THEEEE relationship episode you've been asking me for!!! Can you be deeply in love with someone and still not really know them? In this episode, relationship therapist Amy June of The Softening and I get into the difference between love and intimacy, why safety has to come before vulnerability, and why you can't actually balance love, intimacy, and creativity.
We go deep on the nervous system of closeness, treating your creativity like a lover instead of a to-do list, why trying to split yourself leaves you at 75% everywhere, and the center of gravity that lets you give each thing all of you. Plus desire vs safety, parasocial relationships, and whether intimacy actually has a limit.
If you're a creative person trying to hold a relationship, your art, and yourself all at once, this one is for you.
We dive into
○ Why love and intimacy are not the same thing
○ The chain nobody teaches you: safety comes before vulnerability, vulnerability comes before intimacy
○ Why you can't balance love and creativity, and what to do instead
○ Treating your creativity like a relationship, not a task
○ The "center of gravity" that lets you swing fully into one thing without losing yourself
○ Codependence vs interdependence, with your art and with people
○ Why intimacy isn't measured in time
○ Desire thrives on mystery, intimacy thrives on safety
○ Parasocial relationships and the ethics of building closeness online
Red threads
○ You don't balance love and creativity. You expand your capacity to hold both, and you swing fully into each in turn.
○ Both love and creativity ask for your full presence. Split yourself, and you're only 75% in each place.
○ You can only swing all the way to one side if you have a center of gravity to come back to.
○ Safety is the precursor to vulnerability, and vulnerability is the precursor to intimacy.
○ Intimacy isn't measured in time. Depth is. You can see someone twice a year and be closer than people who talk daily.
○ You can be madly in love with someone and have almost no intimacy. They're not the same thing.
○ Desire thrives on mystery. Intimacy thrives on safety. The art is weaving them together.
○ Stop seeing your intimacy, your rest, and your creativity as a scarce currency you have to spend carefully.
References and rabbit holes
○ Esther Perel, and her book Mating in Captivity
○ Somatic experiencing: pendulation and titration (how we expand capacity)
○ Polyvagal theory and the nervous system of safety
○ Codependence, enmeshment, and interdependence (from family systems theory)
○ The research that it takes roughly 50 hours together to turn an acquaintance into a friend
Links
○ Amy June: The Softening on Substack
○ Amy June: The Softening on Instagram
○ Expansion, my mastermind (doors open soon, join the waitlist)
Journal prompt
Where in your life have you been living at 75%? Giving a little bit to everything and your whole self to nothing?
And what would it look like to give just one thing, your art, your partner, a friend, all of you this week?
