys value, whether it’s in between two people in a monogamous relationship or three people, or maybe there’s four or five who knows?
Yeah. So this is the time to really think about it for yourself. And so we have two columns in this map that we’re going to design. The first one is the intimacy on the land, which is what do you want in an intimate relationship. And the second column is named Mainland, which is what you do not want. Right.
Right.
So during the workshop, that’s why I had this picture. This is a photograph of people were saying out loud things, and I wrote them on the board with some terrible misspelling.
I’m French. We know English is not your first language.
And that’s very fast. But I thought what they were saying was really cool. And so on the handouts, the first page is this blank table for people to fill out. But then the second one is the example of how we would fill out. And Interestingly enough, we had a bigger left column than the right, and people have longer right column, which means what they don’t want than the left one. And that surprised me. But let’s go over some of the qualities that first the people from the workshop there put together, and then we’ll tell you ours and why we chose those.
So on the left hand side, which is what people want to bring to the mainland.
We have I think it’s connection and connection and kindness.
Connection and kindness. Communication.
Authenticity. Well, it’s my handwriting.
Sorry.
Connection. Kindness, communication, authenticity, sex, vulnerability, sensuality boundaries, playfulness joy, safety and trust. Acceptance, curiosity, courage, empathy, reciprocity accountability, equal power. And on the right hand side, which is what they do not want in their intimate relationship. Dishonesty, lying, manipulation, avoidance projections, blame and shame enabling. However, that’s failed. Unhealthy attachments, defensiveness isolation, assumptions, lack of communication. Unreliability. The egg goes somewhere else. Yarky, which means one is superior than the other. Competition pretty close. Gas lighting, enemy image criticism, name calling bullying.
Belittling belittling.
Thank you. Aggression and comparison. Okay, so retake a moment and think for yourself what resonates with you and maybe all of them. Maybe like a handful of them reach two downs. And that’s why you want to put down.
So for our personal list, we have connection, love, affection and presence as our number one priority. We always want to move back into connection. This feeling of love around. We want to have affection for each other and we want to be present. A lot of you guys know we have a ten month old and it’s important for us to be present in every single moment, whether it’s together with him. Presence is really important in our family.
So let’s make it personal. You started this by saying intimacy for you is huigui chocolate chips. You didn’t say that this time, but I heard you said before the Huey GUI chocolate chips. Let’s try to explain this because we’re not saying that we have the perfect relationship. We’re saying that we actually fight and we are triggered and we don’t agree with things. Sometimes we have huge triggers. For the last podcast, it was scheduled the next day, and we had this huge trigger. It’s like, oh, shit. We can have to go live and pretend we’re this perfect couple.
And we were redisconnected. But it took less than 24 hours, like the evening we had a fight, and the next morning it brought us together even more. So that’s the thing. What’s the difference? Everybody fights everybody’s different. Everybody has triggers with each other. You’re different than me. How can you sing this way? Right. I’m French. She’s American. We have age gap. There are many things that make us very different. So how do we do this? Because you’re even better than I. You’re teaching me this. Yeah.
I guess you said it before. The idea of disconnection is excruciating. And I grew up so disconnected from people I couldn’t relate with anyone. I sat in my room and read books the majority of the time. My parents forced me to play sports, and I didn’t really connect with a lot of people on this deep, intimate level, which I had no idea even existed. I just wanted to connect with my books. I just wanted to read occasionally, watch movies with my sister, and definitely missed this deepwe feeling of connection and intimacy.
And so once I ventured out into the world on my own, I began to explore, wow, this feeling that I feel when I connect with somebody. I love this feeling. This feeling is like a drug to me and actually is a drug oxytocin people. Yeah. And I just love that chocolate chip feeling. And so for me, it is so excruciating to be in disconnection that I want to resolve it.
Yeah.
And I’m willing to let go of some of my old beliefs and mindsets and patterns and compromise and come to new beliefs and mindsets and truly build a new world for the both of us and for our son.
Yeah, that was my mindset, too, in previous relationships. But I went too far, like, in the sense that, oh, you think differently. I’m curious. Maybe your way is better than mine, actually. And that got me into trouble.
Sure, it did.
Especially when my partner was more focused on being right. Or, like, when there’s a trigger, I’m writing my trigger. You need to apologize for me for doing me wrong, for example, and that always killed the relationship. And the way we do this together is such a bomb for me because we’re curious about each other. It’s like, okay, what you’re saying or doing right now is not working for me. I’m blowing a fuse. And yet my paradigm is, if you’re doing it this way, there must be a good reason for you.
It doesn’t mean I’m going to accept it. It doesn’t mean it’s going to work for me. But can I find the curiosity and understanding? So I understand your reality and why you say the thing you said and why you act the ways you act right.
And I think that curiosity and that understanding is what gets us through those hard moments. Because if we had a trigger come up or we’re fighting about something, we take the time to stop everything and we sit down and we drop in with each other and they’re like, okay, this is what I hear you saying. But let’s go deeper than that. Where is this really coming from? And we both have the emotional literacy to be able to sit and have a super hard conversation and not blow up on each other and to realize that we’re doing this for more connection.
Yeah. So I’m going to give you an example, and it’s more into the language. So we’re going to talk about it next time into the language. But the language comes from a paradigm shift, and that’s the topic of this episode. So, for example, if I say, okay, right now, you’re grandpa unit space, I need to do something else in my language. I assume that I know what she feels and what she needs. Okay. So I’m pushing my belief, my projection, my understanding to. Okay, I get it.
You’re grumpy. You need space. I’m going to do something else. I can’t talk to you right now. I can say it differently, which is like, it looks like you’re grumpy right now and that you might need space. Is that true? Curiosity instead of I can be very intuitive and I can know what’s going on with her. And she can know intuition is very respectable. But if I tell what she feels and think, then it’s crossing a boundaries. Okay. But if I say it looks like from here, right?
We’re two different people. Whole people, 100% here, 100% there. It looks like you look grumpy, and then you might need space. Is that true? She might say, yeah, I’m grumpy, but I’m mostly overwhelmed. Oh, you’re overwhelmed. What’s overwhelming you? Well, I have so much to manage. And with the kids, with the finances and whatnot I’m blowing up right now. Okay. Is there anything I can take on? So it’s not space that we need. It’s negotiating different things if I go, okay. I know what’s going on.
And I’ve made that decision. My decision already. Then I’m closing the door to a potential other reality that we negotiate 50 50 and come in the middle, and that’s what we do. That’s why I love about you is that when there’s a difference, I’m thinking of the last time, the one I was referring, the kid was in the hospital. I spent 3 hours and I had to go to work and make this thing happen. Right. And 09:00 p.m. We’re on the phone. I’m still hooking up the trailer, and I’m exhausted beyond my limit.
And she’s like, So you’re bringing me breakfast tomorrow at eight, and she didn’t mean that. But that’s what I heard. You’re freaking entitled. You think I’m like a worker?
Clearly, there’s something deeper going on. I think we should end this conversation, and I will talk to you tomorrow.
So I lashed out. Okay. So the great compassion, compassion, communication guy, nonviolent communication blew up. Okay. Sorry.
This is actually the first time that you’ve ever done that.
At the end of my physical and mental limit, emotional limit. So I cannot take on a single more thing. And that’s what I heard. Maybe that’s not what you meant, but that’s what I heard. So the next day in the morning, we’re sitting in the car, okay. Yesterday that didn’t work terrible.
And, yeah, it was coming just to give some more background information. Our son had been in the hospital for five days, and I was doing a hospital duty, and he was handling our business and the home duties. And so we were able to talk to each other and say, okay, this is what was going on for me in that moment. What was going on for you in this moment and really hear each other for what was going on.
Yeah. What I remember is that you meant to suggest what to do in the next day, and I heard almost like a demands, and it might be in the communication part. Maybe it could be communicated better, or I could assume because we know each other, that whatever you say is actually a suggestion more than this is what I want.
Which as a man, yeah. Which is what we talked about with each other, because for me, I had been hearing, I could hear that he was overwhelmed. And so for me, I go immediately into game plan, and I was like, okay, this is the game plan. We’re going to do this and this. And this is my way of offering something. How does this sound for you? But also the communication style of going directly into, like, all right. This is like, planner mode.
I love it. I’m discovering things, and we’re actually doing this live. So when you do that now, I understand what’s going on, because when you do that, it looks to me like my schedule is already full. I’ve passed my limit to what I can do and just added five things into more things that I need to do. So knowing that about each other, I can translate when you say, when you go into action mode, okay. She’s brainstorming and she wants feedback. Okay. I’m going to assume that instead of assuming that you just demanded another five things of me, and then now you know about me.
Yeah. And now I know he also has the trigger around being told what to do.
True, I do.
He does not want to be told what to do, which honestly, who does something you understand very well, too. Something I understand very well. I do not want to be told what to do whatsoever. So with this understanding of each other for future conversations, they can go a lot smoother.
Yeah.
Which is the goal.
I have it right now. Yeah. So it really comes from this paradigm of, like, openness. And even if I’m blowing up, I’m going to de escalate as soon as possible that it’s your fault, right? The way I feel is nobody’s fault. It’s the way I want to own how I feel, right. And she owns whatever she feels. Okay. So yeah. When she said, do this at 08:00 a.m.. I heard it as she’s putting more things on my plates. So I grew up, I got retriggered, and in the moment, I was retired.
So I blame you for it. Okay. So in that column, that thing that we don’t want, remember, from the workshop, we had blame and shame. Okay. So I don’t think we went into shame on this one, but definitely I went into blaming you for how I feel, how I felt. Okay. But I don’t think we can avoid confrontation and triggers because we have differences. It’s unavailable. Inevitable. Thank you. But how do we get past it? What comes out of it? Does it come? What comes out of it?
Is it more like I can tolerate this person less and less? Or can I understand you more and more and deeper and deeper into that intimacy? Exactly. And mapping that territory parcel by parcel. Right. That land, that Virgin land. What do we cultivate? Do we cultivate the jungle? Do we cultivate corn? Do we cultivate peaches?
I’d like to think we cultivate peaches and chocolate chips.
They grow on trees.
They do, they do ground trees.
So I wanted to talk about all that, to give it more flesh to those words that we just put a spreadsheet. So how do you relate to that? We’re modeling something. We’re buying something. Our relationship is a full on exploration. We are trying to model something healthy, but we might not be healthy all the time. What is true for you? So when we say love, connection, affection and presence, it’s exactly that when there’s a blow up, then we come back, we connect. And something that you asked me before was like, touch is so important to me when we have a fight, please hold my hands.
Yeah. For me, it’s important to know, like, oh, you’re not mad at me. You’re not going to leave me. And so touch is very reassuring. It brings me back into my body. It brings me into a state of co regulation. And all of a sudden, we’ve had some hard conversations, and I can say they’ve been hard in the sense of what we’ve been talking about. But I’ve always felt comfortable. And I’ve always felt connected with you in order to go into those hard conversations.
Yeah. Also because we intentionally try not to bring those things on the right column. So power struggles, contempt would be like, okay, you’re a child. And I need to teach you because time to grow up or what? So that would be terrible. Have you ever experienced that? I have. I have my previous relationship. Women was a best selling author of seven books on personal development, including personal development and spirituality. And she went fully into I knew better.
Yeah.
And that’s her fault. But my fault is that I let her so we can always find ownership.
Always ownership and accountability.
Yeah.
So some other things we want to leave on the mainland would be manipulation. Moralistic judgments.
So moral judgments. I just said one. You’re so entitled. You want to be served. So what would be another judgment by that? You’re entitled. Yeah, your boss, your boss. Okay. If you let those thoughts poison your mind, it’s going to poison your relationship. And I always say focus determines your reality if you think those things. Okay, that happens. I did. I thought, wow, you’re entitled. I have more as a judgment in my head. Do I hang on to it or not? And that is the choice when it comes up, it’s not a choice.
My mind just created that. Okay. I’m not a choice. But then what do I do with it? Do I blame you with it? Do I have contempt with you with it? Or do I go like, okay, I have this big judgment right now about you. Can I be curious instead of continuing pushing it?
We also have being right or wrong, which is the shameblame cycle.
Yeah, it’s right. Wrong. Shame, blame. Okay. So my mindset, therefore my communication is going to be right about right. Wrong. There are people are right in the world. And now people are wrong in the world. Which one are you? That would be that game.
Maybe work triggers my dad. Does that nice.
How does that feel? Shitty feels really shitty.
Yeah.
So maybe it works on the street at the store when you want to get a refund. But in internships, it’s shitty. And a lot of people are really addicted to it because of I don’t know. I’m bringing a lot of I want to say Church documents. And I’m not only saying about the Christian Church, but in those documents, there’s a lot of we are rights. They are wrong. Yeah.
Other.
And so if we’ve learned that and we do that in the world, it’s a slippy slope that we’re going to do that with our partner and us feel shitty. Same for Simon Lane.
We also have codependency. I think we’re going to have an entire podcast episode on Codependency, maybe multiple episodes that will be its own section. So we will not get into that now. Enemy image, competition, comparison, punishment, avoiding responsibility or no accountability, criticism defensiveness and Stone Malling or cold shouldering.
So I want to share a resource. Doctor John Gottman talks about the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse. So criticism is one of Dr. John Gottman says that he can predict if a relationship will explode or has a chance of sustaining when people come for therapy. And so he looks for those four criteria. Criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling because they are the death of relationships. So criticism means it’s an attack on your partner at the core of the character. So you are selfish. That’s a criticism instead of right now.
It looks like you’re acting very selflessly. What is really going on? Why are you doing this? Curiosity if I think of criticism rather turn it into a complaint where you own your own feelings and needs. So right now, my need for sleep or for peace is not met. It looks like you’re putting more into my plates rather than doing what I did at the time, which was a criticism. Contempt is like, I’m better than you, and I know better than you. So it’s a superior thing.
It’s a killer. Defensiveness is very interesting, because when we feel unjustly accused, we fish for excuses and play the innocent victim so that our partner will back off. Unfortunately, the strategy is almost never successful. Our excuses just tell our partner that we don’t take their concern seriously and that we don’t take responsibly for our mistakes. So defensiveness is. Well, no, it’s not my fault. Yeah, it’s not my fault, which means it’s only your fault, right? It implies that. Yeah.
Stonewalling, which is also called cold shouldering, occurs when the listener withdraws from the interaction, shuts down and simply stops responding to their partner rather than confronting the issues with their partner. People who Stonewall can make evasive maneuvers such as tuning out, turning away, acting busy, or engaging in obsessive or distracting behaviors.
Opposite of presence.
Yeah. Opposite of presence. All right. We’re just going to ignore you. You don’t exist. Keep going on.
Usually it’s when we’ve been so triggered that it’s the flight response. And when all s failed, it’s freeze. That’s a freeze response.
I don’t know what to say or even like, a flight response. You could say.
True.
I know I’ve had personal experiences with what is it called side response when you leave your body?
Oh, dissociation.
Disassociation.
Exactly.
Yeah. So it could be either one of those. But yeah.
And, like, for example, if any of those happen, well, it happens. But can you catch yourself? That’s really the key. Can you catch yourself and come back and say, I feel redisconnected right now? I’m retriggered, and I don’t like it. I want to change it. But right now, I don’t know how to change it. That is already connecting, right?
It’s already super connecting. I hear that. And I don’t want to be defensive or I don’t want to impose more. I just want to listen and hear you as my partner.
Yeah. So this paradigm of really equality. And when I say equality, we’re not equal in the sense that I master things that she doesn’t. She Masters things, and she has experiences in things that I don’t. So we’re not equal in the sense that we’re the same. But we equal beings. Right. So even though I might know better, that doesn’t mean that I’m superior in this relationship, because actually, she might know better. So this all knows better and stuff needs to disappear. Disintegrates, like, this is my reality.
This is your reality. How do we come together in the middle? It doesn’t mean I’m going to give in. She’s going to give in. But we understand each other and that’s the important part is understanding. So this is why we have love, connection, affection, presence, trust. I just want to finish the column. Friendship, joy, play, transparency. I hope we demonstrated some cultivating kindness. I love that’s what people wrote first connection and kindness, right?
Yeah.
That’s our drive.
We also have equal power, which we just talked about sexual expression, which is hugely important in our relationship. A secure attachment, reciprocity, taking responsibility, creativity, novelty adventure, sole growth, flexibility, smoothness and accountability.
Yeah. Novelty adventure. Sometimes you have a crush on somebody. I have a crush on somebody, right. But instead of hiding it, well, I have a crush on somebody. I was like, actually, I would like to explore that. And she was like, I don’t feel safe with this person. Yeah. Okay.
We can also have a whole nother conversation on that. But at the end of the day, it’s more connecting for us.
Yeah. We learned a lot about each other.
We learned so much about each other.
And it re brought us together even more closely.
Yeah.
Feeling reassured that we are loved and accepted for who we are. I think I would take that as a definition of intimacy.
Yeah.
Okay.
I agree.
Let’s stop here with this episode. And next time, we will explore more. That sounds very well. Nice and great. So if you don’t have that in your life right now, it’s like, why?
Right.
What are we doing? That does not embody that reality.
Right. So in our next episode, we’re going to get into the next portion of our intimacy journey. We’re going to discover the stowaway.
Yeah. Somebody got in the ship as well. Unbeknown to us.
Surprised you’re not alone.
And it’s destroying what we’re trying to create. So we’ll talk about that next episode. Meanwhile, please tune in to the podcast. You can go to the websitereasionshipalchemy. Com. If you go on the section article podcasts on the right, you’re going to have all the links to different platforms. Choose the one that you have the links to our podcast in Apple cast in Spotify theseer Amazon Prime Google find us where you get your playlist or your podcast.
US from.
Exactly. And we’ll see you next time.