0:00:55.6 Charlotte: Intimacy is the ability to be 100% present, to expose oneself to the moment, to be authentic, and to allow others around you to experience that self in all of its transparency, and it's what a lot of people that I've worked with over the years, they crave, and yet they're afraid. They're afraid of intimacy. I've seen it across the board, whether it be people that are alone and looking to find a mate, and they don't understand why they're not finding somebody, or people that are in a relationship, a relatively healthy marriage, and there's something missing. What is that? It's that intimacy piece, and as much as we crave it, we crave it because it is essential, it's like without intimacy, we start to feel existential.
0:02:00.2 Charlotte : Intimacy allows us to feel the connection to everything, it's the through line, and to work with the fear of intimacy, the starting point is looking at what it is within you that is robbing you of the ability to present your innermost thoughts and feelings, typically that comes from shame or some sense of judgment, fear that the other person may not love us, may not accept or even understand us, if we share something about us or we reveal something about ourselves that we think perhaps is inherently bad. Or it's awkward, it's awkward when we don't have a true sense of what our authentic self is in relationships, intimate ones. The focus is on connecting. And so it brings about a pressure for some to come up with... I think of it like sustenance, and there can be awkwardness around that if one isn't intimate enough with the self to know what it is that we're made of. And it's living a life without quality of relationships and a high level of intimacy is a sure way to question the meaning of things. It's a sure way to feel what is really truly the point when working with people, I am incredibly committed to deepening that their sense of intimacy with all things, starting with the self.