Interpersonal experimentation

SebarSebar
in General

Is anyone else interested in this kind of thing?

For me there is a ‘spiritual’ aspect to it - opening up to another person without it being sexual

I’ve attended things which have opened me up to others such as eye-gazing, integration circles, cuddle puddles.

All these things have open me up more than before - there’s a great quote from the Sufi poet Rumi

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it”

Comments

  • quixotic_lifequixotic_life

    Interpersonal:
    relating to relationships or communication between people.

    Experimentation:
    the process of performing a scientific procedure, especially in a laboratory, to determine something.

    Yeah 🤔... pretty sure I'm missing something. I'm going to wait until I know more, and then I'll decide...

  • GallowglassGallowglass

    Been to a couple hosted cuddle-puddles. Eye gazing, check. Matched breathing, check.

  • LovelightLovelight
    edited April 2022

    Read "integration circles" as "interrogation circle" maybe it's the introvert in me.

    Now to answer if I'm interested in that* kinda stuff... I'm interested in cuddling. Eye gazing intrigues me, though for some reason I'm not too sure if I wanna be doing it nilly willy or with near perfect strangers. I guess it's just something I'd imagined I'd like to do with either at least someone I'm dating or have been dating for a while. Though open to considering outside said contexts.

  • SebarSebar

    @quixotic_life - surely the best way to know something is to try it?

    Otherwise you’ll just have other people’s opinions about it!

  • SebarSebar

    @Gallowglass - if you don’t mind sharing, what was the effect these things had for you?

    Matched breathing sounds interesting

  • SebarSebar
    edited April 2022

    @Lovelight - I tried eye-gazing at a festival where there was a workshop - I walked past the tent like 10 times before I gathered the nerve to step in to attend, lol, and we were paired off, and given a minute to just stand across from the other and look into each-others eyes before rotating- it was quite the experience

  • KempistKempist

    The eye gazing would interest me. If I could find a cuddler to do that and if the price was reasonable I'd think about paying to cuddle again.

  • LovelightLovelight

    @snugbuddy I guess this 👀 will have to do for now. Or maybe this: 👁️👄👁️

    @Sebar Glad you had an opportunity to try. 😊

  • GallowglassGallowglass

    @Sebar I have a person that I see on-the-regular for platonic cuddles.

    The eye gazing was something I asked to do in a meeting, out of curiosity.
    It was awkward at first. I don't often stare at people in the eyes. But, I felt an overwhelming feeling of mirth, care, acceptance. It was like a conversation with no words. This seems weird to me. Because, that means that the meaning I got out of it, was all in my mind.

    Except, since there is trust and care in our sessions, it was like an amplification of that.
    You know how you can learn things through all of your senses? It was like finding an extra sense, beyond "visual".
    It was cool. But I'm not sure when I will try that again. It was overwhelming (but not uncomfortable) in ways I can't explain.

    The synchronized breathing makes me aware of my own breathing patterns.
    Our patterns are different and it is like some kind of weird harmonics where our patterns gradually synchronize in the middle. It is very grounding and calming. I request we do this, when I am frazzled.

    Peace

  • Nature_Lover_Nature_Lover_

    @Sebar Absolutely ! Also really love the Rumi quote you included!

  • john5555john5555

    I guess I didn’t really know it was called eye gazing. It happened for me a few years ago with someone I met that day. She was really stressed / uncentered and I just encouraged her to look at me and stay calm. I did the same. I was surprisingly comfortable and just encouraged her to breathe and stay with me. Our breathing did match after a few minutes and it was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I don’t know that something like this is easily replicable. It’s definitely worth giving it a shot if both people are open to it. Someone asked about to explain it, and that was basically the logistics of it. The transformational part was how connected we felt. We talked about it after quite a bit and it showed us that there is something else other than the physical stuff we see and interact with daily. I probably sound like a massive hippie to most, and that’s ok. That experience was super cool.

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod

    Some professional cuddlers love eye-gazing and are very happy to do it. Others absolutely wouldn't.

    In some ways it's easier to do within a professional or formal environment. In our society it's rarely done between adults except as part of a romantic relationship but - like so many things - it's actually intimate, not romantic.

    (I don't mean eye-gazing with your partner isn't romantic, of course it is. It's just that eye-gazing with a non-partner can be wonderful, with no connotations of romance.)

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