But even more saddening is the fact that very few people are honest enough or insightful enough stop to think, “Wait a minute, I can talk the talk of emotional intimacy, but I am not really emotionally close to anyone. I have so many people around me, but I still feel very lonely even in the crowd. NO BODY really, really knows WHO I AM, perhaps because I have never really allowed myself to be KNOWN".

 

If you really want to experience true emotional intimacy, you must allow yourself to be KNOWN. This requires you to first build very strong emotional boundaries around yourself where you feel secure that you are opening yourself to people who are capable of VALUING your vulnerability. Emotional intimacy implies vulnerability. It means taking a risk and most likely getting hurt. The potential for hurt and damage is real and that is why so many fear opening up.

To protect themselves, people use all sorts of strategies including not allowing themselves to “feel". These strategies are not bad because they “protect" us but most of them they are not healthy because they also “protect" us from becoming emotionally intimate with even the right people.

Having good personal boundaries which come from a strong sense of self helps you know when your energy is being drained by a particular person and how to disconnect from that person without causing imbalance in yourself. It’s from this place that you can reach out and be emotionally intimate with another person. It’s only when you are KNOWN to somebody that you can truly feel and be ONE with that person, emotionally -- as well as sexually.

Allowing yourself to be known is necessary for sexual intimacy. In my African language having “sex" with another person is referred to as "KNOWING" that person. So can you imagine asking a man or woman so determined to woo you (and can't leave you alone) "what do you want from me?" and he or she says "I want to KNOW you!". Those words go through your heart, down the spine to the groin area. 

Over there in the rural grasslands of Africa, sex is not fragmented into the physical, emotional or spiritual (as it is done here in the West), instead sex and sexuality is seen as a WHOLE -- A SOUL EXPERIENCE. When two people have sexual intercourse (consensual or rape), it is believed that "soul energy" is passed on from one person to another. If sex is consensual, the energy is positive and revitalizing (and even acts as anti-aging agent) but if it’s forced sex, the energy is negative and damaging to one's soul.

And while we in the West are so focused on learning the "right technique" of sex, over there young men and women are taught, during the rites of passage to adulthood, that the ONLY thought that should be going through your head when you are having sex (is NOT: How well am I doing it? Will I come too fast ? or Will I have an orgasm) but " I WANT YOU TO KNOW ME, AND EVERYTHING I AM ABOUT." And as you might expect, it takes a lo-o-o-ng long time to KNOW everything about somebody. Most people during orgasm (also known as the "moment of truth") experience very intense emotions that they say can't be put in words. They may laugh hysterically, sob loudly, sing and others even temporarily faint because of the intensity of feeling.

 

If you really really want to KNOW the TRUE JOY of living a fulfilled life, make a conscious decision to allow yourself to be "KNOWN". Start with one person, even a perfect stranger, then slowly work your way to family, friends and co-workers peeling off the layers of "protection" as you go. You'll start to feel deeply and strongly in a healthy way making you a more loving person who attracts loving people.

Bottom line, you can not FEEL truly loved if you don't feel truly KNOWN. You can not be truly loved by another person if you're not truly KNOWN -- unless that person is a great listener who doesn't let him or herself be KNOWN either. Then you have love that is based on attachment born out of need. I am sure that those of you who've experienced TRUE LOVE -- I mean like where you really, really KNOW someone -- will agree with me that some of our greatest joys have come from deeply “KNOWING" that person rather than just his or her verbalized emotions and feelings.

 

If you want the man or woman you are seducing to trust you, believe in you, and be attracted to you, you must let yourself be KNOWN.  And if you want your sexual experiences to have more meaning, intensity and pleasure you must allow yourself to be KNOWN by that person. Every single Chapter in e-Book shows you how to “KNOW” yourself in an intimate way and how to call on and use the POWER of self-knowledge when you are with a man or woman.