Welcome to Conversations with Dr. Jennifer, a collection of interviews on the topics of relationships, sexualityod and Lily Tube and today we are really

excited about our guest.

Dr. Jennifer Finlason Fife is an LDS relationship

and sexuality coach with a PhD in counseling psychology. Her teaching and coaching focus is on helping

LDS individuals and couples achieve greater satisfaction and passion in their emotional and sexual relationships.

And I'm going to ask the first question and this is a Halloween special.

It's something that I've been thinking about for a long time because LilyPOD comes out every Tuesday morning and it happens to be Halloween this year and so the fear of intimacy is something I'm wanting to talk about and we're so grateful to have you here to talk about that. I believe the first time you were with us we you gave mid singles a lot of wisdom just a lot of wisdom for navigating single life.

And today we're gonna be talking to both single adults

and later married couples about this fear of intimacy.

And if you could maybe just define intimacy for us and how you know how a person would know if they have that fear.

Right, okay. Yeah, why do we get so spooked about intimacy? So, well, what intimacy is, I'll tell you what it is and what it isn't because we culturally sometimes make it something else. What it is is the willingness to know another and be known by another and how deeply you want to be known and know the other, the deeper the intimacy is.

What it isn't is validation. Like I think sometimes we think of

intimacy as I show you my underbelly and you tell me how wonderful it is and then I see your underbelly and that I see your underbelly and then I tell you how wonderful it is and that we kind of link

validation with that and of course when we get that it's an amazing experience to

feel like this is something I haven't shared much of and I want you to know it and you find

acknowledgement acceptance kindness well that's a wonderful wonderful thing to find and

and validation is a wonderful part of an intimate marriage.

But actual intimacy is just the willingness to show who you are

and to really know who the other is, even the invalidating parts of the other.

The ways they're different than you, think different than you, believe different than you.

So it takes a lot of courage to be intimate, and all of us are at least somewhat afraid of intimacy.

Because, you know, how much do we relish having our partner look at us and say, well, that's a really unbecoming part of you.

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