In my own life, there are moments where I am incredibly intimate with my wife, and there are times when I am brutally cold. There are times where I just seem warm and cuddly, and other times where my mind is off in another direction. There are times where I am affectionate and times where I am withdrawn. There are times when I’m close and distant with her.
This is natural human behaviour.
Every human being has a set of values. Things that are most important to least important in their life. You and I, both have a hierarchy of values, and they are different. You have things that are important to you, and I have other things that are important and meaningful to me. It is said that this very alignment of the hierarchy is what creates the individual separate from everyone else, and references of this goes back to the ancient greeks which they called the human telos. Teleology being the study of values and worth.
And from moment to moment, we want to fulfill our highest values. We seek each day to have them fulfilled and look for opportunities to fulfill them.
This is where we can understand and appreciate intimacy. By definition, intimacy is to be closely acquainted, close and familiar. Intimacy isn’t when your head is bouncing off the wall or you have a mind blowing orgasm. Intimacy is the sense of closeness and a sense of familiar knowing, like, “hey, I see you, I know you, I’m here”.
I’ll say this weird statement; you are never, not intimate. Meaning, you are always intimate…with something or someone. At all times, you are approximating, close with, and familiar with, what is most important in the moment, according to your values.
My wife isn’t the only person I value. I also value my kids, my clients, my colleagues and my friends. I value writing, teaching, providing chiropractic work, and working on my business. I value my health and personal fitness and development. So depending on what is being valued in a given moment, is what I am being intimate with. When I am valuing my fitness routine, I am being intimate with that part of me. I am being familiar with my workout and routine, I am assessing my progress and connecting to that. If I am at the office, I am intimate with my clients. The point I am looking to drive home here, is that intimacy is not the problem. We are all intimate with the things we are valuing.
Exercise #1 – Who are the top 5 people and what are the top 5 things that my partner is intimate with?
And now that we’ve shown that we all have intimacy capability, how as a couple do you rise up on the values list so that intimacy is more consistent toward each other?
Well the answer lies in valuing each other more intimately.
Remember the definition is to become close and familiar with and this is the very point. When you lose track of their value to you, when you forget their worth to helping you live a great life, when you fail to remember all the ways in which they are supporting you and weaving themselves into your life, we become LESS FAMILIAR. And when we become less familiar, we become more distant and the feeling of closeness diminishes.
Exercise #2 – Who and what are the top 5 things you are intimate with right now?
It’s also important to acknowledge where and to whom you are being intimate with (growing your closeness and familiarity with), so that you can also see that you don’t lack capacity to express intimacy, it just may be in a different form than what you would like.
So now you know the game. You know that both of you have capacity to express intimacy, and you also know that if both of you raise the value of each other in your hierarchy, closeness, familiarity, and intimacy is yours to enjoy together.
Exercise #3 – How and Why are you valuable to each other?
The third and final exercise is to embrace each other with greater amounts of familiarity, by writing down how you and them are valuable and worthy to each other. What do they bring to your life, and what do you bring to their life. Be specific. What do they do, and why is that valuable and meaningful to you. How is what they do, assisting you in living your best life and visa versa.
The more closely familiar you both become by revealing over and over the ways in which you are valuable to each other, the more special and significant you both will feel to each other, and the intimacy is a natural byproduct. The effect to your true knowing and wisdom is a deeper level of intimacy, more intensely, more often.
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