Day 1 - The book, from the beginning...
“More intimacy sounds like it might be nice, but I hear that it involves so much talking. Is it really worth it?”
Insofar as a relationship is two people moving together in some way, any relationship, no matter how smooth or compatible, will require movement in order to continue. People move together in different ways, in a large range of personal meaning and intensity. Some people would describe themselves as vibrating near people at the same frequency. Some people would use language of joint seeing, or joint understanding. Some people speak of playing tennis. Some people describe souls burning around each other. Some people describe their interactions with people as dancing. The dance will involve at times the holding of a hand, at times the reaching towards each other while apart, at times taking a step in a complimentary direction with your back towards each other. There are a number of movements, from any one spot, that can create more flourishing, joy, growth, and understanding of each other.
This is a book about constellations of feelings. It provides resources for examining individual feelings and the connections between feelings, with the aim to increase positive moods, and improve transitions between moods, while staying in touch with both your external and your internal reality.
It will be a book of exercises and principles for deepening your relationship to your own authentic feelings, and to see the people around you with more granularity, different though they may be. Because emotions change over time, the hope of the book is to help you begin or maintain a practice of uncovering your authentic feelings as they move through time and circumstances, and to gain increasing mastery over them. You may have moments in which you discover new feelings beneath what you think are your authentic feelings, and discover new moves for those authentic feelings, to, even as times change, continue to over time be more and more like what you see as your best self!
This book was created for advanced practitioners, including curious people in positions of spiritual leadership, people who are hoping to decrease discouragement in their communities, organizers of kink and polyamory meetup groups, therapists, and coaches. I do not start with a premise that some relationships are better than others, or that some end states for relationships are more virtuous or enlightened than others; rather, I believe that certain aspects of relationships can be improved through intentional practice, deeper consideration, tools for noticing your own feelings and actions, and tools for noticing more the feelings and nervous system states of others people.
In conceptualizing the book, I had decided it that a “choose-your-own-adventure” style would be suitable both for those who want to teach the material to others, as well as those who want to learn and complete the exercises for themselves, or with a partner.
It is for people who had already decided they have reasons to be learning more about their own intimacies, and helping with the intimacies of others. Now, they want to be good at it.