07 Dec “A Return to Intimacy Experience”

By Jacqueline Lucas Palmer.

On Saturday morning I meet up with ten people, who have one thing in common, an interest in the words “A Return to Intimacy”, a workshop I run.  It says ‘an experiential workshop’ and not much more, and I have had a brief chat with them to take their details and check they are not after a theoretical workshop.  So, all I know are their names, and they know mine.  By Sunday afternoon, they know a great deal more about themselves and each other, even if they never meet again.  They spontaneously share insights and qualities they’ve seen in each other that are so spot on, so unexpected, and so far from their experience of being seen by partners, friends, colleagues and family, that I note and mail them these precious words as reminders to treasure.

Why should that be?  Why can we reveal more to perfect strangers than to people we’ve known for decades?  If the answer was simple I’d have written my bestseller.  Most of us communicate now in short bursts via broadband: a text, an 

e-mail, a peak at other ‘friend’s’ lives on Facebook, who we now rarely see.  We leave our messages on ansaphones, that are sifted through by people who are so busy and stressed, a simple call to a landline is a luxury.  We make a quick call to promise a longer one from our cars, the bus, the train, as we walk or do our shopping, using mobiles that ‘lose connection’ so regularly we often don’t bother returning the call.  

If I could tell you more about the weekend it would spoil the experience for those participants who might be ready to jump in and join the next workshop.  Do I learn more about my own relationship to intimacy with each weekend?  Undoubtedly.  But I can only tell you that you will have the opportunity to witness and experience the way you relate, and the blocks you encounter in attempting to make a deeper connection, in sharing your vulnerability, and in expressing your desires.  And for this, only the group experience can facilitate this process.