Intimacy Is Your Greatest Gift

Let me begin by saying this article is not about sex. Sure, sex is a form of intimacy, but sex and intimacy are not synonymous. Sex can be intimate, and sex can be superficial. 

Real intimacy is never superficial. I spent decades of my life in superficial relationships - with my friends, my employers, even my wife. When I was always left wanting a deeper connection with everyone, I began to understand and experience real intimacy. This takes courage.

Let me explain what it is.

What Exactly Is Intimacy?

The easiest way for me to describe intimacy is to share the idea that in a truly intimate relationship you put yourself in a position to be hurt. To experience the deepest depths of relationships, you must be truly authentic, raw and vulnerable, and you must share the deepest traumas, fears, insecurities, dreams, desires, challenges and obstacles you have experienced and are experiencing. 

In a truly intimate relationship you share elements of yourself with someone who can hurt, manipulate or damage you if they wanted to, but you trust they won't because of the relationship you've built. 

Intimate relationships don't just happen by chance. You can't take them lightly. You must enter these relationships intentionally and for the mutual respect and benefit of everyone involved. The deepest relationships require time to develop, the willingness to trust and surrendering to the other person as a true life ally.

I experience people on a daily basis that won't allow anyone into their life. They never allow others to get to know the real them. They are afraid of being hurt. It's a shame they'll never experience the beauty and love in deeply intimate relationships.

What Are the Benefits of Real Intimacy?

Human beings are tribal by nature. We are never meant to live life in isolation or alone. The essence of a human being expands when we allow a community to support us while we also support them.

Think back to primitive humans; we hunted together, cooked together, ate together, slept together, celebrated together and even moved our entire community location together. We are safer, stronger, and more secure together. We are more capable of succeeding and surviving together. The more bonded we are, the more love we share, the more our survival is assured. 

Today, as the population expands and spreads out, and as technology consumes us we are becoming more connected - but more distant. Relationships are becoming more superficial and material. Intimacy is becoming scarce as our worldwide connections become abundant.

Fear of being alone and fear of being abandoned impact most of the 7.88 billion people on the planet. This is natural. Our primitive response is to remain connected to others to increase our chances of survival, so we typically abandon ourselves and our authenticity, and hide our vulnerabilities so that we are not hurt and left for dead. Since we are more powerful in numbers, being accepted by a tribe is often more important than being authentic, raw and vulnerable.

Being with people increases our chances of survival, while being authentic, raw and vulnerable increases our chances of happiness and fulfillment.

Why can't we have both? Why can't we be authentic and vulnerable while being assured that we're with the right people who can help us in life? The answer: we don't know how to build truly powerful, real, intimate relationships based on trust, acceptance, and L.O.V.E. - Letting Others Voluntarily Evolve. 

By understanding and discovering the fulfillment and joy of real intimacy you'll enable yourself to live a truly meaningful and powerful life. That's the benefit of intimacy - unconditional relationships based on trust. 

Levels of Intimacy?

In my book The Prosperity Principles: Seven Accelerators for Elite Business Owners to Achieve Breakthrough Levels of Success and Live Soul Out I described three basic levels of conversational intimacy:

● Level #1 — superficial topics – gossip, news, entertainment, politics, sports, the economy, money, careers, etc.

● Level #2 – mental topics – plans, strategy, processes, problem-solving, etc.

● Level #3 – relational topics – challenges, traumas, emotions, feelings, experiences, philosophy, etc.

The deeper you allow yourself to go into these levels of conversation the more intimacy you can begin to nurture. The more intimacy you nurture, the more fulfillment, acceptance and love you'll allow yourself to experience. 

What Do I Do With This Information?

If you have wealth and success but still feel unfulfilled, look to your closest relationships. Do an inventory of the secrets you keep with each person. The relationship will only be as deep, meaningful and intimate as the secrets you are keeping. The more intimate, the more trust, and the more trust, the more love. 

The more intimate relationships you have, the more naturally your wealth and success expands. We can't hide ourselves away and have it all. We must fully show up to live soul out. 

I start each of my Happy Millionaire Mastermind retreats the same way: there are two places in the world - inside of our community and 'out there.' What I mean by that statement is that the more intimate we are in the community, the less it will matter how we are perceived in the world. A high level of intimacy in our community of business owners assures that our members will never be alone, never be isolated, never feel in danger of being abandoned or rejected in the world. 

That's the power of real intimacy. You'll never feel alone. 

So do you have powerful, transparent, authentic, raw, powerful and intimate relationships, or are you still living on the surface? Answer that question and you might just see why you have always felt emptiness inside regardless of how you've reshaped the world around you. 

Superficiality creates a void. Intimacy creates the fulfillment we desire most.

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash