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     Each person seems to perceive the intimate experience in his or her own way. In a sense it takes a personal journey of self-discovery to learn how to share intimacy with another person. Here are some guidelines that may help to define that journey:

     Get in touch with your own private experiences. In our stressed-out world this is often hard to do because our attention is directed outward much of the time. It helps to sit -- doing nothing and being distracted by nothing -- and spend time in reflecting and introspection. Observe your thoughts and feelings. The brain has a pleasure center -- close your eyes and imagine yourself experiencing pleasure. Become familiar with those parts of yourself that are strong and that feel whole and integrated. Learn to feel comfortable with that part of yourself that senses calmness, confidence and peace. (Some people like to spend a few minutes every night before bed, perhaps with just a candle burning, reflecting on the events of the day. Others prefer to keep a daily journal of their private thoughts and feelings.) Until you know your own private feelings, it is difficult to share them with someone else.

     Share what you know about yourself with another person who can be trusted. This involves several steps. First, you need a sense of commitment to that person. Strangers passing through your life are not the appropriate people with whom to share your deepest feelings. Intimacy has to be reserved for another person who will be there over the long haul -- a close friend, a partner, a family member, or, if we're lucky, a soul mate. You also need a feeling of trust. If the other person is not able to appreciate the delicacy of what you are sharing, it is futile to try to achieve intimacy. In the worst case, your words might be held against you later, and this can be very damaging and may lead to cynicism and distrust. Knowing who to trust involves acquiring good judgment about other people. A trustworthy person is one who can honor and respect you for sharing your most intimate experiences. Finally, you need to understand that intimacy involves making yourself vulnerable. The guarded and defensive person will never find true intimacy. Finding intimacy means taking a risk, opening yourself up and sharing that which is the most personal part of yourself with another person. Can the other person handle it? Can the other person care? If they can you are no longer alone.

     A healthy intimate relationship is one in which both partners know themselves and are able to come together with a sense of equality. Certain relationships are not meant to be reciprocal (the therapist/client relationship, for example, often involves a high level of deeply personal communication, primarily on the part of the client). Perhaps the most intense and lasting levels of intimacy are achieved when both partners are able to share equally with each other. As the listener, you have to be able to honor and respect the openness, vulnerability, and courage of the one who is communicating very personal ideas and emotions. Value judgements, criticisms and advice-giving have no place in initiate communication. The goal is to appreciate and acknowledge the validity of the deepest feelings of the other person. If you are conversant with your own personal thoughts and feelings, you may then have the ability truly to appreciate -- and even feel along with -- similar experiences on the part of the other person.

     Once two people have entered into a deep level of sharing, they usually want to stay there. If there is true equality between the two, they achieve a balance which feels right and which they don't want to lose. If one of the partners feels the need to lessen the level of intimacy, the probability of conflict increases. The clue to avoiding misunderstandings is to maintain your commitment and trust during these natural cycles which occur within any relationship. Intimacy takes work and a sense of maturity. To shirk the responsibility of keeping an intimate relationship alive invites a return to isolation.

     The intimate relationship is healthy. It is perhaps the highest form of why we enter into relationships in the first place -- to end loneliness and to share our deepest and most personal self with a trusted partner. Humans are social beings and we respond physically to the experience of intimacy. People who have intimate relationships live longer and healthier lives and they report more personal happiness and satisfaction with the way they live. Intimacy gives us a feeling of comfort, security, and a sense of being loved and accepted. It gives us the freedom and support to stay true to the special qualities that define each one of us as a unique person.

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