“Culture Of: Intimacy” Recap.
🎶Let’s talk about intimacy. Let’s talk about you and meeee. 🎶
Last week we took a deep dive into the ocean of emotion and explored the spectrum of connection. A lot of fancy talk to say that we learned what intimacy is really about. *SPOILER ALERT* it ain’t what society pushes 🍆😏. The reality behind, underneath, and deep within, is that there’s so much more. Last Wednesday’s event is proof. A deep thank you to our partners Dos Toros for forcing us to learn about others through food, Ilha candles for setting the mood, as well as Haus and Maivino for filling our cups. And then our speakers hit us in the feels.
Five captivating voices held our hands literally and figuratively on the journey to discovering what intimacy really looks like. The power comes when we truly allow ourselves to experience intimacy rather than running away from it. When you lay it all out, it’s super simple. Start with self, add another person, and then build on that with your community. But don’t just take our word for it.
Keep scrolling to get the gist of what we learned, best bites from our speakers, how to go deeper, and ways to run with it. 👇🏽
Best Bites
“How you want to be, does not interest intimacy. How you think you should look or talk or what you think you should want or care about? Intimacy doesn’t give a fuck. Intimacy wants Real, it requires authenticity.” Ranier Amiel showed us how intimacy with self starts from a place of radical acceptance. Her paintings and process taught us that when accepting yourself as is means a deeper sense of honesty that allows you to connect with others and truths.
“There’s an ocean of emotion that people are desperate to cross, so much so that they dream about it but no one is talking about it. Sometimes we just need someone to go first.” Gunny Scarfo (Founder at Nonfiction Research) & Lindsey Wehking (Investigative Researcher at Nonfiction Research) revealed how the desire for one to one intimacy is found in nearly all humans yet we struggle to do it. The big takeaway: go first. Open up first and watch people follow your lead.
“I was asked ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ but I was never asked ‘Who do I want to be when I grow up?” Krystie Yen (Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Slant’d) shared the joy that comes from acceptance and understanding to build intimacy with community.
“Try my deep on for size. Tell me if this place fits you or not–if we belong or not. Then we can turn the light on. Are you still here? Are you still, here?” Cyrus Aaron (poet, playwright, wordsmith) shared his poetry between each talk, weaving his words around our hearts to help us feel how intimacy lights up our souls and bringing us face to face with our humanity and questioning the walls we put up to block intimacy.
Go Deeper
Dive into the nonfiction’s report: Intimacy in America. You’ll learn just how intimacy starved Americans are and get the stats to back it up.
Check out the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows to learn about phrases like mal de coucou: “A phenomenon in which you have an active social life but very few close friends…who you can be yourself with. A form of acute social malnutrition in which even if you devour an entire buffet of chitchat, you’ll still feel pangs of hunger.” We. Feel. That.
Grab the card game parents are human that began as a crowdfunding idea to help Chinese American millennials better connect with their parents and expanded to become a tool for connecting generations.
“You are safe, you are seen and you are home.”
Run With It
We love a good list. Nonfiction research gave us four steps to intimacy that you can start working on this week.
- Triumph over shame. Shame is the enemy of intimacy. Let it go. It doesn’t serve you.
- Practice in small steps. Need some thoughtstarters? Scroll down.*
- Touch and be touched. We held hands with a stranger (consensually) and it was amazing.
- Go first. Just do it. :)
*Start small. Change your email signature. Krystie signs off every email with the following “With love and solidarity” as an invitation to spread love and a reminder that none of us are alone. Meet a stranger each day for 10 days. Share how much money you make. If any of these spark a little fear in you, maybe that’s exactly what you should do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Through conversations and the physical exercises, we were pushed to look inwards, explore our authentic selves and to radiate it with the world. We invite you to take this energy in all of your interactions at work and in the city. Especially as we’re entering the last leg of the cold, dark, New York winters. ⛄😰
With love and solidarity,
Team strtgst
Tina, Darien, Rosa, Dom, Adriana, Sean, Isabel, Sandra
the gst /gist/ is a publication of strtgst.co
