Home > Work > Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence
1 " Yes, sex is troublesome and beautiful. And only when we drop our expectations, and know that we'll have moments of great sex and moments when our sexuality confounds, pains, or infuriates us, will we be liberated to enjoy it in a way that's true to ourselves. "
― Alexandra Katehakis , Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence
2 " If we don’t honor our truth, how can we expect anyone else to do so? "
3 " People often ask: If there’s a God, how can He allow so much suffering in the world? Realize all world suffering you perceive is a mirror to your own psychological self-abuse, gender imbalance, prejudice, poverty, and hunger. You couldn’t even perceive each suffering aspect of external reality if it didn’t already exist within you. Touch and transmute your own psychological suffering, and perceive the world in kind. "
4 " Find the pitch and pace and syllables and words you love to hear. Delight your own senses, and self-romance. "
5 " Caring is open-hearted, keeping us available to transmit love to a stranger through simple eye contact and without condition. This is not the opportunistic sizing-up of sexual cruising; instead, it’s the felt recognition of the divinity and humanity in another individual. "
6 " Tread lightly on your partner’s heart. It was given to you for safekeeping. "
7 " To develop emotional and erotic intelligence we need to practice enlarging our inner passion at every moment. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in our world, or even how we feel about ourselves in the moment. In fact, the best time to accomplishing something may be when we least feel like trying, because the hopeless part of ourselves most needs the light. "
8 " All of us lived life when sex was the farthest thing from our minds. Try to remember the careless freedom of play, basking in the beingness of others. As adults, responsibilities and obligations can often bind us to a daily grind. For some adults, then, sex might be one of the few interactions that restores their openness and sensory exploration of play. It’s not hard to see why sexual preoccupation might take over when people become locked out from experiencing fulfilling lives. "
9 " The process of dissociation is an elegant mechanism built into the human psychological system as a form of escape from (sometimes literally) going crazy. The problem with checking out so thoroughly is that it can leave us feeling dead inside, with little or no ability to feel our feelings in our bodies. The process of repair demands a re-association with the body, a commitment to dive into the body and feel today what we couldn’t feel yesterday because it was too dangerous. "
10 " It’s crucial to practice self-empathy, for trust can’t be willed into existence. That didn’t work when our caregivers tried to impose their will on us, and it won’t work internally, either. Only when we can tap into a place of self-trust, with a reliable process of reparation for inevitable mistakes, can we build trust with another person. "
11 " The heart of compromise is the willingness of all parties to sacrifice reciprocally and equally for the greater good of a relationship. Reconciling conflicting needs for the sake of unity can't work if just one person does it. A coerced compromise, when one partner deceives or overpowers the other without allowing room for shared truths, usually results in an empty agreement that's soon undermined by unilateral acting out. "
12 " When loneliness is a constant state of being, it harkens back to a childhood wherein neglect and abandonment were the landscape of life. "
13 " How can you get through to yourself? "
14 " Endow yourself with healthy self-esteem. What is the feeling tone in your life that radiates in you and makes you shine, that makes you feel whole, that makes you feel your heart? That feeling tone, which we long to hear from others, is the tone we want to practice with ourselves. That’s where we want to live with ourselves. It doesn’t happen from the outside in. That’s why it’s called self-esteem. "
15 " Stand up for the underdog, the 'loser.' Sometimes having the strength to show loving support for unacknowledged others turns the tides of our own lives. "
16 " Are you repeating someone else's narrative, taking it for granted? Talk therapy sessions and 12-step recovery shares help develop the ability to present a coherent life narrative through the safe structure of clear rules of communication that support healthy self-expression and self-awareness. "
17 " We might feel that we must demonstrate explicitly when we’re upset, or not upset. This perceived need may stem from our family of origin, from how we learned to be heard when a simple “no” wasn’t enough. We may have learned to mask certain feelings, or portray feelings that weren’t ours. But as adults we each need to learn to state our personal truth without having to prove it or shout it. "
18 " Superficial social niceties are far different from the deep emotion of thanksgiving. "
19 " Summoning gratitude is a sure way to get our life back on track. Opening our eyes to affirm gratitude grows the garden of our inner abundance, just as standing close to a fire eventually warms our heart. "
20 " Observe the rhythm of passers-by on the street, at work, everywhere. Summon loving acceptance and let their tempos move you emotionally and corporeally. Try to assimilate new ideas by trying out the rhythms of those you encounter. "
