3 Keys to a More Potent Intimacy

Source: Pexels image by Moisés Solórzano

Do you want relationships of depth and substance? Who doesn’t, right? Why is it so hard to create the fulfilling intimate relationships we desire? And I’m not just talking about sex, but about emotional intimacy, which is harder to create and sustain, but which creates a foundation for sexual connection.

Here are three practices to create relationships that feel safe, intimate, and satisfying.

Help Them Feel You’re There With Them: Hear the Feelings Beneath Their Words

Everyone wants to feel heard. It’s a key to connection, which helps us feel cared about and less alone. Feeling isolated is an epidemic in our society. Good data shows it’s bad for our health.

One cure for our isolation is to really hear each other—not just with our head, but with our heart, our whole being. Recognize the bid for contact beneath people’s words and stories. When someone shares something painful, scary, or interesting to them, they don't just want you to understand the content. They’re talking to connect; the content is a doorway to feeling a connection with you.

It’s often been said that empathy means knowing how it feels to be in another’s shoes. Can you get how they’re feeling—or get it enough for them to feel soothed and connected? How can we be empathic without getting overwhelmed or dysregulated?

Be with your breath, stay in your body. Don't jump quickly to what you want to say. Give them room. Don't steal the conversation. Quietly be with them, perhaps nodding or smiling genuinely. Make gentle eye contact and allow something in your eyes to convey you’re engaged and care.

This kind of presence helps them feel you’re right there with them. If your attention wanders, as it is bound to do, just notice you temporarily distraction and gently return to listening (speaking in a way where it’s easier for others to listen will be addressed in a future article).

In intimate relationships, connected conversation is foreplay. When the light is on in your bedroom, in your heart, and through your eyes, sex becomes more intimate.

Offer Gentle Reflection

Oftentimes in couples therapy sessions, one partner complains that their sharing falls flat. They don't receive any reflection. “It’s so frustrating and lonely” I often hear. “It’s like I’m speaking to a brick wall."

Especially when emotional disconnection is punctuated by criticism and defensiveness, there’s a gradual erosion of trust and intimacy, which can lead to betrayal or divorce—or just plain misery.

I was slow to understand that even when I'm hearing someone, they don't necessarily feel heard. Conveying that we understand them might include repeating back their words or paraphrasing what they’re saying—then checking if we got it right. Or simply murmering a heartfelt “mm-hmm," or “mmm” or an empathic “wow” or “oh my God” or “oh no” or “whoa” may do the trick of conveying we’re affected by what they’re sharing and that we care.

Become Comfortable With Your Own Feelings

Why is something so simple (silent listening, reflecting) so difficult? It’s often because we’re not comfortable with our own feelings. We might have learned to detach from feelings because they were threatening or overwhelming. Perhaps we didn’t have caregivers who showed interest when we felt hurt, afraid, or embarrassed. Or we were accused and shamed as being weak or flawed for showing vulnerability.

As a result, we may have aversion not only toward our own feelings because they’re unfamiliar or threatening, but we put up a wall when others express emotions or vulnerability. When we shut out the life within and outside us, we remain disconnected from ourselves and others.

A key to genuine intimacy is to cultivate intimacy with ourselves. As expressed in my book Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships:

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“Deeper connections arise as we connect with the richness that lives inside us. When we mindfully attend to our inner experience, our body and emotions relax. We are then better prepared to bend a receptive ear toward the sacred longings and precious feelings that whisper within. Contacting and expressing our genuinely felt experience nurtures a climate that allows people to feel safe coming toward us. We create a garden where love wants to live.”

What we call “feelings” is shorthand for how life speaks to us. Being open to life means noticing how life is affecting us—the feelings that get stirred within us from our relationships, work life, financial concerns, the world situation, or whatever.

The more comfortable we become with the feelings that life brings up in us, the less threatening they become. We feel more alive as we meet life on life's terms—welcoming the “Ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows,” as expressed in Taoism.

Mindfulness means being present for life without judgment. Becoming mindfully present and gentle with our own feelings. we become more comfortable with others’ feelings and challenges. We’re more able to respond, not react.

A Key to Peace in Our World

On a topic very much related, the rage and violence rampant in our world is brewed in the cauldron of not feeling heard, seen, and appreciated. Most violent offenders have serious attachment wounds and trauma. Authoritarian leaders and wanna-be dictators may similarly be driven by hidden shame and attachment injuries.

When as children the will to love and connect is frustrated, the child gives up on meeting their need for connection. They may become adults who seek power. When the will to power and control supersedes the will to love, there are damaging consequences for our world and environment. Unresolved trauma and shame get acted out by shaming and marginalizing others, especially people who look or think differently than us.

Practicing the skills of listening and being responsive, without having to be perfect, is connecting. It creates the foundation for sustainable love and intimacy. It offers the salve that our relationships and world needs, now more than ever.

Appreciation to Bret Lyon, Ph.D., for assistance with this post.

© John Amodeo