Intimacy: True Connection with myself, the Woman, through Esoteric Yoga

I recently participated in an online six-week program, with the Esoteric Yoga Stillness Program for Women and it was both deeply beautiful and equally revealing.
 
Words were spoken by the facilitator during the first session of yoga, which resonated deeply:

"It's just you and your body…" 
and, "It's just you and your breath…"

When I heard this, I could feel and hear my breath enter my body, and I felt my body respond, becoming deeply still. Everything then fell into a kind of order. I felt uncomplicated, focused and very present with myself.

“Woah!” I thought. “I am THAT! The quality, my breath, this space I occupy…
This presence – is ME.”

In this moment I was able to reflect on and feel the difference between this stillness and quality of me, to the momentum I had been in before the start of the Esoteric Yoga session, realising how I give out to others more so than give to me. I realised that a connection with me inwardly, is actually super intimate. Turning my focus inwards, connecting to my breath, to me, is the beginning of an intimate relationship with myself. There and then, I understood what intimacy truly means – I felt it.

Intimacy felt like the interwoven flames of a fire, a beautiful interweaving and connection between my body and my presence.

I was surprised to recognise that my focus had always been more outward – like a ship’s radar beeping, looking out to what’s on the horizon. Bringing my attention back towards my body, allows me to choose to remain in the quality and intimacy of my presence.
 
"It’s just you and your body… It’s just you and your breath…” became the words I was repeating to myself and this simply reorientated me more so with my body and my breath, reconnecting me to the quality that resides within it.
 
I realised this is what’s really important. What really matters is this presence, this quality, this relationship, the intimacy I am feeling right now. This is the greatest point of reference for myself, and it’s there the whole time. It’s just me that has to make the choice to switch on my internal radar to be with me.

This was super revealing as I recognised how easy it is to mistake looking outwardly for intimacy, when actually true intimacy is with ourselves first. It’s this connection, this intimacy, that we then share and celebrate with another.

Equally revealing was realising I have the capacity to be with this quality, stillness and presence in everything I do. It never leaves me – it is I that have been distracted away from it. As the Esoteric Yoga has shown me, all that is needed is to connect to my body with my breath and bring this innate living stillness, gorgeous intimate presence and essence of the woman I am, to anything and everything I do.
 
I recognise now that prior to experiencing Esoteric Yoga, my point of reference was always be focused on what was going on around me – outside of my own body – and I would respond according to that. For example if someone spoke to me rudely or in an ‘off ’ kind of way, I could find this disturbing. I could have taken it personally or even allow it to bother me for a period of time.

Instead my point of reference is now my body: it’s me and my presence, and this actually offers space and a moment to observe and respond to the incidences that occur around me – a bit like being still within the eye of a tornado.

This internal radar – this connection to presence, having intimacy with self – is super important for all women as in our modern day, it has become the norm to be the 24/7 ‘super mum’, the wife, the worker, the organiser and the rest… When we are swept up in such a life momentum, it is all too easy to take on the ‘doing’ role and leave this gorgeous precious quality of true connection and ‘being’ with ourselves behind. We all know the consequences of this – for there is a price that we pay.

We eventually become worn out, craggy, reactive, fatigued and exhausted and we turn to comfort or stimulating food, drink or particular behaviour patterns in the attempt to prop us up and keep it all going… Could this be the beginning of the woman’s ill heath and dis-ease?
 
Since discovering this deeper relationship and aspect of intimacy within myself – less ‘doing’ and more honouring and being aware of this innermost, precious connection – I have no doubt that this inward point of reference and connection to the living stillness within is the key missing ingredient for all women. Despite our knack for dismissing and overriding this, reacquainting ourselves with such an intimate connection and quality of being holds enormous potential in restoring women’s health and wellbeing, worldwide.

Johanne Brown
Registered Nurse
Perth, Australia