Cultivating Intimacy: Walking towards Wholeness
Cultivating Intimacy: Walking towards Wholeness
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Issue Date
2013
Authors
Walker, Ashley N.
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Abstract
The process of becoming intimate or developing intimacy is significant across all cultures because it is widely recognized that all humans have an innate need for love and bonding. Since the development of the mechanistic paradigm, several advances in science, particularly physics, have changed the way the natural world is understood. The fields of health and health education need a new approach to intimacy that reflects the ideas and values of this shift. Walking towards Wholeness is a new approach to cultivating intimacy based on concepts from holism, quantum theory, and systems theory. It provides a new perspective on intimacy that recognizes that everything within the universe is intricately connected through an inseparable web of relationships. The idea that everything in the universe is connected is actually not a new concept, but it has been lost by modern American culture. This is a spiritual concept that many indigenous cultures across the world have practiced. What is new about this approach is that it represents a way to integrate indigenous concepts of intimacy with the discoveries of modern science. The goal of providing a new approach to cultivating intimacy is not to increase the number of intimate relationships to improve wellness but to approach everything in life with a new intention. That intention is to become open to growth and transformation through wholeness.