2020 has been a shit show of a year proving that nothing is permanent and there are no guarantees.

Relationships have been under strain.

Jobs have changed or been lost...

Money has fluctuated.

Life and plans have been in flux.

A lot of this you can’t control.

But there is one thing you can control.

The one constant you can always come to depend upon and have a sense of agency with is self-intimacy.

If, and only if, you’ve developed it.

Self-intimacy IMHO is everything.

It’s the foundation of every action you take and who you connect with. If your self-intimacy is shaky, has gaps, is low or completely absent, you’re always gonna be and feel sub-par.

When self-love feels too far away from you…

When self-worth feels like a baseless term you can’t relate to…

When self-care feels like a cringe worthy statement splashed around on bath products…

Self-intimacy is right there to step in and meet all your needs.

Read (or watch) the rest here:

No interaction or job or amount of money will ever feel whole or enough for you when self-intimacy is amiss. Ignore it or starve it and you’ll feel the hungry ghost at the bottom of your soul, clamouring for attention.

When I bring up the concept of self-intimacy and all it asks of us, the immediate fear factor that steps in for women is:

If I prioritise self-intimacy and myself, won’t I be selfish?

Errrrm no. And anyone that views your renewed relationship to yourself to be "selfish" is in need of their own hefty dose of self-intimacy.

We’re so fucking scared of what other people will think of us that we're willing to forgo the connection to ourselves to belong.

We're willing to forgo the connection to ourselves to make sure we're seen as nice.

And that’s the real monster that eating up women’s libidos and life force.

Choosing to be nice over knowing ourselves.

Wait.

What is self-intimacy?

Self-intimacy is the act of connecting to your identity with warmth, closeness and bonding. It’s looking inside of yourself and facilitating your growth and connection to the entire spectrum of your feelings - even the ones that are critical, judgmental or challenging. Self-intimacy is the thing that will guide you through your darkest days. When low self-worth and low self-esteem want you to bail on yourself, self-intimacy steps in and says: let’s turn the volume up on the respect and reverence you show yourself in these dark days.

When you’re self-intimate, you:

• feel yourself and your feelings first and have the self-awareness to acknowledge the lines in the sand between you and others and what they’re feeling.

• don’t have any leaks in your identity. There's no leaving yourself behind in any process or interaction.

• hold your opinion in the highest regard whilst still remaining open to other points of view. You drop into your own feelings and gut instincts before responding. You resist the urge to react.

• treat yourself with softness and tenderness like an ideal lover would.

• don’t have to drink or use drugs to feel a feeling.

• have the capacity to seduce yourself because your body confidence and the pleasure that emits is an ongoing source of comfort.

None of which means that you’re weak or let yourself get away with not showing up to your responsibilities.

In fact, you’re more likely to want to show up to what life throws at you because the belief in yourself is rock solid.

You still need and want human connection, sex and love but you don’t wither to nothing if you don’t get it on demand. You know and trust what you can give to yourself and that you’re your own best friend.

When you’re self-intimate, you know all the resources are inside of you, whenever you need them.

The bond you have with yourself is there to hold you in the hardest of times. Above all…

You are the expert on yourself because you are the one that is closest to you.

What’s not to love about self-intimacy?

What self-intimacy IS…

Self-intimacy is choosing yourself first

Self-intimacy means curtailing the tendency to always ensure the comfort of others. It gives you permission to choose yourself first because you know their comfort causes you discomfort.

You don’t settle for substandard connections and people when you base your decision to interact with them on how close you are to yourself.

Your connection to yourself becomes the measure of whether someone can come into your life and world.

You are your own best company and everyone that surrounds you enhances the connection that you already have to yourself.

The people around you are co-creators of your own self-intimacy and support you to foster the best version of yourself.

Self-intimacy is doing life and pleasure for yourself, by yourself

When it comes to my private clients, this is where I usually step in.

They’ve recognised the gap.

They step forward and say: “I know I need to do this for me. This is a part of myself that needs attention. I can’t ignore it any longer or point the finger at anyone else in my life or my upbringing. I need to know me, for me.”

In the ensuing moments there’s silence.

She has stepped into her power and she feels it.

She’s no longer waiting for permission or validation.

After all, you can kick and scream about how much negative or shitty stuff your partner or your boss or your mum does TO you. BUT there will always be incongruence in your power for as long as you remain disconnected from yourself and the signs that your body gives off to say: no more.

This is not about law of attraction or getting back what you put out there.

This is about consistently being in situations and dynamics where you want more from them but fail to give these gifts to yourself first.

Case in point: One of my private clients shared with me how much she wants her husband to listen. She said it over and over. All she wants is to be heard.

Yet in a cruel twist, her body was screaming at her to listen, just like she was screaming at her husband to listen to her.

All the attention was going to the external source of stress and what was out of her power.

She knew in her head self-intimacy was the key but her body never registered it because she wasn’t being self-intimate in her life.

Constantly overriding her primal brain fear responses and reverting to avoidance mode was coming at a serious cost. Her life was playing out on a loop and nothing was improving in her health or relationship (which is on her husband too).

She had to start doing life and pleasure for herself, by herself – regardless of his perception of it. She had to become self-intimate by listening to her body that was perpetually in fear and avoidance with no hope of a circuit breaker.

Self-intimacy is a way of regaining control

One of my private clients shared with me recently how she was able to use self-intimacy to centre herself before intimacy with her partner. Spoiler alert – the whole point is not to benefit what happens in the bedroom or to please your partner – it just happens to be a side-effect. Here’s what happened…

She was:

· In control

· Able to ask for what she liked (which never happened)

· In the moment and attentive rather than distracted

· Curious

· Empowered to relax with whatever may (or may not) happen

· Able to feel deeper arousal and have a more satisfying O

And I can secretly share with you why self-intimacy works to help you regain control like this…

Women learn to come down into their bodies.

When they learn the power of calm, they source control.

When they source control, they access clarity.

When they access clarity, they make better decisions for themselves.

When they make better decisions for themselves, they source empowerment, enjoyment and pleasure.

The origin of the regaining control story is always, always having the courage to come into her body over her constantly screaming mind.

When it comes to self-intimacy, the paradox is: when we relax, we gain control.

Bring your body down first and your mind has a chance to follow.

For as long as you want your mind to keep calling the shots and getting certain outcomes, you're already behind in the bedroom and life beyond it.

The mind doesn't control sensuality. The body does. Or more specifically, your body does.

What self-intimacy ISN’T

Self-intimacy isn't going it alone

Self-intimacy does not mean self-isolation. It doesn't mean that you don’t rely on anyone or don’t need anyone and give a big F-U to the world.

In fact, being self-intimate makes it clearer the ways in which you do need people.

In the absence of self-intimacy, there are a lot of gaps to fill – you’re empty and you become less discerning about what comes your way to fill you up.

Self-intimacy lets you know what you need when you need it and you definitely still need people. What you’ll find is the need is a lot clearer and you’ll be prone to less sabotaging behaviours where you shout: “just leave me alone!” when what you really want in that moment is human connection.

Self-intimacy isn't relying on all the programs and courses to sustain it

No 12 month program or week long retreat.

When self-intimacy clicks, you just know what you need to do.

Chances are, the thing that you need to do will be free. It won’t cost you a cent.

How do I know for sure, sure?

Well, I know for a fact that self-intimacy relies upon a few key actions.

One of those keys actions is doing something through your body. You gotta DO self-intimacy before you FEEL self-intimacy.

Another of those key actions is speaking and saying the crappy stuff out loud. Sound and words are some of the most potent self-healing modalities there are. They don’t even need an audience.

There are countless times I’ve cleared something for myself and pressed a reset button without anyone ever hearing one of the words I’ve uttered.

Self-intimacy gives you the power to do that. Then you know, if that doesn’t clear what you needed it to clear then it’s time for external reinforcements like my 1.1 process.

Self-intimacy isn't doing it to make someone else happy

Like the success story with my client that I mentioned earlier, the point for her sourcing self-intimacy wasn’t to make her partner happy in the bedroom. That was a happy side effect.

The point is always, always to be closer to yourself and to have your own back. The people in your life will organically benefit from your self-intimacy - you don’t have to force it or prove to them that you’re whole in yourself.

They’ll notice the shift in you when you step up and take a chance to shift something in yourself. And you’ll want to keep being self-intimate because it feels bloody fantastic!

Self-intimacy isn't relying on someone else to do your self-intimacy for you

One of your valid options is to keep overlooking the valuable and rich intimacy real estate inside of you in favour of someone stepping in and filling up the space for you.

If that feels like the safer choice or option, I can tell you right now, it isn’t.

The risk that you’re taking is creating a loop where you need a hit of validation and intimacy from their source of it. Problem is, you can’t control that source.

It might not always be there. They can withdraw at any time.

When you step into self-intimacy, you call the shots. You can choose in any moment to give it to yourself or withhold it.

When you get adjusted to it as your norm, you’re going to be acutely aware of the times in your life where you go into self-pity and loathing. You’re going to feel your magnetism drained dry and will start to scramble to get it back.

Thing is, when you’ve already created a solid self-intimacy foundation, you don’t need to scramble.

You do one thing that you know works and organically do the next thing and the next. You won’t have to wait for a full moon or when your menstrual cycle is on the optimal day for getting shit done. You’ll make one choice to press the reset button and you’ll know exactly what you need to do (and yup, it will be doing something through your body).

That is the power of self-intimacy.

Lauren xo

P.S. When women come to me with problems in and out of the bedroom, the real problem is this: they aren’t self-intimate. Self-intimacy is the pre-requisite for intimacy with anyone else. Period. Take the first step today.