What Is True Intimacy?

Auteur: Magda Moses

A raw reflection on presence, self-connection, and soul-level vulnerability.

I think one of the greatest deceptions we’ve inherited from modern culture is the idea that intimacy is a performance. It’s been sold to us — wrapped in candlelight, lingerie, perfectly timed kisses, just enough silence to create suspense, just enough vulnerability to seem poetic, but never too much. Never too real. Intimacy, as we’ve been taught, is something you do. A scene you create. A product of chemistry, timing, and mood lighting. But that’s not what it is. At least not to me. Not anymore.

We grow up absorbing this narrative — that intimacy is about romantic moments, sex, gestures, passion. We’re taught to crave the dopamine rush, to associate closeness with physical touch or emotional declarations whispered in the heat of a moment. We’re led to believe that intimacy is built on mystery and attraction, on doing things together: dates, holidays, long walks, shared playlists. And yet, somehow, all of that can still feel hollow if the presence isn’t real. If the masks are still on. If both people are still playing a role — the good girl, the caretaker, the flirt, the provider, the saviour. The projections are endless. The truth is not.

The truth, I’ve come to learn, is far quieter. Intimacy is not about what you do with someone. It’s about what you’re willing to become in their presence. It’s about who you allow yourself to be when you’re not performing. And even more radically — it’s about the connection you have with yourself. Because without that, without that inner honesty and depth, you will keep entering relationships where you are never fully seen. You will keep performing love rather than living it. You will keep choosing people who reflect your lack of intimacy with yourself — and it will look like love, but it will feel like tension.

When I think about intimacy now, what comes to mind isn’t a kiss or a conversation — it’s a feeling in the body. It’s the way your shoulders drop when you’re with someone who doesn’t need you to be anything other than exactly what you are. It’s the ease of silence when there’s no pressure to entertain. It’s the relief of not needing to explain yourself, because you know you’re being listened to beneath the surface of your words. That is what I believe a real relationship is built upon. A place where the unfiltered, uncurated self can land. A space where you don’t just talk about surface things — you go deep, because that’s where the real meeting happens.

I believe that in a true relationship, you should be able to bring things that normally only exist in internal dialogue. Your doubts, your fears, your strange thoughts that don’t yet make sense. Your memories that still ache, your anger that still simmers, your questions that have no answer. All of it. And when that’s welcomed — not analysed or fixed or used against you — but simply witnessed… that’s where the real intimacy begins. That’s what creates safety, trust, and soul connection.

There is a level of safety that can exist in relationship when both people have done the work of knowing themselves. It’s not perfection. It’s not harmony at all times. But it’s real. And that’s what matters. The ability to return to each other in truth. The willingness to speak about hard things, and to stay in the room when discomfort arises. The capacity to say, “This is what I’m feeling,” and not be met with shame or shutdown. In relationships like that, you realise that transparency isn’t about overexposing yourself. It’s about recognising that there’s no point in pretending — because you’re already seen.

And that’s the thing. You cannot create intimacy with someone who doesn’t have intimacy with themselves. You cannot build a home with someone who is at war inside their own body. You cannot trust someone to hold your truth if they’ve never held their own. I say this not as judgment, but as someone who had to learn this the hard way — someone who spent years seeking closeness in places where honesty wasn’t welcome. Where vulnerability was treated as a weakness. Where presence was replaced with performance, again and again.

I look back now and see how often we mistake intensity for intimacy. The butterflies, the spark, the chaos. The constant reaching, the constant needing to be “enough.” But intimacy doesn’t ask you to be enough. It invites you to stop striving entirely. To rest into yourself and be met. There’s nothing to prove. No character to play. No game to win. Just you. And them. And the space between.

Dr. Gabor Maté speaks about the split between authenticity and attachment — how, as children, we learn to suppress our truth in order to be loved. We adapt. We silence. We shrink. We become what the people around us need us to be. And then we carry those adaptations into adulthood and call them personality. We say, “this is just who I am,” not realising that what we’re really saying is: “this is who I became to survive.” But when we begin to heal — really heal — we realise that true intimacy offers us a way out of that prison. It gives us a space where we no longer have to choose between authenticity and connection. We can have both. And that changes everything.

Because here’s the radical truth: intimacy is medicine. When someone sits with your truth and doesn’t flinch, when someone holds your fear without trying to fix it, when someone looks at your shadow and doesn’t turn away — that kind of presence rewires something deep in your nervous system. It tells you, perhaps for the first time, that it’s safe to be you. Not the version you trained yourself to be. Not the strong one. Not the funny one. Not the spiritual one. Just you. In all your unedited humanity.

Kathleen McGowan once wrote that there are no coincidences — only soul contracts waiting to be fulfilled. And I feel that in my bones. There are people we meet who awaken something ancient in us. A familiarity we can’t explain. A recognition that bypasses logic and time. We talk about “meeting someone” — but sometimes, it’s more like remembering them. Like something in your body knew before your mind caught up. That, to me, is the foundation of a soul connection. And when that kind of connection exists, intimacy stops being an option — it becomes the only way. Pretence feels unbearable. Silence becomes too loud. You have to speak, to share, to show yourself — because the soul demands truth.

It’s hard to go back to anything shallow after that. Once you’ve experienced soul-level connection, once you’ve felt what it’s like to be fully met — surface-level relationships just don’t feed you anymore. You stop craving excitement and start craving peace. You stop needing to be chased and start needing to be held. You stop settling for someone who wants your body and start longing for someone who wants your being. And when you have that — when you co-create that kind of relationship — it changes everything. It’s no longer about what you get out of it. It becomes about what you reveal through it.

And maybe that’s what intimacy really is: showing up. Again and again. In truth. In love. In presence. Not because it’s always easy. But because you’ve made the quiet decision to stop hiding from yourself — and from them. You’ve decided to let another soul walk with you, not ahead, not behind, but beside you — in the fullness of your becoming.

We talk so much about wanting to be understood. But real intimacy begins the moment you’re willing to understand yourself. To sit with your discomfort instead of running from it. To hold space for your pain instead of outsourcing it to others. To be honest about what you feel, what you fear, what you want — even when it shakes your voice. That’s where it starts. Inside. And from that place, everything else becomes possible.

So if you’re looking for intimacy — real intimacy — don’t start by looking outside of yourself. Don’t start by asking someone else to meet you. Start by meeting yourself. Ask: where am I still performing? Where am I still hiding? What parts of me have I labelled “too much,” “too sensitive,” “too needy”? And what would happen if I started to welcome those parts home?

Because the people who are meant for you — the ones your soul has already made a contract with — they will not be frightened by your depth. They will not run from your truth. They will recognise you. And they will invite you to be more of yourself, not less.

That’s intimacy.And it’s worth everything.