As the season of Spring comes around each year, we tend to focus on cleaning out the cobwebs of winter and what better way to do this than to look at the relationships we engaged in.
Did you ever wonder about the meaning of INTIMACY?
David Olson, a prominent psychologist has come up with different levels of intimacy within relationships:
(1) Emotional Intimacy is the highest level because it involves a closeness of feelings, trust, and honesty that is natural and not possessive. It comes gradually in a relationship and then requires constant attention.
(2) Social Intimacy is when there are common friends, common work experiences, sharing time together, and sharing the same rooms and house together.
(3) Intellectual Intimacy is when individuals share the world of ideas, thoughts, and even have common roles. However, this may not be a close relationship because we can tend to use the sharing of ideas as a means to avoid sharingfeelings.
(4) Recreational Intimacy is the sharing of hobbies, leisure activities, sports and may even include earning and spending money together.
(5) Spiritual Intimacy is having similar views about faith. the meaning of life and sharing our hopes, dreams and plans for the future.
(6) Aesthetic Intimacy is the sharing of the same concepts of beauty, goodness, and enrichment in life.
(7) Sexual or Physical Intimacy is the sharing of sexual experiences together. The tremendous emphasis on this today sometimes leads to the neglect of other areas of intimacy. Because such high expectations are place on it, we can be disappointed when sexual intimacy does not automatically bring closeness or emotional intimacy.
I encourage you to explore these seven levels of intimacy to see which you may want less of, which are just right and which you may want more of.
If you are doing this as a couple, be sure you take the time to actively listen to each other.
If you are currently in a relationship and need some help clearing out the cobwebs, please give us a call. Looking forward to hearing from you.