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Speaker 1: Friends, fans listeners of this body and soul podcast called

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Speaker 1: Healthy Ish, GOODA. How are you? I am your host

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Speaker 1: Felicity Harley for some extra media inspiration. This week, we're

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Speaker 1: dropping the most popular episodes from the past six months.

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Speaker 1: Have you heard of the term intuitive intimacy? Well, it

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Speaker 1: is one of this year's biggest dating trends. So what

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Speaker 1: is it exactly? And could it be healthier to seek

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Speaker 1: than sex? Relationship and sex therapist Christine Raife joined me

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Speaker 1: in the studio to discuss. If you do want more

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Speaker 1: from Christine, make sure you listen in to extra Healthy Ish,

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Speaker 1: where we did a fantastic and thorough deep dive into

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Speaker 1: intimacy and how to boost it in your relationship. You

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Speaker 1: can catch that where you get your podcasts. Christine, Welcome

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Speaker 1: back to Healthy Ish and Happy a year.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Did you have a nice well break?

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Speaker 3: I did a little break. Could have done with it

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Speaker 3: being a little bit longer, but here we are.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's okay, okay, let's talk about this term, well, intimacy,

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Speaker 1: emotional intimacy. I feel like I'm seeing it a lot

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Speaker 1: more across socials on websites, et cetera, et cetera.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what is it, so intimacy refers to like a

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Speaker 3: close personal connection between individuals. Intimacy is I guess, like

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Speaker 3: the umbrella term for anything that could be physical, emotional, experiential, spiritual, intellectual,

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Speaker 3: intimacy or connection.

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Speaker 1: So that's quite so it's in some way, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about this before a breastplay. It's it's used

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Speaker 1: interchangeably with sex, but it's kind of different, right.

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Speaker 3: Totally the words. Yeah, especially in like couples therapy. And

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Speaker 3: I guess how I sort of hear it being spoken about.

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Speaker 3: Is that a lot of people when they say intimacy,

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Speaker 3: they mean sex, but actually sex is like a part

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Speaker 3: of intimacy. It's almost it's a part of physical intimacy. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: so it's sort of like a section of a subsection.

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Speaker 3: But actually intimacy is sort of the umbrella term to

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Speaker 3: refer to any type of connection that we might have

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Speaker 3: the person.

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Speaker 1: And I think you know, often we think of intimacy

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Speaker 1: between like a partner, but it can be with anyone.

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Speaker 3: Totally, and actually, like platonic verse romantic intimacy, there's not

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Speaker 3: a huge amount of difference between the two. There'd be

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Speaker 3: certain activities like for example, sexual activities that for some

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Speaker 3: people would be only romantic intimacy.

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Speaker 2: But most of the other forms of intimacy we can.

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Speaker 3: Share with friends, colleagues, family members, as well as our partners.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, we'll talk more about that nextra Healthy because I

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Speaker 1: have more questions around that. What about this term intuitive intimacy? Yeah, actually,

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Speaker 1: I think we spoke about on the podcast last year.

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Speaker 1: It's tipped to be a hot dating trend for this year.

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Speaker 1: Is it just another TikTok.

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Speaker 2: Trend or another term?

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Speaker 1: Just add the word intuitive, which I love that word,

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Speaker 1: by the way, Yeah, in the front of intimacy, and

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Speaker 1: then it's something different or is it just the same?

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Speaker 2: It's similar, It's almost the same. I would say.

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Speaker 3: Intuitive intimacy almost refers to the emotional components, so almost

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Speaker 3: it's referring to emotional intimacy. So that sort of like

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Speaker 3: the felt sense more so than words, actions or behaviors,

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Speaker 3: you know, So the act of like feeling really seen

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Speaker 3: or heard by someone and feeling that you can share

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Speaker 3: vulnerably without being judged.

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Speaker 1: Tell us a bit more about this, because I feel like,

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Speaker 1: rather than swiping right and for sex, we're swiping right

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Speaker 1: for intimacy.

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Speaker 2: Totally.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it is like as much as TikTok is sort

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Speaker 3: of making I mean, I think TikTok sort of makes

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Speaker 3: things trends.

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Speaker 2: Right and then they become really trends.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think post COVID people have been looking

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Speaker 3: for more of a like a long lasting connection with

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Speaker 3: someone because historically, and I think because hormonally, we have

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Speaker 3: so much around physical and sexual attraction when we first

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Speaker 3: meet someone and when we're day, we've always sort of

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Speaker 3: focused on that a lot, Whereas I think now.

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Speaker 2: People are moving more toward Sure, that could.

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Speaker 3: Be there, but it may not be there forever, or

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Speaker 3: it may not be there in the same way forever.

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Speaker 3: So we actually need to focus on the parts of

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Speaker 3: a relationship that make it long lasting, if that's what

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Speaker 3: we're looking for, And like emotional intimacy would be that.

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Speaker 1: So you talked about that feeling that you get when

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Speaker 1: you first meet someone. It's that intangible feeling. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: have to say how it with my husband, Like it's

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Speaker 1: just you just can't explain it. Yeah, is that a

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Speaker 1: form of intimacy?

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Speaker 3: It's like a physical attraction or even an emotional attraction

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Speaker 3: to our hormones play a lot in that initial like

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Speaker 3: that sort of honeymoon limerens phase of a relationship. So

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Speaker 3: we have this surge of hormones, all the feel good

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Speaker 3: hormones which make us actually like addictive in some ways

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Speaker 3: to a person. So we've become really attuned to emotional, physical, sexual,

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Speaker 3: intellectual compatibility and attraction and those things like are you know,

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Speaker 3: I guess essential and necessary in the beginning of a relationship.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, as our hormones stop producing to the degrees

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Speaker 3: that they do, because we would not be able to

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Speaker 3: function in daily life if they continued at that level,

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Speaker 3: we then sort of rely on those other components, which

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Speaker 3: is where intuitive intimacy becomes really important in those longer

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Speaker 3: lasting relationships.

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Speaker 1: Oh God, those feelings in the beginning, Yes, so good

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Speaker 1: are they?

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Speaker 3: It is like literally all of the hormones that are

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Speaker 3: released when people take drugs, right, or when they have alcohol.

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Speaker 3: It's like all of the happy when you exercise, right,

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Speaker 3: Probably a healthier form.

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Speaker 1: Of all of the above.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.

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Speaker 3: But we are truly addicted and obsessive with people when

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Speaker 3: we have that many hormones surging around that person.

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Speaker 1: So after those hormones start dying off, how do we

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Speaker 1: build intimacy with someone.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's like a slow and steady approach is

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Speaker 3: sort of the way that I look at it. It's

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Speaker 3: like starting off with all the basics, so prioritizing time

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Speaker 3: together and time where you don't have your phones out

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Speaker 3: the whole time, so like making eye contact, holding hands,

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Speaker 3: sharing thoughts, feelings, being vulnerable, sharing values and goals, spending

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Speaker 3: time together where you're doing things that you enjoy, right,

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Speaker 3: challenging yourselves together, having varieties, so not just doing the

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Speaker 3: same sort of routine every day. So sort of the

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Speaker 3: things that almost like we kind of know that we

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Speaker 3: need to be doing, but we can just forget because

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Speaker 3: everything else seems.

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Speaker 2: To take exactly in the way.

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Speaker 3: Totally again, all of these other things I think, you know,

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Speaker 3: keeping a roof over your head, keeping your kids alive,

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Speaker 3: and well, all of those things sort of take precedent

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Speaker 3: often and we don't see them as you know, we

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Speaker 3: don't see the intimacy in a relationship as life or death,

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Speaker 3: when actually it can be the life or death of

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Speaker 3: a relationship. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Actually, it's interesting that just one would jump down at

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Speaker 1: me when you answer that question. That was vulnerability, you know,

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Speaker 1: having those deep conversations. It's just such a crucial component

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Speaker 1: for intimacy, isn't it? And often you're right, like when

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Speaker 1: life when you got the to do list, when you're

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Speaker 1: just getting dinner on the table, or when you've got

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Speaker 1: your routines and you just it's hard to have those

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Speaker 1: deep conversations and those deep conversations, like you can't just

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Speaker 1: sit there and go, okay, let's have a deep conversation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let me going to talk about this deep today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Or you you know, when you're watching Netflix,

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Speaker 1: you can't.

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Speaker 2: You you got in the right frame of mind totally.

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Speaker 3: And I guess that comes back to them being intentional

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Speaker 3: about spending that quality time together because yeah, those.

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Speaker 2: Things, of course you can.

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Speaker 3: I mean there's so many like cool books and date

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Speaker 3: ideas and you know, card games and things like that

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Speaker 3: that are available now that you can prompt like deep

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Speaker 3: and meaningful questions.

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Speaker 2: But actually most of the they work. Why do you

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Speaker 2: think about those? Yeah, especially if you're like, let's have

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Speaker 2: a deep conversation and you don't know what to say.

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Speaker 3: Those sort of things can be really great at like

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Speaker 3: sparking conversation and getting us to think and reflect and

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Speaker 3: to share things with partners when we maybe don't know

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Speaker 3: how to start, like if we've never really done it before,

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Speaker 3: or if we feel like we know everything about our partner,

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Speaker 3: you know, which can happen in long term relationships.

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Speaker 2: We can, we can, there's always new things we can learn.

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Speaker 1: I actually love the car like car rides for those

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Speaker 1: ye somehow they you know, with my husband Tom and I.

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Speaker 1: They just happen in.

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Speaker 3: The car because you don't have you can't well, the

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Speaker 3: person who's driving can't be on their phone. No, and

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Speaker 3: most of the time, like I guess, the etiquette of

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Speaker 3: being the passenger is that you're also not just chilling

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Speaker 3: on your phone or asleep or something, so you're kind

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Speaker 3: of in this like non intentional like forced time where

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Speaker 3: it's just maybe the two of you, or it's with

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Speaker 3: your family as well, and you do have to you know,

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Speaker 3: talk to each other unless you're going to just be

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Speaker 3: sitting in silence. It's also interesting I think the psychology

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Speaker 3: around for people who aren't necessarily comfortable and having vulnerable

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Speaker 3: conversations if we're not making eye contact, so things like

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Speaker 3: side by side walking driving can be really good times

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Speaker 3: to have those conversations because it sort of I guess,

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Speaker 3: reduces some of the intensity of some of the conversations

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Speaker 3: that we might want to have.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, good of us, Christine, Thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: coming back on healthy Ish.

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Speaker 3: Thank you well.

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Speaker 1: If you did like what Christine said, make sure you

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Speaker 1: listen to her from last year where we discussed the

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Speaker 1: whole notion of a sleep divorce and can they actually work.

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Speaker 1: If you did enjoy this chat, make sure you rate

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Speaker 1: and review it, and don't forget to press subscribe on

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Speaker 1: talking about. You can, of course share with a friend.

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Speaker 1: Anything else, head to Body and soul dot com, dot

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Speaker 1: u follows and socials. Grab our printed dish which is

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Speaker 1: out in your local Sunday paper, and until tomorrow stay

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Speaker 1: healthy Ish