chai with zia ep. 03: intimacy is embodied
chai with zia is a monthly chat for paid subscribers of the copper apothecary, my free weekly newsletter on healing and nourishment. You can listen online or in your favorite podcast app, or read the transcription. Feel free to submit a question for next month’s chat, share this episode with a friend, or leave a comment below.
thank you for listening.
the links
Amelia Hruby’s podcast Off the Grid
Stephanie Tillman’s latest newsletter on intimacy
submit your question to chai with zia
the transcript
(00:01):
Hello and welcome back to chai with zia. We are a monthly kaffeeklatsch, maybe monthly <laugh> with me, Shivani. I'm your local auntie. Whether you are joining us for elevenses or for a fika or just for a late afternoon cup of tea, I am so glad that you're here. We are going to chat about the questions that you asked that you wish you had a big sister to ask and just anything that's on your mind these days. If you are here in listening, you are a very patient paid subscriber of the copper apothecary, which is my weekly newsletter on healing and nourishment. And I just wanted to say thank you. I'm so grateful for your presence and your support and your patience. <laugh>. I am learning the ropes of this online business world, and I'm really glad that you're here and along for the ride.
(00:59):
Today, I wanted to pull back the curtain a little and talk about what goes on behind the scenes.
(01:08):
I've been writing a lot about intimacy lately. I've been untangling the ethics of intimacy and definitions of intimacy and inequities of intimacy and trying to teach on some of it, all of it, little bits here and there. I don't know. We'll find out. But I am so curious about what you think too. So please feel free to leave a comment, send me an email and tell me your thoughts.
(01:33):
But I was listening to Amelia Hruby's podcast Off the Grid, which will be linked down below if you're curious to listen to. And she says that podcasting is the most intimate communication form, because it's so embodied — and it's so true. I mean, my voice is in your ears right now, <laugh>. And I feel like I'm leaving voice notes for my best friends, which I do all the time. And I'm convinced that voice notes are going to be this era's version of love letters -- which, speaking of, I recently discovered a very old and very dead iPod circa 2010, I think, which I managed to find a charger for and plug in and actually turn on again, <laugh> and even find headphones for that actually plugged into it. And I discovered this whole long list of playlists that were still intact. And so that 2010 era of playlists was its own kind of version of a generation of love letters. Let me tell you, <laugh>.
(02:43):
So anyway, intimacy is embodied. That's one thing I've landed on recently. Intimacy is embodied. And it means something a little bit different to each of us, but we explore what that is, what that could be, and what embodied means to us and how we feel safe being embodied, and how we don't feel safe being embodied.
(03:04):
I'm always curious about how, how embodiment is taken away from us sometimes and what makes it come away for us. Who gets to be embodied, who gets to be safe in their bodies and who does not? And when in our lives do we get to reclaim that and take that back, and when do we have to let it go? Sometimes? I taught this class, or I, I almost taught this class, I should say <laugh> called Intimate Portraits last weekend. And I spent a lot of time designing it and coming up with it because over the last, you know, 15, 20 years, however long it's been, I've gone through times in my life when I couldn't look in a mirror. And I know many, many other people who have had the same experience when they look in a mirror and they don't recognize the person that's there.
(03:59):
And maybe that's you too. Maybe, maybe there have been times in your life when you've looked in a mirror and not recognized the person on the other side of that mirror. and the first time it happened, it scared the absolute shit outta me. Let me tell you, <laugh>, I, I, you know, I had that experience and I just thought, this is the most horrific thing. And I, I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what I look like and I cannot even try. and so I just avoided mirrors for a really long time. And then the second time it happened I kind of knew it was coming that time. I knew, I knew it might happen. I knew what it was going to feel like, and I, I prepared myself for it. I gave myself a lot of permission to just not look to be really gentle every time I had to, if I was like brushing my teeth and caught a glimpse. And I was like, you know, this is, this is just what it is right now.
(05:05):
The third time it happened it was during a grief time last year when one of my best friends in the world came over and she said, you know, why we cover the mirror is when we're sitting shiva. It's because nobody wants to see ourselves while we're grieving. It's a grief process. and that, that changed something for me honestly, that that really shifted something for me because it gave me permission to choose to look when I was ready to look. And what I've learned in the last 10 or so years of choosing how to look and when to look is that we can do it really gently and it can be a really careful artistic practice as well as an embodiment practice.
(05:54):
And as somebody who has never called myself an artist <laugh>, even though I have a couple friends who are, you know, beating me over the head with a frying pan saying, it's time <laugh>. I've never called myself an artist, and I don't I, I don't, I have not identified that way for a very long time, but I, I have learned that artists know how to look and artists know how to look in a way that can be really delicate. And so after the second time I started going to figure modeling classes, <laugh>, I started going to these amateur drawing hour is where I was absolutely without question, the worst <laugh> draw-er or artist. I don't even know if draw-er is a word, <laugh>, but I was, I was absolutely terrible at, I was fully drawing stick figures. and we would do these exercises of 30 seconds a minute, two minutes, five minutes looking at people.
(07:02):
And when you're drawing somebody with a stick of charcoal on a little piece of paper (or a big piece of paper) when you're, when you're really looking and learning to look as artists learn to look what I found is I, I wasn't looking at the whole person anymore. I was looking at parts and pieces and shapes and light and shadows, and that made it come alive for me. And so I took that back when I wanted to look <laugh> at myself again, I chose to look at parts. I looked at a finger. I looked at just one eye <laugh>. I looked at the shape of my hair. I looked at the way my hand made a silhouette against the wall like how light and shadow played together. And that is how I started looking at myself again. And at some point I picked up a camera -- literally just my phone by the way, not a like full camera, like the camera phone that I have had for the last, I don't even know how many years on a phone that is probably too old now, <laugh> a camera that is becoming a little bit shitty -- and sometimes even the front camera, which is exceptionally shitty. and I used that as the viewfinder, the eye, the, the little patch that I could look through and and feel okay looking through and become a little bit disembodied to see myself as a person that was embodied.
(08:47):
So I have been really curious about intimacy as embodiment, and I've been really curious about self intimacy in particular. How do we get to know ourselves and how do we become a safe person for ourselves to look at <laugh>.
(09:07):
You know, intimacy is usually between two people, and it's usually such a trusting process, but I've found that self intimacy and the trust with self is actually the thing that I've been missing for a long time. And I, I'm sure, I hope that you are in the same place that you've been exploring something similar and that maybe you have some answers too, or maybe just questions like I do. so if you have any, I'd love to hear.
(09:38):
Intimacy is a big, big topic and I'm sure we'll be talking about it a lot more. Some of my dear friends and scholars and people that I really respect and look up to in the world are, are exploring this as well. my dear friend Stephanie Tillman is, is writing her thesis on this right now, and I can't wait to explore what she comes up with. I linked to her work, I think, in a couple of newsletters ago, but I will, I'll share the link in the show notes here as well.
(10:12):
But yeah, intimacy is, is not just a thing with other people. It's a thing that we have with ourselves. And how better to cultivate it with ourselves than to learn to look at ourselves honestly, and through light and shadow and as a thing that's beautiful as a person that's beautiful, as something that's beautiful. <laugh> as art. Art, yeah. Maybe intimacy is just looking at bodies like their art.
(10:41):
I will leave you with that today. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being here, and I hope to see you again soon. When we tune in next time. Feel free to leave your questions in the survey Google form that I have linked below. comment and share with me. If you have any thoughts on intimacy or questions to ask your local auntie or email me, you can email me at hello@shivani.co. Thanks for tuning in to chai with zia and I will talk to you soon.