Being Known: The Seven Levels of Intimacy

Matthew Kelly wrote the classic relationship book The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved. The book is simply written, easy to read, and has some really interesting ways to begin thinking differently about some of your closest relationships.

Kelly believes that the purpose of the healthiest close relationships is to help you become your best self, and encouraging people that you love to evolve, develop, and become their best selves as well. If you are in the right primary relationship, it should be challenging you some. We want to spur each other's development along to become the best version of ourselves.

Intimacy isn't needed in all relationships. We all do better, though, if we have real intimacy in some of our relationships. Intimacy takes mutual disclosure and self-revelation. Lower levels of intimacy are fine with people you don't know well or want to get close to, but with people you want to go deeper with the lower levels of intimacy are just a warm-up.

Here are Kelly's seven levels of intimacy:

1. Cliches: at this level, we are having flat, brief conversations with others, with very little disclosure or significance. Think of how most people interact with the grocery clerk. It's boring, monotonous, and repetitive. An example would be asking how work was and getting the reply "fine." These are fine conversation starters and may be appropriate with strangers, but are unsatisfying if this is the level your closest relationships stay at. If you hang out in clichés, it's a sure fire way to avoid intimacy.

2. Just the Facts: We discuss sports, current events, the stock market, weather, celebrity gossip,and what we did today. It's safe to discuss facts. It pretty much guarantees that there won't be conflict. Facts are usually impersonal.

3. Opinion: You don't have to make yourself vulnerable at all to announce your opinions. It can lead to conflict. Arguments can occur here which reveal a lack of maturity, inability to transcend self and empathize with another's view, and a shortage of self-awareness. Getting stuck on this level can cause disagreements, demonstrate a lack of a common goal, and cause people to downshift back into clichés and facts. As we mature, we should be able to agree to disagree and to accept differences.

4. Hopes and Dreams: Sharing our vision for our life, what we are hoping to accomplish and experience is far more personal, and takes us deeper with the other person. We need to feel fairly safe to do this. I can't imagine sharing my hopes and dreams with anyone who I experience as critical and judgmental. Revealing your dreams and learning about those of the other person charges the relationship with energy. Building a dream together with an intimate other is a powerful connection between you. Dreams give our lives focus and purpose.

5. Feelings: Going beyond facts and events to share the more personal elements of how you feel about your life, your day, your work, your relationships, will take you still deeper into knowing and being known. One catch is that you have to be able to identify your own feelings before you can share them. You can deepen a close relationship by asking about how the other person feels. Listen intently from the heart. It takes being willing to be vulnerable to share feelings, but that's where all the good stuff is in relationships. It's a risk, but what is life without a little risk?

6. Faults, Fears and Failures: You don't have to be perfect to be loved or loving. It is in sharing our misadventures, mistakes and mess-ups that people often feel closer to us. These flaws make us real.  Kelly describes this level of intimacy as emotional nakedness. if we can take down our guard at this level with those we are closest to, we help them also feel safe to reveal more. It's a mutual thing. Asking for help also comes in here. Being able to put down your pride and admit mistakes also allows the other person to be imperfect. We all have fears and a shadow self. It's normal.

7. Legitimate Needs/Dynamic Collaboration:  We all have legitimate needs in the four aspects of life: physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. Expressing your legitimate needs and asking to understand those of the other person leads you into a thriving relationship. The highest level of relationships require that you also have the heart to try to help meet the other person's needs. There should  be both people giving and receiving. The needs must be legitimate, not superficial, manipulative or unrealistic.

Kelly also has a lot of valuable tools to suggest to making relationships intentionally closer. He suggests creating unstructured time together, which he calls carefree timelessness. It might just be spending a day with someone you love and doing whatever you both feel like. He encourages giving up criticizing others, and avoiding gossip. He suggests we be mindful of the words we choose and that we practice self-discipline and forgiveness.

The Seven Levels of Intimacy is a wonderful gem of a book. It will inspire you to be better, love more, go deeper, and be more aware of what you are co-creating with others. Not only will it help you learn how to develop more meaningful relationships, but it will also inspire those of you who are parents about how to help teach your children to creating intimate relationships in a healthy way.

Keeping the Happy in your Holidays

Remember when you were a child and the holidays were pretty magical? It might have been your favorite part of the year, other than your birthday.

Too often, adults dread the turn of the calendar to November, with the extra workload of the holidays: cooking, shopping, meal planning, wrapping gifts, more demands on your time, extra expenses, decorating, cleaning, entertaining, thinking of brilliant gift ideas. It's enough to make one want to schedule a long nap to rest up!

It's time to take back your holidays. This article is geared to help you stage your own holiday makeover so that you can put the joy and meaning back into the season, and not go passively into all the regular routines without some careful checking in with yourself and the people who matter most to you.

It can be helpful to make a list of the holiday tasks you normally do, and consider what brings you the most joy. If you live alone, you can do this by yourself. If you live with family, you can have a meeting with the family to find out what means most to each person. What is each person's favorite part of each holiday? What can you cut out because the effort isn't worth it?

Try to delegate and find out who can do what task to help bring the holidays together. Could meals be made into shared events where each person contributes a dish? Could your son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter home from college help you with decorating and un-decorating? Could you bring food in? Could you make things more casual? Ask for help! Some of the joy is in putting the holiday together, not just showing up for it. Don't hog all the tasks for yourself, or you are likely to resent it (and your resentment will leak out).

Could you schedule some self-care into your holiday season? Perhaps you could schedule some breaks for you to exercise, get a massage, watch a favorite holiday movie, or do something else that restores you. If you have been losing weight and taking care of yourself, maybe you want to reconstruct your holiday menus to not create backward motion on your health goals. You can also increase non-food related holiday activities, like seeing a play or a concert together. Those peanut butter balls are not going to be easy to burn off after the holidays. If we get a little creative, spending time together doing active things can be a refreshing change from one holiday meal after another.

Think creatively about doing things in a new way that would fit your life now. This would be a good time to suggest drawing names for gifts in your family, rather than trying to find and fund gifts for every single person. It's not worth stressing yourself out, or incurring debt that could depress you in January when you get the bills. Perhaps you can make this a cash-only holiday season, and avoid charging on credit cards.

You might have to update your holiday plans given the changes that have occurred in the past year. I am working with people in counseling that have moved into a smaller home space this year, and have had to rethink having all the adult kids stay over. Maybe the adult kids can stay in a nearby hotel, and meet up for some part of each day with you if you are hosting.

If you have divorced, been through a break-up or death this year in your life, it's definitely time to revisit your take on the holidays. Give yourself the permission and authority to rewrite the regular traditions, or keep them the same depending on what feels most comforting to you.

Seek peace and acceptance with your family during the holiday season. Don't expect miracles. Try to lower your sensitivities to slights, be generous with your forgiveness, and realize it's not your job to judge other family members. Choose to wage tolerance and extend yourself if you can.

Cut where you like, but don't cut out the meaningful things. If faith is important to you, or volunteering in some way during the holidays to get some perspective, then schedule that in first. It could be that you want to extend your holiday season and make plans to see close friends before or after, rather than getting too stressed and tired.

Keeping your own energy level up is important. Try to get your rest, exercise, and not get overwhelmed. Try to set boundaries with negative, toxic, demanding, and unreasonable people. Pay special attention to pacing yourself. Take breaks from entertaining and hosting.

Take control, and make this your new, updated, and improved holiday season. You just might have a lot more fun, and bring back some of the magic. Lighten up, and go for the joy!