What is intimacy health?

Intimacy health is the idea of fostering strong, honest and meaningful relationships that enable people to grow, share and offer mutual support. It’s about living in a way where you can release your inhibitions and become fully expressive of who you are, without feeling judged or rejected. Intimacy health is about being truly seen for who you are and loving your partner unconditionally. It’s about accepting both yourself and your partner as unique individuals with their own needs and wants, but still being the best partners they can be for each other. It’s about building that meaningful connection with someone that enables you to share in great experiences as well as hardships, and support each other through it all. Intimacy health is about emotional health; the kind of health that is cultivated through loving, meaningful relationships. It involves having nurturing and caring experiences with someone who can encourage you to learn about yourself through both your successes and failures. It’s about being able to ask for help when you need it (and knowing when to offer it in return) without fear of losing anything because of it. It’s about being comfortable around each other, so comfortable that you are free to be yourself without feeling self-conscious or anxious at any time. And it’s about actually going out on a date and enjoying yourselves a bit (or a lot). Intimacy health is the kind of health that provides you with the ability to have conversations about your feelings, feel supported when you make tough choices in life, form deep friendships or long-lasting love relationships. It’s about believing that there are good things that happen to you because of who you are and loving yourself unconditionally. It’s about believing that there are meaningful things in life, despite how stressful they may be at times. And it’s about believing that you deserve to be loved so much, that you’re willing to work hard for that love. Intimacy health is not a program. It's something you do. It's something that takes time and effort, but at the same time, it's something you can learn and develop over time. Intimacy health does not happen in a day or even a week. It happens gradually over the course of years - sometimes even decades - as you get to know your partner better, understand more about yourself and make mistakes along the way as well as successes.