The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved (19 page)

Think about how your opinions have changed over the past five, ten, fifteen, twenty years? When you were a child, did your parents do and say things that you disagreed with? Do you find yourself saying and doing the same things now with your own children?

Some experiences produce opinions that are biased and prejudiced. For example, I had a wonderful childhood. I was loved, supported, and encouraged, so I grew up believing that the world was a safe and wonderful place full of great people and extraordinary opportunities. Many people have troubled childhoods, during which they are surrounded by people who don’t love them or each other. They often grow up believing that the world is a cruel and dangerous place, that nobody can be trusted, and that you have to fight constantly to survive.

Our different experiences give birth to differing worldviews and opinions. New experiences challenge our old perceptions and opinions.

A young man may have grown up under troubled circumstances, like those described above. He may set out upon life’s journey believing that the world is a cruel and dangerous place and that nobody can be trusted. But in time he may meet a wonderful young woman and fall in love. Together they may attend college, get married, and raise a family. Through the love of his wife, the expanding vision of ongoing education, and the experience of fathering his own children, he may change his opinions. Ten years later, the same man may tell you that while the world can be a cruel and dangerous place, it can also be a wonderful place filled with extraordinary opportunities; and that, while some people will prove themselves to be unworthy of our trust, others will love us in ways that we never imagined.

Sometimes experience misinforms us and causes us to form opinions and universal assumptions that are erroneous.

Education can just as easily, though often with more seductive charm, create similar biases and prejudices. “There is no such thing as absolute truth. What’s true for you may not be true for me” is an idea that is very commonly taught and believed on college campuses across America today. It is the opinion of millions of Americans, but look at the statement closely: “There’s no such thing as absolute truth.” This is, in itself, a statement that is being made absolutely. That is to say, it applies some rule or standard to everyone without exception.

The other problem is that while this idea (or opinion) gets a lot of airtime, nobody actually believes it. If someone said to you, “There’s no absolute truth,” and you shot him in the foot, he probably wouldn’t be too happy. But by his own creed, he would have to accept that while shooting someone may be wrong for him, it might not be wrong for you. At this, the relativist will most likely amend his original statement by saying, “As long as you are not hurting others, you’re free to do and believe whatever you wish.” The problem is, this is both an arbitrary distinction and another absolute statement. Who says I can’t hurt others? Who decides what constitutes “hurt”? Where does the rule come from?

The argument that there is no absolute truth is often cited when people disagree with a statement and have no other way to support their opinion. It is the classic example of how education can mislead and misinform.

At the same time, education can be a powerful force in the expanding vision of the world and ourselves. Education can be a powerfully instrument in the tearing down of biases and prejudices, thus transforming us into men and women with large hearts and beautiful minds.

Both education and experience are constantly influencing our opinions, and as a result our opinions are constantly being refined. Learning to thrive in the third level and moving beyond it depend upon acceptance. Knowing that opinions are not permanent, but rather dynamic and changing, liberates us to enjoy people for who they are today. Only if we place this type of acceptance at the core of our relationships will we continue to experience deeper levels of intimacy.

T
HE
F
IRST
T
RUTH

T

he first truth of relationships is that all relationships have problems. They all have unresolvable problems. These unresolvable problems are usually the result of vastly different opinions on certain issues or varying expectations about the role each partner should play. All of these are the result of differences in upbringing, education, and experience.

Too often we subscribe to the fantasy that we are more suited for each other than are other couples, and that therefore our relationship is different and better. The truth is, we all face the same challenges along the way, and most relationships have more similarities than they do differences. If we have the courage to look beyond our illusions, we discover the daunting reality that all relationships have unresolvable problems. And believe it or not, it is how we choose to deal with these unresolvable problems that most influences the quality and depth of our relationships.

The relationships that thrive despite their unresolvable problems are those in which the people acknowledge the problems, find ways to adapt to them, and over time even find them amusing. They don’t allow differing opinions to become a roadblock in their quest for intimacy.

The people whose relationships struggle take a very different path when confronted with their unresolvable problems. They constantly argue to the point of gridlock, they keep hurting each other’s feelings, and consciously or subconsciously they stand at the stove saying, “I’ll give you wood when you give me heat.” They withhold their love, affection, and acceptance from each other while promising themselves, “When I understand her I will accept and love her,” and vice versa. Over time a pattern emerges. The people disagree about something; they criticize each other; they blame each other for their inability to resolve their differences; the tension escalates; the subject of the argument is abandoned for condescending and critical personal attacks; the argument becomes too painful, so one person (or both) abdicates; they retreat from the conflict and return to the superficial and safer levels. Unless they can learn a new way to deal with their unresolvable problems they will never taste the life-giving waters of intimacy. The new way they desperately need to find is acceptance.

How do you deal with unresolvable problems in your primary relationship? With your children? With your parents? With friends? At work?

We must work our way out from under the illusion that all problems can be resolved. Once we are liberated from the expectation that we should be able to resolve all the problems in our relationships, we are free to turn our attention to helping each other become the-best-versions-of-ourselves.

It isn’t your job to fix the relationship. It is the relationship’s job to fix you.

Relationships are hard work, but the hardest work is letting go of our personal agendas and learning to accept that we are who we are and where we are
right now
for a reason. Everything doesn’t have to be planned and controlled. Relationships should be treated as sacred mysteries. Allow the mystery to unfold in its own time.

The greatest gift we can give anyone in relationship is acceptance. Once we resolve to accept people for who they are and where they are, we are set free and so are they. We are free to affirm them, encourage them, and appreciate them, and by liberating ourselves we set them free to be who they are and become all they were created to be.

All relationships have unresolvable problems. It is difficult to come to terms with this truth at first, but in time you will discover, if you have not done so already, that it is how we deal with these unresolvable problems that usually determines the fate of our relationships. Very few relationships lose their footing in the midst of great joy or even the everyday challenges; it is the unresolvable problems of relationships (and the illusion that they should not exist) that cause us to lose our footing.

C
OLLECTIVE
E
GO

R

elationship is about teamwork, not about getting what you want. In fact, relationships are not about
getting
at all. They are about giving and receiving, about working together for the common good and toward the achievement of a common goal. A relationship is about helping someone else become the-best-version-of-himself or herself, and receiving the support you need to become the-best-version-of-yourself. All of this requires a highly developed sense of teamwork.

One of the obstacles we encounter in any form of teamwork is ego. The ultimate dysfunction in a relationship occurs when the individuals within that relationship seek personal fulfillment at the expense of the team.

Relationships are about teamwork. You and your spouse are a team. You and your teenage child are a team. You and your girlfriend or boyfriend are a team. How’s your team doing?

For any relationship to be truly dynamic and successful, the collective ego of those involved must be greater than their individual egos. Two must become one. Everything has to be subordinate to the goal and purpose of the team. Individual achievement means nothing if it doesn’t help the team achieve its goals. If the team loses, everyone loses.

Most teams fail not because they lack talent but because they lack the character necessary to subjugate personal ambition to a common purpose.

If you want to learn about teamwork, study great teams and study great coaches. I’ve already mentioned John Wooden, arguably the greatest coach in college basketball history. From time to time, he would get a player who didn’t really care about results. Or at least, not team results. Such a player was interested only in his own statistics and the individual recognition those statistics could bring him. If the team lost, that didn’t bother him, as long as he was getting his points. If the team won and he didn’t score enough, he would be unhappy. Coach Wooden would put that kid on the bench week after week after week, because even if he was the most talented player on the court, the team played better without him. Great coaches don’t put the best players on the court, they put the best team on the court.

Teams are most successful when the collective ego is greater than the individual egos. No matter how well an individual performs, if the team loses, everyone loses. You may get a promotion and a huge pay raise, but if work causes you to neglect your spouse, your children, your exercise regimen, and your spiritual disciplines, then your team loses.

Intimacy requires teamwork. In the third level of intimacy we come up against the obstacle of differing opinions. Some people run from the conflict and head straight back to the shallow and superficial waters of facts and clichés. Others set up camp here in the third level and continue to do battle over their differing opinions for the rest of their lives. But a rare few learn that opinions are constantly changing and evolving. This gives birth to the wisdom of acceptance, which in turn allows them to find creative ways to live with their unresolvable problems. The fruit of all this is the formation of a team, and with their collective ego to guide and protect them this team is ready to experience the deeper mysteries of intimacy.

 

 

 

T
HE
V
ISION
T
HAT
S
HAPES
O
UR
L
IVES

D

reams are a fascinating part of the human experience. Every dream is unique. Our dream world, however confusing, frightening, wonderful, or exhilarating, reveals something about who we are. No emotion is off limits in our dreams. Sometimes our hidden self, the one we try to keep hidden from the world and even from the people we love, emerges in our dreams. Our dreams very often reveal our hopes, fears, fantasies, and our deepest desires.

Dreams have always fascinated man, while the meanings behind them have always evaded us. Who hasn’t spent the empty moments of a day wondering, “I wonder what that dream I had last night means?”

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine gave me a dream dictionary for Christmas. This book claims to elucidate the meaning of thousands of dreams. You can look up various words, places, people, and things, and the dream dictionary explains the significance of these things to your dream. I kept the book on my bedside table for several months, and each morning I would look up the meaning of my dreams. It was a fascinating exercise. But the dreams that we have while we sleep are not what the fourth level of intimacy is about. The fourth level of intimacy is about the dreams we have for our lives, our relationships, our future, the brief time we have here on earth.

Hopes and dreams are a crucial part of life and of any healthy relationship. While they are very much focused on and concerned with the future, they also say something real about who we are now. The fourth level of intimacy is about knowing what your hopes and dreams are in each of the many facets of your life; just as important, it is about revealing your dreams to your significant other (and, where appropriate, the other people with whom you share your other high-level relationships).

The reason that it is so important to learn to thrive in the third level of intimacy by accepting each other in spite of our differing opinions is because we generally reveal our dreams only to people we feel accepted by. Our dreams speak significantly about who we are, so they are a point of significant vulnerability. When we are around people who are judgmental and critical, we usually don’t make ourselves vulnerable. For this reason, we never experience true intimacy with people who are constantly critical and judgmental.

Before we make ourselves vulnerable, we assess, consciously or subconsciously, whether we are in a supportive environment with people who accept us. Acceptance melts our defenses, removes our masks, and gives us the courage to reveal ourselves. Dreams are an intimate part of who we are, and while we may share some of our shallower and more superficial dreams with many people, there are other dreams so deep and so intimate that at certain times in our lives we are unwilling to admit them even to ourselves.

Intimacy is the mutual self-revelation that causes us to know and be known. Being aware of the dreams of the people you love is just as important as knowing your own dreams. Once we know each other’s dreams, we must decide whether we are going to help each other fulfill them. Then, the more important decision usually occurs when you have to decide which dreams have priority. The litmus test remains the same: which of these dreams will help us become the-best-version-of-ourselves? Everything makes sense in relation to our essential purpose, including dreams. Our hopes and dreams are only helpful if they help us to become the-best-version-of-ourselves. The dreams that do should be embraced, pursued, and celebrated. Those that do not should be rejected.

Knowing the dreams of the people you love and helping them fulfill those dreams brings a certain dynamism to relationships that is both energizing and inspiring. Few things energize an individual like the passionate pursuit of a dream, and few things can infuse a relationship with such energy and enthusiasm as the pursuit of dreams. Revealing your dreams, chasing your dreams, and encouraging the people you love to fulfill their dreams can have a very powerful impact on any relationship. The fourth level of intimacy is about learning how to do that in the relationships that are most important to you.

Our dreams are the vision that shapes our lives, and the vision that shapes our relationships.

T
HE
Q
UESTION OF
G
RATIFICATION

W

hen it comes to the pursuit of dreams, the first question to ask yourself is, Are you willing to delay gratification? If your answer to this question is no, then relationships are no place for you, and any worthwhile dream will evade you. The present culture proposes that life is about getting what you want, when you want it. This culture is propelled forward by a constant need for gratification and a contempt and disdain for anything that would delay our gratification. We no longer live in a culture of instant gratification. We now live in a culture where instant gratification isn’t fast enough. As a result, we are now witnessing the rise of entire generations who possess no patience, little self-control, and an almost complete inability to discipline themselves.

The reality is that success in any field, whether it is business, career, sports, investing, health and well-being, spirituality, or relationships, requires delayed gratification. More, our success in any realm of life depends on delayed gratification. You cannot be successful without delaying gratification—unless your goal is instant gratification. And if this is your goal, you may experience some temporary success but you are doomed to fail sooner or later.

Consider Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong, two of the most extraordinary athletes of our age, and arguably of all times. They have lived lives of extraordinary achievement and phenomenal success, but behind every achievement and success we find an uncommon ability to delay gratification. Why don’t we want to delay gratification? The reason is that doing so is painful to a greater or lesser extent. The pain may not be physical, but pain comes in many forms, as anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one is well aware.

Sometimes the pain amounts simply to less pleasure. For example, you feel like a hamburger and fries. Why? They represent a momentary pleasure to you. Instead, you have soup and a salad. You still have the pleasure of eating, though perhaps less pleasure than you might have had from the burger and fries. You choose to delay the gratification. If you don’t eat the burger and fries, isn’t the gratification lost forever? No, you just can’t get your mind off the burger and fries. So, what is the gratification that you have delayed? The future gratification is looking and feeling healthier.

We associate delayed gratification with pain, and we should. But we also consider pain to be bad, and that is a mistake. One of the great differences between Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong and their competitors is that Jordan and Armstrong are able to endure more pain. Why? They have practiced enduring more pain. Men and women of towering success befriend pain in one form or another. While the mediocre masses wander through history avoiding pain whenever possible, the heroes, leaders, legends, champions, and saints of every age befriend pain. You think of pain as an enemy; they think of it as a friend.

On the morning of game five of the NBA finals between the Chicago Bulls and the Utah Jazz, in June 1997, Michael Jordan woke up violently ill. Nobody was sure whether it was food poisoning or altitude sickness, but at eight
A
.
M
. Jordan’s bodyguards called Chip Schaefer, the team trainer, to tell him that Jordan was deathly ill. It was later reported that Jordan had woken with a fever of 103: that was not true. His temperature was
only
100. When Schaefer arrived at Jordan’s room, he found the megastar pathetically weak, in fetal position, and wrapped in blankets. He had not slept at all the night before, had a blinding headache, and had suffered violent nausea throughout the night. He may have been the greatest player in the world, but there was no way he would be playing any basketball that day. Or was there?

Schaefer hooked Jordan up to an IV to get as much fluid into him as possible and gave him some medication to help him rest for the morning. He had worked closely with Michael Jordan, and understood more than most the inexplicable drive that possessed him. Jordan had an invincible spirit that allowed him to push on long after most people’s bodies would have betrayed them. Schaefer had seen this spirit in 1991, during the finals against the Lakers. Jordan had badly injured his toe and Schaefer had worked tirelessly to create a shoe that would protect Jordan’s injury during the next game. But when Jordan tried the shoe before the game he discovered while it eased the pain, it hindered his ability to start, stop, and cut. “Give me the pain,” he said to Schaefer.

The story behind the making of the legend we know as Lance Armstrong is frighteningly similar. Armstrong is the seven-time winner of the Tour de France, unquestionably the most grueling human endurance test on two wheels. Every July all of Europe (and, since the emergence of Armstrong, most of the world) turns its attention to France and the bike race that encircles it, covering more than 2,226 miles in twenty-one days. The hundreds of riders who start can all ride a bike, they can all make the distance, but few can endure the pain it takes to win. The tour is an endurance test, and what is it that the competitors have to endure? Pain. One of Armstrong’s more famous remarks is “Pain is temporary, but quitting lasts forever.”

Our ability to delay gratification determines our success in a great many areas of our lives.

Personal finance is another great example, perhaps one many of us will be able to relate to a little more closely. Millions of Americans retire every year with little or no net worth. Having given the best forty years of their life to work, they have frighteningly little to show for it. They will collect their Social Security, and thanks to the structures and supports of this great nation they will survive, but a great many of them will spend the rest of their lives watching pennies. Is there an alternative?

Absolutely. If you saved $1 a day for 55 years you would have $20,000 in savings. You may say, So what? Well, if you invested your $30 at the end of each month in government bonds at a return of 5 percent, after 55 years you would have $101,000. Still not convinced that you should delay your gratification? Invest your $1 a day at a return of 9 percent, and after fifty-five years you will have $481,795. Is it unreasonable to expect a return of 9 percent? You decide, but the S&P has averaged a return of 12.4 percent since 1925.

Still not convinced? Save an entire $3 a day for fifty-five years and invest it at 9 percent and you will walk away with $1,445,385. That’s right, almost one and half million dollars in return for $3 a day of delayed gratification. Increase your savings to $5 a day and you will amass $2,408,975. Why do most people retire with little or no net worth? Two reasons. They are unwilling to delay gratification, and they never really took the time to develop a financial dream.

On the other hand, the average household in the United States that carries a credit card balance has more than $7,000 of credit card debt.

Consumer debt is at record levels. Instant gratification is at record levels. Coincidence? I think not. Is the battle between saving and spending? I don’t think so. The battle is between instant gratification and delayed gratification.

I am not suggesting that wealth is the be-all and end-all, but given a choice between riches and poverty I would choose wealth every time. And I’d encourage you to do the same. The reality is that most of us are given the choice between riches and poverty.

Now consider relationships. Think about the people you know who have flailing relationships or who cannot keep a relationship together. Are they willing to delay gratification? Do they see relationships simply as a source of pleasure? Do they hold the unreasonable expectation that a good relationship should not have problems? Are they willing to put the relationship ahead of their personal agendas and pleasures?

Every worthwhile dream demands delayed gratification, and the dream of a great relationship is no different. Every day another book about relationships is published that tells you how to go out and get what you want. If this is the approach we take to relationships, we are doomed from the very start. The very nature of relationship is giving, not getting; it is helping someone else in their journey. In order to approach a relationship in this way, we must at the very least be willing to set our own desires and agendas aside initially. We must be willing to delay our own personal gratification. Does this mean that we should always suppress our desires? Not at all. Does this mean we should always delay our gratification? Absolutely not. It simply means that there will be times in your relationship when you will be required to delay gratification (individually and as a couple) if you wish to live the dream of a great relationship, and if you wish to achieve some of the other dreams you have as individuals and as a couple within the relationship.

The achievement of our dreams is inseparable from delayed gratification.

The willingness and ability (which is the result of nothing other than practice) to delay gratification is as important to relationships as it is to any other area of life.

So, how do the people who delay their gratification do it? They keep in mind the future gratification. Michael Jordan never let his dream to become the best basketball player in history leave his mind. When training got tough, Lance Armstrong reminded himself of his dream to win a Tour de France, and then another, and another, and then a record-breaking six. Men and women who build wealth keep in mind the opportunities the wealth they are building will give them (and the people they love) in the future. Those who are able to delay their gratification do so by reminding themselves of the reward that their sacrifices will bring. They delay their gratification by keeping their eyes firmly fixed on their dreams. What else do they do? They practice, and they practice, and they practice. They practice delaying gratification, so that gradually they build up immunity to the pain. As their tolerance for pain increases, they are able to push themselves further and further, thus creating even higher levels of success. Finally, they imagine how sweet their future victory (gratification) will be. They live with the dream in mind.