Power, Polarity & Intimacy

I am sunning myself on the edge of a slow river after taking a refreshing dip. I can feel the deliciously cool ache that had moved into my bones during my swim being drawn out by the warm sun on my skin. It's a glorious feeling.

Inviting these polar elemental forces (cool water and warm sun) to dance with me in a river swim on a hot summer day is one of the most blissful experiences I know. Add to this the gentle grace felt in the presence of the magnificently tall cedar and spruce that edge the water - ancient beings bearing up against this rich blue sky - along with the good company of other more-than-human river creatures, and a couple of dear human friends too. We human-folk, certainly, are basking in all this beauty. Together.

Power. Polarity. Intimacy...all the subtle energetic experiences one might sum up as 'good vibes'.

While these three fundamental relational dynamics and human experiences are studied, practiced, and in many cases, capitalized upon at all levels of human culture, they are, when navigated well in connection, some of the most basic forces at the root of human pleasure.

My river friends and I will attest.

But they are also some of the most basic sources of confusion and pain in the experience of human connection too.

Where is your learning edge with Power, Polarity, and Intimacy?

We are electromagnetic beings too. We generate large fields of energy that interact with one another and with the world in infinitely complex ways. (For instance: The heart’s electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain - heartmath.org) Some of these interactions generate:

Power: energy organized in creative and coherent patterns.

Polarity: the interaction between the masculine ('positive') and feminine ('negative') poles that create a compelling, repelling (polarization), or neutral charge between people...like the poles of a battery as they relate within a simple electrical circuit.

Intimacy: the creative experience (and art) between two or more beings and various environments, balancing their own and the other's natural responses of fear with experiences of safety in relationship, weaving between moments or periods of varying degrees of pleasure, neutrality, and discomfort.

Human intimacy invites each individual to flex inter and intra personal skills including: deep listening, sensing (through the other 4 subtle senses too), self-regulation, reflection, and responding (including with connection-building communication skills).

When mutually navigated well, intimate connection generates enough (recognizing that connection sometimes feels uncomfortable) shared curiosity, creativity, pleasure and a more refined sense of humility, such that each enjoys returning to the connection, deepening it (connection to self, other, and environment) over time.

Where would you like to go deeper?

When I first began studying energy work - conscious and intentional work with life-affirming patterns to create and support coherence, harmony and health - I had no idea that this would also lead me into such a deep exploration of how we humans have learned to engage energetically in ways that erode people's dignity and trust, and sometimes inadvertently, just do harm.

While my initial study was primarily focused on learning to generate coherence within and between the body's physical/energetic systems and structures, it became evident to me within a few years of practice that much of the distress and disruption to an individual's body systems is also due to interpersonal dynamics. Or in other words, much poor health is due to stress between humans, and between humans and the earth.

Are you working your way through any confusing, repetitive, or polarized dynamics in relationships (perhaps including the relationship you have with yourself, or the one you have with other aspects of life)?

It's one thing to recognize that our attempts to connect don't seem to be creating the connection we need or desire, or that the other person is responding in ways that feel uncomfortable to us. But it is a whole different thing to know how to shift our patterns, and/or recognize the necessity that another learn to shift theirs.

As author Brené Brown (talking about trust and re-humanization here) says, "we are hardwired to connect with others...". But connection skills are not only innate, they are also learned. We all need wise models, mentors and teachings that initiate and show us the way into deeper intimacy and connection. Who show us how and where to grow.

Which intimacy and connection skills would you love to shore up?

As we humans collectively increase our ability to recognize and understand how misunderstandings and misuses of power marginalize, invisibilize and erase, it becomes more and more evident to me how hungry we are to build trust in our use of power and polarity. And create mutually pleasurable and meaningful connection, over time.