Intimacy is a totally different dimension. It is allowing the other to come into you, to see you as you see yourself.

—Osho

Dear Michael,

I hope this message finds you well. My heartfelt apologies for not being in touch recently. I’ve been deeply immersed in editing my upcoming book, Traumatized: A Love Story, which will be released in 2025. During this time, I’ve also been working on an exciting new version of our flagship workshop: Relational Intimacy: Healing the Wounds that Separate, Alienate, and Marginalize Us.

This program will explore how unresolved past experiences and ancestral influences shape our capacity for intimacy and drive our evolutionary growth. I’m excited to invite you to join me, along with Yvon Dockter (Qi Gong), and Ana Maria Cardoso (Family Constellations) in discovering how intimacy extends beyond personal relationships to become a vital part of our collective spiritual healing.

Most of us carry a profound longing for intimacy alongside an equally powerful fear of vulnerability. True intimacy requires us to live authentically, from the inside out, attuned to our inner experiences while engaging with the outer world. It involves taking the courageous risk of being misunderstood or rejected—yet it is through this vulnerability that intimacy becomes transformative.

I define Relational Intimacy as a deepening and evolving sense of connection to ourselves, each other, and the natural world. To be truly intimate, we must hold dual awareness: staying present with our inner emotions and sensations while navigating the relational field around us.

There is no terror like that of being known.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fear and intimacy are inseparable. To truly open ourselves to intimacy, we must confront our fear of rejection, the pain of unmet desires, and the raw vulnerability of being fully seen. Yet, it is precisely in facing this fear—welcoming it rather than suppressing it—that we integrate the past and discover the transformative power of authentic connection.

When we bring gentle awareness to our inner longings and the stories we tell ourselves—the ones that leave us feeling separate, unworthy, or undesirable—we create space to include and transcend them. This process allows us to move beyond isolation into a

profound sense of connectedness with ourselves, others, and the flow of life itself.

Intimacy is not merely something that happens between two people; it is a way of being alive and available. In every moment, we are faced with choices:

• To reveal ourselves or to hide.
• To value ourselves or to diminish our worth.
• To speak our truth or to remain silent.
• To dive deeply into life or to avoid its intensity.

Choosing intimacy means choosing connection—connection to our deepest truth, to others, and to the present moment. It is an intentional commitment to live authentically, even when fear and anxiety threaten to pull us back into old patterns of avoidance and dissociation. To choose intimacy is to step away from the comfort of our defenses—our addiction to self-doubt, the illusion of safety in self-protection, and the habitual hiding of the shadow parts of ourselves that we deem unworthy of love.

This choice requires courage and self-compassion. It calls us to confront the inner voices that whisper stories of inadequacy and separation. These stories, often rooted in past wounds or inherited through ancestral patterns, perpetuate the belief that we must hide parts of ourselves to be accepted. Intimacy invites us to challenge these beliefs and to embrace the wholeness of who we are—light and shadow, strengths and vulnerabilities alike.

Intimacy is presence magnified by our vulnerability, magnified by increasing proximity to the fear that underlies that vulnerability.

 David Whyte

When we choose connection, we step into a space of radical honesty with ourselves and others. It means allowing our imperfections to be seen, not as flaws to be fixed, but as integral aspects of our humanity. In this process, intimacy becomes an act of liberation, freeing us from the isolation that comes with pretending to be something or someone we are not.

Choosing intimacy is not a one-time decision but a moment-by-moment practice. It involves meeting fear and anxiety with tenderness, inviting them to teach us instead of control us. It means taking the risk of rejection to experience the possibility of profound connection and learning to stay present even when vulnerability feels overwhelming.

Ultimately, intimacy is not just about connecting with others; it is about reconnecting with the truth of who we are, spiritual beings having a human experience. When we choose intimacy, we choose life in its fullest, messiest, and most beautiful expression.

Our upcoming Relational Intimacy workshop will offer practical tools and guided practices designed to help you explore the complex dynamics of intimacy in a safe, supportive, and nurturing environment. Together, we will delve into the ways inherited patterns from our ancestors, families, and cultural backgrounds influence our ability to form meaningful connections.

Through experiential exercises, reflective discussions, and somatic practices, we’ll uncover the often-unseen relational wounds that create barriers to intimacy—wounds that can leave us feeling isolated, disconnected, or unworthy of love. More importantly, we’ll explore how to heal these wounds, fostering a deeper sense of connection with ourselves, others, and the greater web of life.

This workshop is an invitation to step beyond the limitations of the past and into the possibility of authentic, fearless connection. Whether you are seeking to deepen relationships, navigate challenges, or simply understand yourself more fully, this journey promises to be transformative and empowering.

This is an invitation to step into deeper intimacy with yourself and others, to release the old stories that no longer serve you, and to rediscover the joy of authentic, fearless connection.

I invite you to reflect:



• What does intimacy mean to you?
• How has fear shaped your relationships, and what might it look like to lean into vulnerability?
• What is your growing edge in the cultivation of Intimacy?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and hope to see you in the upcoming workshop!

with infinite love and gratitude,

Michael

Real intimacy is a sacred experience. It never exposes its secret trust and belonging to the voyeuristic eye of a neon culture. Real intimacy is of the soul, and the soul is reserved.

John O'Donohue

Book of the Month

Consolations II

By David Whyte

David Whyte's best-selling first volume of Consolations used everyday words to present us with a prism through which to better understand ourselves and the lives we walk through. At the request of readers globally, Whyte returns with fifty-two short, elegant meditations on a single word ranging from ‘Anxiety’ to ‘Body’, ‘Freedom’, ‘Shame’ and ‘Moon’. He embraces their nuances, amplitudes and depths, and, in doing so, confronts realities that many of us would spend a lifetime trying to avoid. In Consolations II, anxiety might be more mercifully understood as the preparation for being hurt, fixed beliefs are recognised as the very places where we do not wish to understand, guilt is a friend compassionately waiting for us to catch up and routine becomes a form of ritual and worship. Each piece in this life-affirming book is an invitation to slow down, shift our perspective and find comfort. In these pages, Whyte explores the full constellation of human experience.

Video of the Month

Awakening in Our Intimate Relationships

With Thomas Hübl

Poetry Corner

Everything is Waiting for You

by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

About Michael Stone

Michael Stone is a spiritual author, mentor, shamanic practitioner, radio host, producer, and trauma integration facilitator who co-creates individual and group environments and experiences that support people in transcending the myth of separation, and experiencing deep and profound interconnection with others and all of life. He has been teaching and leading experiential events, classes, teleseminars and workshops on Organizational Development, Embodied Shamanism, Moving Meditation, Mysticism, Relational Intimacy, Personal Growth, Trauma Integration and Spiritual Fulfillment for over 40 years. www.WellofLight.com

Soul Remembering and Restoration: Rediscovering Our Essential Goodness

• Somatic Trauma Integration Facilitation
• Group & Couples Counselling
• Movement & Meditation Experiences

To meet the financial and emotional challenges of our time Michael is now offering a sliding scale for therapeutic sessions online & in person.

If you are interested in working with Michael you can set up a 15 minute introductory call here.

For more information click here.

"Dad, would you please get off the computer and play with me? 

I need some intimacy... "

Buddha