Veils to the Soul
Season 2 ... Masculinity and Spirituality. An exploration into the current state of the Masculine in Therapy and Spirituality.
Season 1 ... Birthing Spirit in the Modern World. An exploration of what's between us and our Souls' birth, and how the Modern World resists that birth, but needs it - if it's to survive and thrive!
Veils to the Soul
10. Intimacy
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Gary and Oliver talk about Intimacy. Intimacy with Self, intimacy with the Other, feedback forms, the wincing heart, the importance of safety, creating space for intimacy, the limitations of purpose, big catch ups and neighbours, because everyone needs good neighbours.
Thanks for listening!
Find out more:
For Oliver's Psycho-Spiritual work with Individuals, Couples and Groups, please visit www.oliverbaum.co.uk.
For more information on Gary's work www.thewrightmedium.co.uk
Fails to the Soul, Masculinity and Spirituality with Oliver Baume and Gary Wright. And today we're talking about intimacy. Just how uncomfortable at the idea I am of talking about this. I can even feel the nerves in my voice just as I'm speaking now. It's interesting. There's a few things going round my mind at the moment. So I had a bit of a chuckle to myself to realise that we we unconsciously sort of the order of recording, we've gone sex, aging, and then intimacy. Another thing that both of us had pointed out by women that we hadn't done intimacy, but we had done sex. And I think Gary, you you were the one to call that out. And whereas I was quite happy just to plat on, as it were. And then I, you know, I mean just off the back of a week in Devon, where you sort of by the seaside, it's off season, it's it's quiet, but everybody is just friendly, you know, you get the morning uh eye contact, uh, and then I'm back here to the hardened streets of Surrey. Uh, and everybody's looking down, jogging, doing, you know, going around their Sunday morning thing. Um, and it's much more of a sort of do-do-do vibe, and and there, I don't know, I've just got a lack of presence. So I've had all this bubbling around my head basically, and then we've been chatting away, avoiding pressing record for the last half hour as well. Uh I have enjoyed the conversation though, I hasten to add. Um uh and yeah, I don't know, it's just a big soup that I can really feel a reluctance to be fully present with present with.
SPEAKER_01And I've got the giggles here. Not because you've said anything funny particularly, I just have got into that point of going, and if I let that go, I will be hysterical. So that's that's bizarre. But it is interesting, it was this this this lovely, very wise, very good friend of mine, very wise. She said, Oh, is she in intimacy? And I went, Yeah, even though we hadn't, and I stood there, like watched myself lying to her, and I thought, this is weird. Um, so I said, actually, we awesome, but we will do now you're points in action. I think it's very important. So, yeah, but it's interesting, isn't it? That immediately one thinks that it needs to be challenging rather than something nice. It could be rather wonderful, this, and th thinking about it, it it it could be rather wonderful, but we've both got into funny places, which is interesting.
SPEAKER_05It's interesting, just as you say that. I've got a wait, what? This doesn't have to be challenging.
SPEAKER_01No, it doesn't have to be, does it?
SPEAKER_05I've got the giggles now. How old are we both? Oh I'm 128 plus V18.
SPEAKER_01So um 28 plus V18. Yeah, that's about right. I guess I'll admit to that.
SPEAKER_05Oh dear me. It's it is interesting, this isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's an interesting thing. It's an interesting, but I've been thinking actually, when did has it always been complicated intimacy, even in conversations, or have we got worse as a society? I thought let's put it onto society and then it takes it off me for five minutes when I was thinking about it. Have we got is it are we worse of a society in the last sort of five-ish, ten years? Have we become more hardened and more um more withdrawn from from because I just I was thinking it's actually to do with one's intimate feelings, which which are of course very mixed to start with, before you can kind of think about being intimate with necessarily other people, really. Can I sit with my intimate self in terms of how I feel? And um, I don't want to go too political, but you know, we are recording this with the you know the Iran America-Israel situation that suddenly happened, you know, in the last sort of 24 hours, 20 or 36 hours. And um I was thinking we have become much more kind of hardened to grief and all those very intense emotions, you know, we've seen horrendous things on the telly and on on podcasts and not necessarily on podcasts, but on uh social media rather, over the last few years, in lots of sort of wars and difficult things. And I thought, have we just come away from sitting with any strong emotion? Um, because we've come become, as a society, quite hardened to it. I mean, when you've seen children look, you know, in these most awful situations that we have done in the last few years in lots of countries, um there there isn't there is an ability not to step forward into a very strong emotion. I don't think that helps us be intimate with anybody.
SPEAKER_05There's I I mean, would it be very easy to blame social media here? Um and I don't get me wrong, it's definitely had an impact. And you know, you're all sort of pointing towards how things have become polarized, uh, or more polarized than before. So everybody it's almost as if you know, there's there's that horrible line, silence is violence. Um and and it's almost as if not having a black and white opinion is considered wrong. But the problem with that is it it jars, and it's it's usually very ego-based. So it there isn't any, it's like I'm right, you're wrong, F you, and you know, you that isn't a space for vulnerability. And I think without vulnerability, intimacy is very, very hard.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. Well said, well put. I was trying to trying to find out how to get there, really, but that's kind of what I meant. Well said. I I it's that point where it is about pick a side. Um, you know, what side of uh are you on? You know, we have gone back. I always think I you know I'm gonna blame everybody today, other than my my inability to do this, but um that we've gone to you know, all those television programs that are rather wonderful. I mean, lots of my friends, even though I'm an old dancer, say we always blame strictly for everything. Because that's the one I first remember where we could actually actively vote people off. In a very cold way, you know, where we we could ring up and say we don't like their dancing, or we shouldn't like them. And we've gone back to the Coliseum in some ways. I said really early, and I saw we're back to the Coliseum, it's all boo, kill him. And um, that doesn't mean that we think uh uh closely about situations and we think, well, there's somebody here doing their best. I'm not enjoying it, I definitely not on the music, you know. I'm as critical of anybody's dancing as anything. But there is something about we have lost this moment of actually just sitting with somebody and going, oh wonderful, you're even having a go. More where's it going? Why is it going there? What are you what you should be doing, and why are we not doing it? Why are you not doing better at it? And I think that's really hard rather than sitting, you know, it's made it very all it's all quite hard rather than sitting there thinking, actually, what's the exploring? Why don't why are you just doing that? It's wonderful or not wonderful, but you're having a go. And there's that tender bit of intimacy, um, which I think somehow we've lost, which uh it's been very interesting to think actually, maybe I've lost that as well.
SPEAKER_05And I'm wondering if there's something about doing and being in this as well. I mean, to carry on the dance analogy. So I remember I have met it, it was quite a long time ago, taking up salsa. Um and you know, I really wasn't very good at it, to put it mildly, and I'm still not. But I was I I sort of enjoyed the process, I enjoyed it going and just having fun. But I could get, particularly when it was like the free dancing outside the class, I could get so self-critical. You're not doing this well enough, you are not, you know, all those sort of you're not good enough kind messages come in. And it one, it stripped the fun out, and in the end, it was just like, well, sold this, I'm off, kind of thing. Um so there there is that there's something there in okay, well, I have to do this to a certain level, or it has to be, you know, and if I can't, then I'm not gonna try. And again, there's something about nuance in that and and the importance of being able to hold space for something that's not complete. To just be with the situation as it is, okay. I wasn't very good at salsa, that's okay. It was fun though. That is also okay. And it's it's more about the and rather than the or or the but or the it it's it's inclusive rather than exclusive.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and it's a very interesting thing of sitting and exploring something. I mean, when I'm teaching people mediumship and psychic development, one of the first things that I have to check, and I do it quite early on in a in in an introductory class, is whether they can whether they can just sit and talk to somebody else. And you'll be surprised how many people find that bit quite difficult because there is an intimacy in that moment of dropping into somebody's energetic world, really, and just being able to sit in in a breakout room or sitting opposite somebody in a physical room, um that quite a lot of people now find really, really challenging. It's sort of it's nice to be anonymous on a screen, but it's hard to be face to face with somebody in any in any way, which uh already is it's quite an interesting thing to think about, which we can't go there.
SPEAKER_05Hmm. It's interesting, yeah. I mean you d I think it was relatively recently you called me out on um not getting too hung up on knowing where I'm going.
SPEAKER_01Oh, did I?
SPEAKER_05You did, yes. It was very good feedback, thank you. Um and and it's true, and even though my you know my day job, arguably, I'm sitting with not knowing pretty much all day, and yet I s as soon as I'm sort of in the space of learning something new, there is that desire to want to um to know where I'm going, and then that's okay, I can hang my hat on that, and it feels comfortable and I can relax into it. Whereas actually, I mean, particularly in that in in in those kind of situations, it is all about being with the unknown and being comfortable and holding space for that. Um, and I I I do think that is an important part of intimacy. Um yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think oh well, it's the it's it's wonderful that people are doing workshops and things purely on intimacy and touch and sacred touch, and I know lots of people around them, and they do marvellous sterling work. But it it but because of the natural nature of putting this, and uh you know, and I'm pleased they're existing, I do not, I'm not listening to criticism of any of them, but even by putting something in a workshop space or a frame, it moves it into a kind of learning thing rather than a let's just see what happens energy. And I do feel that the let's see what happens energy is something that's actually quite intimate. And but we are very results-driven, you know, everything's gotta be, you know, and feed, you know, endless, endless forms of feedback going for it. You can't have anything anymore. You can't even go out for dinner without you getting a hammer shore experience in a restaurant, and so constantly you're pick picking apart everything of what was what did I really feel, which is good on one level, but it does take away from the fact that actually that was just there and that happened, and maybe I'll do something else and it'll be different. Everything's sort of anal you know, analyzed, and you've got an analysis on it, and that's not necessarily, I don't think, creates a space of real kind of flow, and intimacy, I think, is to do with flow.
SPEAKER_05And that's interesting, yeah. And it isn't about data. I mean, quite often when I work with couples, it's kind of why are we doing this kind of thing? What's the point of this? Lead to, you know, what's going to be the end result? And sort of the temptation to go, well, if you don't do it, divorce probably. But there's something about just sort of being able to stay in those uncomfortable places rather than rushing for the fix. And I I remember I I'm used to be a hotelier and a and a chef, and and I rem I was there right at the beginning of of TripAdvisor when that first came out, and it drive me nuts. I hated it and actively didn't sort of chase reviews. But then when I got a good one, obviously I was very happy. But there's something for me, it's about that there is about being present with the experience, whether you're cooking or eating, and actually also having confidence in what you're providing, a service. Why do I need then for that to be validated for it to be meaningful?
SPEAKER_01Oh, don't start me on feedback forms. I won't, I won't read mine, and we get the mendless. I won't read mine. Because uh, in that moment, you know, I can have five stars across the board, and I get that quite often, so I'm told, as I said, I don't read them. But um, you know, the one that was four or three, I think what happened there. I because I also think I should know what that standard is, and I'm my biggest critic of anything I do. I should know where that where that standard is. And if I don't, I've lost something already in myself. I'm relying on somebody else to bring me something rather than with being intimate in my own process. That's and it is about the first thing. I've been thinking about this a lot. The first thing I think is one has to be intimate with oneself. And as I say that, I hear myself go because that means we've got to be intimacy and sex and sex and and and the thing have all been lumped together actually in this thing. But it is about in this but it is about actually, can I think, can I be in my real vulnerability and my personal feeling within? And then all and and then take that into my interactions with other people. And the answer to that is kind of if I'm honest with things, I rarely do, I rarely do. I've got to know somebody very, very well before I go vulnerable. You know, and that's just how I'm how I'm made, but I can do it. But it's an interesting space of actually there's gotta be it's gotta start really with an inner feeling and not know where that's going. So you were in two uncomfortable spaces to start with, all right.
SPEAKER_05Almost as you're talking, my heart is literally I can feel it sort of reorganizing itself and wincing. It's just like, oh no, don't do that, go down there. Um, and and then the humour kicks in as well. I mean, it's amazing how humour, I wonder if this is a particularly male thing or not, but humour as a defense against vulnerability. And uh, you know, I'm a big fan of using humour therapeutically. And there is a point, you know, deflection is the other one as well, which I think particularly therapists are very good at. You know, it's nothing like asking a therapist how they are for them for trying to find out how you are very, very quickly. Um there's just that um I don't know, I can just I can feel I mean it's a palpitation, so there's there's an excitement in the idea and the idea of it, but there is just like oh no, that's not maybe the word safe.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and it it's uh I uh yeah, this brings me into a very, very kind of um uh dodgy area, really, uh for for me in terms of lots of I'm I'm all for safe spaces, I'm all for inclusive spaces, I'm all for consensual everything. I think all of this, these conversations that have happened in the last actually in the last few years about safe spaces and consent are really, really important. But I'm going to I'm going to be quite vulnerable here and intimate. Um safe spaces, if we really have to control them in that way, and sometimes they're really locked down and need to be, aren't always transformational because they're so tight. So is a safe space somewhere where transformation and and that uncomfortableness that you have to journey through something to transform yourself? Is it available if we really hold everything really, really tight? I think everybody should be able to consensually stop a process with everything. I think that's really, really key. And I teach that when I'm especially in my professional class. You know, how are you holding your clients through this and and have they got a voice in that space? But I do feel that sometimes we've managed to go into safe spaces so tightly that the transformation isn't available, so the intimacy with the feeling is just not there. And I haven't got the answer about how we do that, how we sort that out at the moment. I'm working on it in myself, but I haven't quite solved it. But I am very curious about it. And the pushback, even when I've mentioned it to people I think would be quite okay with that conversation. I mean, I have been, you know, I have been I have been cast out of many a situation. I've been quite pleased to be cast out of some of the situations I mean, but because I think, well, if you can't have that conversation, there's no point.
SPEAKER_05What comes up for me in that is the relationship between guilt and innocence. Um and our our capacity to actually feel guilt. There is a tendency, I think, with particularly with the sheer volume of information that's coming in, to just keep scrolling quickly. So, you know, you get the pictures of of people in in great hardship, but you don't have to linger on them. You can scroll past them really quickly. And I think there's a there's a guilt that that touches on, you know, we're okay, then guilt of privilege, whatever you want to call it. You know, I'm I'm okay. And so I don't, you know, to see people who aren't okay brings up feelings of guilt for me. I mean it it I I mean I I wouldn't say it does personally, but I think that's true for a lot of people. And we'd rather not feel that because it makes us feel as if we're doing something wrong. Um, and so the preference then is for that feeling of innocence. Um and and that is an inactive space, you know. So we we're in our safe spaces, everyone's in their little bubbles, but you know, you see this with spiritual bypassing loads, but how real is it? How transformative is it? You know, I'm I'm slightly aware that we may be contradicting some of the stuff we've said before there's the potential to run into that, particularly with regard to groups. But um yeah, I I I don't know. I think that avoidance of guilt and that, oh this is it, I feel I feel innocent here, which could be I feel right, um, therefore that must be good. You know, I'm on the right side of history or whatever it might be. Um actually sometimes guilt is a is a maturing force, you know, it needs that energy to to mature us, to, to become more.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, and sometimes with the sense of humour that we were talking about, you know, I have occasionally put my foot in it with a sense of humour. And I said something to somebody at one point, and they kind of really held me on it. And I said, I'm so absolutely sorry, I really it wasn't my intention, I will never do it again, and I haven't, because I'm actually quite good at pulling myself up on I'll never do it again, um, in those situations. So there's a real interesting point about feeling one has to be right, and the interesting thing about intimacy, it's an explore. So we can't have that. I've got to be right and I'm doing this right space because it's it's in the energy of discovery with somebody else, with yourself, with with circumstances. So there's a funny thing with intimacy, it's quite an it's quite a hard thing to clearly identify because it's on the move. And it needs to be on the move because it's about exploring things in an intimate way. And in a close way and in a feeling way. And if we can't actually if we need to be right or identify we're doing this right or we're feeling this right or we're we're morally right or whatever, all of that goes.
SPEAKER_04And then what do you have? An unintimate situation, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_05It's interesting, I feel into that. There's a there's a kind of immediately kind of almost like a metal sheet that comes up between two people. And then I suppose to flip that question, what do you have without those things? So in a truly intimate space I mean on some level you have nothing. And that can feel quite threatening.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And I think in an intimate space there is about being able you have to let quite a lot of things go. An expectation, I think, is the biggest killer of lots of things. And sometimes when I'm working mediumistically, I know there's an expectation from spirit that I'm going to be able to to you know put something across well. There's an expectation in my sitter, you know, paid this money, you know, you're meant to be very good. There's an expectation in me that actually where we are. And that that expectation is sometimes quite limiting, it's always there. But if you feel into that expectation, then you've got all of these moving parts rather than go, let's in the energy discover something and let it unfold. And letting something bloom naturally in its own way is a point of surrender. So there is something to do with surrendering and intimacy, surrendering to what it must look like. And we have gone in as a society and as men who are very bad at this, of knowing what it's got to be before we can do it. And then if we know we're doing it, we understand it. And I have found myself in workshops and things of saying, you know, why am I being asked to do this? Um and somebody's not always been able to explore. But I need to know why I'm doing it rather than I discover it. And I realize that that's quite recently, that's quite a limit. I don't go on workshops very often. People would be pleased to know. But um, there is this point of if you want to know exactly why or where it's going, you're not really in it. You're at the end of it.
SPEAKER_04Ooh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the end of it might not be where you where actually energetically you're meant to be you're meant to end up, but you you've then phrased it. So you're traveling towards you know, something that you think you need, rather than letting something unfold. And I think in an intimate intimate setting, something is unfolding that maybe is not clearly defined. It's interesting.
SPEAKER_05Just hearing you describe that has settled something in me. You know, that feels okay. You know, it's almost like there's a permission that was needed not to understand. Um or not to have to understand, or not to know where uh where we're going with this, or where I'm going with whatever. And I I mean with groups, I d I mean part of me is it you know, it does make the marketing workshops things like that rather difficult putting groups when you're like, well, we're we're gonna sit here and not want, not do anything, really, particularly. We're just gonna sit here and allow whatever to open up. And and I wonder if particularly in in the male men's group sphere, that's even harder.
SPEAKER_01You know, there there isn't a there's a sort of an assumption that men have to be doing something with yes, and the thing that irritates me more than anything, really, is when I go to a men's site anything can they start to talk about purpose. And I go something small dies inside of me quite quickly. Because I just think, well, purpose for what? Because I see myself as quite multifaceted. My purpose for in one situation is to teach, in another situation, to it's to receive, another situation it's to explore, another situation it's just to sit and be. So I get purpose of what you want and where you're going, and feeling purposeful in life gives you a sense of self-identity and self-esteem. I get all of that, but we're never the same, we're not bringing in the same purpose to everything. We just can't you have a different purpose in being a dad, and you know, to not being a dad. You know, there's lots of things, it's lots of moving bars. So I do find that actually it's not easy for men just to drop into a let's just see what happens space. I've never known it, it's never been my experience of going somewhere and it's just like, well, let's just see what happens.
SPEAKER_05I like that take on purpose because the yeah, there is a temptation, and I do think that particularly in the sort of spiritual realms, you know, as if there needs to be some overarching purpose that's that holds us throughout whatever it is we're doing. Um and actually there's a big pre there's a massive pressure in that.
unknownYeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um and again, all the other stuff that takes people away from presence is in that as well. So, you know, performance, etc. Yeah, that's yeah, I will ponder that further. That's an interesting one. I like that.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's uh some things it's it's interesting, isn't it? That if somebody says I just want to be a compassionate person, people kind of go, oh. But if somebody says I want to revolutionary revolutionize the NHS, which I'm not saying is a bad purpose at all, but quite often that's said by people who are not, you know, there's a lot, a long way to travel to be able to do that. But being a joyful person in different situations is probably more obtainable because it goes through life and it's to do with your vessel wherever you are. Where when it's sort of a big transformation of big sort of um industries or uh institutions, that's very noble, but not not all of us are in those circumstances to be able to turn those things around as much as we want to. So it's about also small things, doing small things, and I don't know if we value those small, small little things in a day that we all do, you know. You were just saying about being in you know Devon and people saying a little good morning.
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't say good morning where where I where I am, particularly in the heart of West London.
SPEAKER_05I live by a canal, um, and it's quite funny the close uh does it's you sort of you say good morning to people and everybody responds until you get to a certain bridge, and then afterwards no one says good morning back. It's really odd. It's kind of like we're getting a little bit closer to the town there, so you better button up and stop saying a thing.
SPEAKER_01Yes, there's this thing, isn't there? Uh in sort of villagey kind of areas, we kind of thing, and the more we go out, it seems. I mean, you know, I don't live in a village area, so I don't know. The more we go out, it seems that lack of things. I was, you know, so my mum's, you know, very old at the moment, and she was saying, Oh, well, I don't know when I don't know when we stopped having neighbours. I said, Well, we got neighbours, and she'd know we got people who live next door. And I went, Oh yeah, but there was a point in in her generation of growing up where you knew everybody in you knew everybody in the street, at least by sight, and quite often by name or some association. I mean, you might have known them because you wanted to avoid them, but there was a kind of familiarity in streets, and I don't know if that happens. And so we've lost intimacy on lots and lots and lots of social levels. So I think when we're trying to reclaim intimacy back into ourselves, we are sort of swimming against the tide a little.
SPEAKER_05It's probably a bit of a black and white question. What do you think is easier, intimacy with others or intimacy with yourself? Although saying that without intimacy with the self, it'll kind of be false intimacy with other people.
SPEAKER_01But I was just gonna say that. Yeah. You have to have one without the other without you can't have one without the other, really, but but you can put yourself in a situation. I think if you are feeling unintimate or you struggle with intimacy, putting yourself in a situation with others is going to necessarily help you find out why that's such a challenge for you. Because there is this kind of space where you you have to kind of yeah, I think intimacy with oneself is relational to oneself, but it is also relational to others. So there's sort of a bit hand and club, really. Uh that you it's got a it's not an it happens. I mean, you can be quite, you know, I'm gonna say, I don't, you know, this is why I worry about it people thinking intimacy and sex. You can have a very intimate relationship with an animal, you know. There are uh there are unco, you know, there are ways of you know, having worked around animals a lot and and always had an animal in my life. There is this kind of unknowing kind of communication that you build up, which is really, really lovely, which is kind of feels very safe because they're quite unjudgmental beings, animals, things. I mean, I know if we turn up with food and walks and play, they're kind of quite forgiving, really, you know. But there is this interaction that is about yourself and how you relate to something, and you can't really have intimacy without relation, but you can't really have relations without a certain level of intimacy. So I don't know whether one is easier than the others. I think they just you've got to drop into both, really.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they coexist. And uh it's interesting to talk about animals, but um so dog walking, I would think that you know, dog walkers will talk to each other, and that's hello, and and and there's a commonality sort of over there, you have a dog, so you must be a halfway decent human being kind of thing. I mean, I'm generalizing massively, um but and there's a lot of dog walkers around where where I am, and I I have a dog as well. Um but there's some some people who will have much more uh I suppose I would have called them deeper conversations, but they are they're much more vulnerable and intimate conversations, and I enjoy those seeing them. You know, I almost look forward to when I to bumping into people like that. Whereas I might not necessarily do that just on the the regular sort of morning, morning, morning, just walking past kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I think dog walkers stand often when they're when their dogs are rolling, you know, you know, rolling through the fox and the fox poo in the mud, you know, sometimes if you have one of those dogs. But so you know, that stillness does create an intimacy. It's a friend of mine said the other day, should I get a dog? I said, Why should I want a boyfriend? I said, run run this back. She said, I'm getting a dog, so I want a boyfriend. She said, because I've seen all the people who walk with dogs talk to each other, so I've decided that's the way I'm gonna go. Anyway, she did get a boyfriend, but he came in first and completely other things, but she's got the dog and the boyfriend, she's very happy. But um it's an interesting thing about you say that it's about also being very present. And if you're you're taking something out that is relying on you for a certain amount of safety, and you've got to keep, you know, you've got to keep your eyes on in your environment, you know, when you've got an animal of any kind, really, um it does create a certain amount, you know, there is a there is a kind of um connection with your with your wider environment. And I I you know, I'm sitting there thinking, as we were talking about this, I'm thinking actually intimacy is all about being available to a wider something, I'm finding what that wider something is, but it's a wider something beyond oneself.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and I'll be you could say even with intimacy with yourself, that's true too. You know, to feel really connected with yourself. I do do think you there is something about feeling connected to um the divine. Yeah, I I feel much more whole in that space than I would just if I was I don't know connected to doing the washing up, you know, without it.
SPEAKER_01I had a very, very lovely conversation about two weeks ago. Um with this uh very um when I say very elderly lady, I mean I wouldn't be able to put an age on her, but I know her to be I I she's she's lived a life in many, many, many, many ways. You can see that just in her. And she was talking to me about prayer. And we started having this conversation about prayer and and and and why people do it and one thing. So she's quite a devout Christian, and that came up, and that was you know very interesting. She talked about prayer, and she talked about her, and she, and I've only just been reminded of this as we're talking. She talked about having an intimate moment with God. And I thought, oh, that's an interesting thing. She said, Well, she said, you know, she said, I've I've told him things that I've not told anybody. And there is something about, you know, now it might be that, you know, that's sometimes quite, you know, those Christian terms for some people are quite blocking. But it is about for her dropping into a space with her innermost feelings and sharing them. You can do that in meditation, you can do that in lots of things. Um, you can do that in journaling, I feel. I'm not a journaler, but you know, I think people do. But there's something about dropping into somebody's innermost feelings in a reverent way that probably starts quite an intimacy with oneself.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I agree with that. I can feel I can really feel as you're talking, I sort of I'm just dropping down. There's a grounding in that too. Something much more aware of my breath and all the rest of it. Um so so not only on an emotional side, but on a physical s in in a physical sense as well. I'm much more aware of myself.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. It's an interesting one, actually. It's a very interesting one. And I think it's a it's a hard one for men to drop into that together somewhere. So it requires a real conscious effort to have an intimate conversation, I think, between men. I think there's you have to really seek it out and ask for one. Um, I don't always know if they naturally happen outside, you know, either a professional setting or outside one of those big life changes, you know, somebody's lost, you know, there's a death of somebody, there's a you know, really big there's an illness, there's some those those serious things sometimes do create an intimacy and a real kind of sharing conversation. But I think other than that, they don't just naturally happen. Space has to be created and you know, held really for them. Because men do tend to do either talk or problem solve or laugh or anything other than go into an intimate space sometimes in conversation, even let alone anything else.
SPEAKER_05There's something there is something here about how men identify themselves. So I mean, I remember sort of parents' evenings out, and and the dads were very much oh, what do you do? Uh, and and then the the other person would say, I am a whatever it is. And then then you can sort of go on or a picture of a hierarchy or whatever it is, a structure. And and again, it's it's sort of a way of combating the unknown. Um, and then if you if you go in and say you're a therapist or something, that completely throws a spatter in the world. So don't quite know what to do with that, which I was quite enjoyed. But there's um but uh again, that's connecting on a level. And then there's the and there's you know, I um that you know, maybe there's some networking to be had or whatever, it's that's sort of the start of a 10 or whatever. But on the men connecting on an intimate level, I can you know, even as I use those words, I can feel my heart kind of contract, and it's kind of like don't know what to do, what do we do with this? Um and yet I do think there is a longing for for in men for that, but that probably isn't articulated. You know, I d you know, I really enjoy these conversations that we have.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, we were saying that before we started. And um it's an interesting it is an interesting point because it it does it, uh but it's back to that purpose, you know. Does it have to have a purpose? I mean, we've created a purpose because we're recording them and it's you know at some point they'll go out, then you know, it's people who listen, hopefully. But you know, I mean uh but actually something else has come out of that, even doing this, you know, a a closer understanding and an interesting and a reflectiveness. And you know, I know we we work out what we're talking about, you know, when we finish one, we work out which one we're doing next. And so the week is filled with a kind of background of of observing whatever we're due to talk about, whether that'd be wonderful or comfortable or whatever. So that but it is about creating a space, and I don't I do think men have to create a space first quite consciously. I don't know if it really just happens. I'm sure for some men it really just does, but it if if people are struggling with it, you know, it's they're gonna have to kind of go, right? I need to have these conversations, I need to do this, I need to sit in a space. Can we connect really? And what's the point of connecting? You know, that has to sometimes I think be answered in men because we like a purpose. I mean, we can't pretend we don't as a human race, and men particularly like to know roughly where they're going. But you can know roughly where you're going and try and put everything else down to not work to the end of what it's got to look like, but at least know what time and what space and what day, and a rough idea might be just an interesting place to start.
SPEAKER_05That's interesting, yeah. I mean, so there's something there then about a container of some shape or form is needed. Yeah. Um yeah, I suppose maybe that provide helps provide safety. But then there's also something about not rigidly holding on to any preconceived ideas about wherever wherever something might be going.
SPEAKER_01And it's also about commitment, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01To oneself and somebody else, you know, uh commitment is quite an intimate thing to do, to plan something together, you know, to plan to do something together, too, you know, that thing of you know that often said is men's groups and circles and things and events and retreats, you know. Are you showing up? Well, I don't know what the other, you know, I just you know things like that really wire me up because I thought I know what you roughly mean, but showing up for what unto, you know, because at the moment you just asked me to show up and join in in your what you're wanting to do. Can I show up in my way? But you know, as we know um a slightly maverick energy sometimes, but um that that showing up has to be for yourself first. Because other than that, you if you don't show up for yourself, you often think you don't have anything to offer. And that's sorry, carry on.
SPEAKER_05No, no, I was just saying that's really interesting. Yeah, say can you say more about that? What about show it if you don't have something to do with that? Yeah, you you don't know yeah, not knowing whether you then have something to offer.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think we all we all especially men, as we we we often do get into a space where what am I offering? And have I got anything to offer and have I got anything interesting to say? And that's really for the other person to work out whether you know it's interesting for you, for them, and for in relationship. But it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to, you know, I found myself in a situation with a group I was running, not a professional group, it was kind of a more of a sort of exploring kind of sort of season walking kind of group at one point, and I wasn't exactly running it, but we all took turns into talk about you know what we were seeing when we were out walking, I think. And I've heard myself saying to somebody once, I'm not your you aren't, you know, I'm not an entertainment service, you are not my audience. I'm not seeking an audience, I'm seeking an opportunity to share something. But it did require me to kind of say, Well, actually, I have something to share. And then when I realized That I got quite precious about it and thought, well, actually, do you deserve it? And all those things, all those judgments came up. You know, they weren't exactly listening. I was a bit of a dysfunctional group in some bizarre ways. But it is about sometimes we think I've got to know what I'm offering before I offer anything. But actually sitting with somebody and just saying, Have we should I is actually quite a gift. You don't have to say anymore, do you really? But we like to know where it's all going. And I think there's a big thing, especially in me, of putting down where you know that thing of where's it going? What's it gotta be? And I'm reminded of a couple of friends at the moment who are just meeting up and they haven't got a clue what they've got a clue why they're meeting. They've just decided to meet on a regular basis, about every two weeks or three weeks, they just meet for about four hours and they see what happens. And they're having amazing experiences. You know, it's amazing experiences, amazing conversations, amazing sort of discoveries. I haven't asked too much because it's very I I know it's a very kind of private thing that they're doing, but they've just turned up, just showing up in the space. I'm just showing up in my friendship of you. See what happens. And something uh in both of them I can see something really blooming.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's lovely. I mean, I'm loath to say this because it does feel like a bit of a stereotype, but as with a lot of stereotypes, there's truth in it. And this takes me back to commitment, particularly with friendships. Women generally seem much better at committing to friendships than men do.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I think so. But I I the one thing that is irritated me over the over the years, and I'm because I'm so busy, this has happened, so it's partly to do with me. I'm not blaming anybody else, this is partly to do with me, is these big catch-ups. Now, big catch-ups are wonderful if somebody's flying over from America and you haven't seen them for six months, and I have those friendships which are lovely. But actually, if somebody's down the road and they're like 20 minutes away, why am I having a big catch-up like every three months? Why have I got into this big download? Well, this happened and that happened and this happened and that happened and that, and then they said this great big thing, rather than actually, and what these two people have done, they've said we are going to meet regularly, so we don't have these big downloads of kind of big information, and then we don't see each other for any for a period of time. We're on this regular thing, so there's a kind of connection, so and there's a kind of sharing, so it's about connection, not about a catch-up.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, because it's because a catch-up's at a level, isn't it? It's not gonna well, it maybe it will drop beneath that level, but it more often than not, it probably won't.
SPEAKER_01It's harder to have a conversation in a catch-up because you're having to catch up where somebody is, and then by the time you've done that, you you know, the time you get to that bit where it might drop, sometimes the the evening, the hour, the whatever's is is finished. The time fray time is restricted. So actually, it's about those moments. And I do wonder that, you know, I've never been particularly part of them because you know, all I was dancing and didn't have time. But you know, those sports groups and people who regularly always meet on a Thursday to play tennis together or a or a or or squash or something. I wonder how those I've never had those kind of friendships, but I wonder what they're like as friendships and connections, because you are meeting for a purpose, but you are regularly meeting, so there must be some kind of connection that happens in there that is past the catch-up. Yeah, I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer that. No, it was not a good judge. No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_05But I I I'm wondering if that's the case or not, to be honest. I I'm one element of an avoidance in all of that. It gives in a you know, I was I was I certainly I was brought up around that. Um but I think sport in some ways gets in the way of intimacy. I mean, again, it's a safe territory.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. It's just is that regular meeting thing. I mean, I what we seem to be kind of getting to here is that actually, if you want intimacy, you've absolutely got to create space for it. Yeah, yeah, because it's not just gonna appear on its own, it's got to be um held in space. There's a very interesting uh conversation I'm having with somebody at the moment, and although this has been based on a on a wound, uh uh somebody I know is regularly going to um just stand and protest about something that they feel very passionate about that's happening in the world, and it's happening every week. So they're going every week and then they're meeting the same people every week. Some of them they know, and some of them that people aren't, they don't know. But they're turning up in the same space for the same amount of hours on a regular basis with the same passion. Um, there is this kind of shared, you could say shared wound or shared grief, definitely. But they are saying that they're finding that actually they're having really lovely conversations, and sometimes it's just with the police that are opposite them. Val, how are you? How's your week going? There's something about regularity that creates an intimacy, I think, is what I'm starting to realize that actually is about community in some ways. That might be a small community or a big community, but there is something about dropping in and making consciously a connection with people.
SPEAKER_05I got kind of caught up in the uh the activists and the police having sort of conscious meeting. And there is an intimacy there, isn't there? I mean, there is a common bond, even though arguably you could argue they're on the other side, well, actually not necessarily, but on the other side of whatever. But um yeah, there is something in that that there's a commonality there.
SPEAKER_01And it is sometimes finding those things that just link us. I mean, I remember being on a on a in a group with with a men's group, and I was the I was the theatre one, and they were all very practical. They all you know had very interesting jobs, it was about structures manner, they'd all you know, they all had the degrees and you know PhDs, and they'd all that, and then there was me. Um and then two two of us realized that we'd actually grown up roughly in the same part of London. And although our circumstances were very different, and our knowledge of the world was very different, because we could relate in a particular way. I mean, I'm from the East End of London, there's a particular energy with that lot, and so were they, and so we just knew, you know, we'd all been around these very strong women, and these, you know, you know, the pub culture in the East End was very strong, you know, growing up. And so we shared we had nothing else in common at all. I mean, you couldn't have got too, and we were the two is the weirdest two in the group to become close, but we became close on a history of just apart. So I think sometimes in intimacy you just have to find your connection point, and then everything else outside bubbles away often, but it is about taking time, and it accidentally happened on this one. But you could say it was accidentally happened, we were just having having lunch, and you from here, and I went, Yeah, oh yeah, I know that. Whereabouts that? And it happens in that conversation, and suddenly there was this incredible kind of link. But we were both quite happy to sit and talk about our childhoods and how actually uh hard and lovely they'd been. I mean, they were difficult, different and difficult in different ways, but there was something that we could share, and so wherever whatever you come together with, but it is about time. Now we were in this group for quite a while before we realized that about each other, and again, that takes it back to commitment, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_05And actually being with regularly. Yeah. There's there's also there's some the commonality, but there's something for me about safety. I'm I'm reminded sort of off after um so uh university I went to was in Scotland, and after leaving there, um a lot of people, as as often happens, moved down to London. And so there was a load of load of people, and they all of a sudden started hanging out together, even though quite a lot of them didn't even like each other when they were at university, but there was a safety in the fact that well we we kind of know where we come from, and it ended up with some of them getting married, even people who didn't know each other or didn't even like each other before. Um so I just I just wonder what there is in that familiarity and that commonality and the safety real or imagined that that comes from that. Maybe it's but it's belonging would be a better word. Does it is there something about that that allows intimacy, allows vulnerability to come through?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's a trust thing, I feel. You know, if you if you see somebody regularly, you can have a little look, can't you? And you can trust them. And if you've come from the same you know, university, you have been through some shared experience. I'm not saying shared experience necessarily means that people are closer or understand each other, but there is at least a starting block. I think you can you know become very close without a necessary shared experience to start with, but there is a trust, isn't there? You do have to trust somebody to be able to drop into an intimacy, and that's that funny thing, as I was saying, about safe spaces and transformative spaces. There, you know, it it's you've got to be brave in both of them because there is something about trusting people, but you have to sometimes be able to become a little bit vulnerable in places so people can see you can see how how well people respond. And maybe that you think then, well, I'm sorry, those people for me can't be trusted. There's an interesting point, and that is a very judgmental thing. Well, I can trust you, I can't trust you, but we do all operate on quite a primeval level somewhere. Um, so I think there is something about trust and familiarity, and familiarity that brings trust, and trust bringing up the gateway in some ways to walk towards an intimacy if you trust somebody.
SPEAKER_05Along with the dance, it it feels like a dance or an interplay between sort of the idea of the safe space and bravery. So it needs to be a container that that can hold bravery safe way, and that that's a that's not the easiest of things to can um to create.
SPEAKER_01No, to move past anything, you have to feel safe, otherwise you're just on the back foot and you just know where the door is. And um you have to feel safe, but you if you can feel safe, that you can explore and somebody's got you, you know. I think as I said earlier, you know, those things where it's very locked down in the it must be like this space, doesn't tend to necessarily give you much room to breathe. But knowing that somebody has at least got their eye on you and is looking and seeing how you're doing um is is interesting. I mean, I'm gonna say something which I rarely give myself confidence. I'm actually very good in a room to keep for keeping my even if I'm just a participant. I mean, when I'm working, that's my job, and I've got I've got everybody, I've got my eyes on everybody. But if I'm in a space, I sometimes can see the person who's struggling, and I don't necessarily say anything, I let them come to me, but I do let them know that I can see them. I do just get my eye contact going a bit because they may not come to me, that doesn't matter, it's nothing that doesn't matter, but if they feel a bit safe, they'll find somebody else, or they'll find a way of kind of exploring, really. So it's to do with just being able to just drop in, and that's quite an intimate thing to do, just to you know, you know, just to smile across the room, or just to know that to let somebody know that you know they're having a difficult time or they're struggling, or what yeah.
SPEAKER_05It was something takes me back to being in Devon I d uh without everybody being in such a rush around me, or this my perception of it. The one thing I noticed, or the first thing I noticed was that I felt so much more seen. Immediately there is an intimacy in that. You know, I see you, you see me, and we don't even need to engage beyond that, but there's there's there's a closeness or there's a the potential for a beginning there. And I think it's lovely what you you know you know, being able to be in a group and I mean, can you imagine a group of men? And if someone is struggling, everybody is able to actually see that and just say, you know, we're here if you need need us, no pressure, just if you do here we are.
SPEAKER_01You know, and that also means that you've got to know in yourself that you've got something to give. And it might be, and you know, it might be a cup of tea. Doesn't have to be this big profound thing, but you know, I'll make a cup of tea, sit down, it's all right. I kind of can you know can see that you make a cup of tea at the moment, it might be quite tricky tricky for you, but I'll make you one. It doesn't have to be anything big, but it's quite an intimate thing of being actually being able to care. But that also brings an intimacy back because often you remember that somebody cared for you at that point.
SPEAKER_04So there's a sharing somewhere. Yeah, I can really feel my heart centre open as you say that.
SPEAKER_05And uh yeah, the the small things, the making a cup of tea or whatever, they're so easily forgotten. And you know, I'm as guilty as anybody of that. There is that maybe this is a male thing, the sort of desire to do some kind of grand gesture to reinvent the wheel or whereas actually no, it doesn't need to be.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I was in a I don't know if this was helpful or not. I don't think facilitator found particularly helpful at one point, because um, or the group leaders at point was there was a a a very intense group I was in oh god, I can't remember how many years ago, it must be about 25 years ago now. Very intense group that was very, very thing, and and it was very hard, and there was an awful lot of angry men in it. And I brought in the concept of sweets, which I don't think I don't think uh he particularly liked at one point, but I just used to go and buy those childhood sweets because I just thought, no, no, it's not gonna buy them. Um and they won't buy them to themselves, but I quite like those. I still quite like those today, you know. I dive into a bag of Harry Rows. Um and um it sh it totally shifted, and this was, I mean, this was a bit of a problem in the end because it shifted me to kind of it gave me a lot more kind of status, and I consciously I didn't do it for that, maybe subconsciously I did, I don't know. But I don't think I did. But it just moved in this thing of actually, and then one day I was really busy and they went, we haven't bought any sweets, and they were all quite wounded, and everybody sort of went, but then I got into this thing of well, I won't you join like me because I bring in sweets. It all went into this thing because I was about 25 at the time. It was a really kind of funny dance, but there was it didn't take much for everybody to feel notice. And then because they felt notice, they all came and spoke to me.
SPEAKER_05Intimate season Arabo the way forward It's probably something every child would try and teach you as as an adult. So yeah, Arabi is the way forward.
SPEAKER_01Well it it's an interesting thing, isn't it? Because it is just about I suppose I suppose what I'm realizing as we're talking that actually if you want intimacy or you'll struggle whatever you want intimately, if it's if it's more of an intimate sex life, it's an intimate kind of if it's time we're just sitting chatting, if it's a conversation, it's a group, you've got you've got to create the time and the vulnerability within yourself. So it's a t it's a time and vulnerability thing that has to be opened, and then it allows it to grow. And I feel that the you know, the not willingness to open and the the fact of we've called oh, I haven't got time for that, is what kills it off, really. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Just got a lovely image of yeah, is that openness to lean toward, and then someone ha meeting that with an openness to receive. Um, and that creates that sort of energetic exchange. You have been listening to Veils to the Soul, Masculinity and Spirituality with Gary Wright and Oliver Baum. For more information on the work of Gary Wright, please visit www.therightmedium.co.uk and for Oliver www.oliverbaum.co.uk produced and edited by Oliver Baum with additional editing and music by Felix.
SPEAKER_04Thank you for listening.
