Intimacy with God, dogs and humans
The blurb for this month’s Conscious Cafe read as follows,
When we talk about intimacy, our thoughts often go straight to “sexual” intimacy. However, intimacy encompasses much more than the physical aspect. It involves a feeling of closeness and connecting deeply on emotional, vulnerable, energetic, and spiritual levels with anyone — friends, family, colleagues, and other significant people in our lives.
As social beings, humans naturally prioritise close relationships. Although a strong support system or romantic partner cannot cure mental illness, there is a connection between mental health and intimacy. Building and maintaining intimate relationships is one of the most effective ways to lead a happy, healthy life.
Yet, achieving or finding intimacy isn’t always easy. Why is this the case, and how can we cultivate greater intimacy in our lives?
The format is that after a time of being together, we go into ‘threes’ and each person gets three minutes to speak on the subject. It ends with four minutes of general discussion among the three.
I found myself reflecting on my early childhood. Due to my need for intimacy, I developed ‘an intimacy with God’. My 3-year-old self knew the need for intimacy.
He would not have questioned whether God existed, he did and as he did he wanted to relate to him. Somewhere along the way, I had heard he was ‘The Father of us all’ so there was no question I would be relating to my Father. I also had picked up that he loved me so a three-year-old was not going to miss this opportunity. The fifty-three year old still relates to God as my Father and still feels loved by him, “Best Father’s Day God.”
Now to some, this may seem bizarre that I am intimate with an invisible being. Even more bizarre if you don’t believe such a being exists. It may help you if I replace the word God for Life. Some may say I am anthropomorphizing. Maybe I am but we as humans do that in life whether we believe in God or not.
Regardless of what others think I have a relationship with what I name as ‘My Father God’. The benefits this has given me are a belief when I haven’t believed in myself and a feeling of being loved when I doubted I was.
I was also reminded that dogs played a huge role in my life until the age of 12. Again this may seem bizarre but the dogs were sensitive to my moods and acted to soothe me. They were always glad to see me and that as a child gave me a sense of being loved.
We change ‘threes’ three times in the night so by the end I did get to speak about intimacy with humans. Friendships give it if we can be open to it as does the one some of us call ‘the other half’ again depending on how deep we go.
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