The Promise and Perils of Intimacy
(or, what are the overlapping colored circles about?)

In Relation Dancing, I describe the 3 steps of a Cycle of Intimacy as 1) Sharing, 2) Feeling Understood, 3) Feeling Accepted.  We must feel understood and accepted by someone to feel that we have an intimate connection, that they really know us.  I have excerpted the following paragraph from the book in the section systematically creating intimacy:

Nathaniel Branden, in his book The Psychology of Romantic Love, points out that, "We do not wish to be loved blindly; we wish to be loved for specific reasons.”  If our partner professes to love us, but does not really know who we are, their declarations of love will be fundamentally unfulfilling.  It is only when we feel that they truly know our particular qualities that we can "trust" that they love us.

The nature of human being is that it delights in being seen/known and accepted/loved as it is. (Why? I don't know the answer to that, but I believe it is the same answer to the questions "why did the universe incarnate?," and "why did we forget that we are spirit/divinity/consciousness?"...) AND, this involves people understanding us, because it is only when WE feel that they understand/get/see us that we feel known.

The challenge is that unless the other person can communicate to us WHAT they "get" about us in some way that we can believe/trust, we don't know that they are experiencing us. Hence, our experience of being known is uncertain. AND, my experience is that the more we investigate what another person is experiencing about us (me), the more I discover that what they are experiencing is different than what I thought they were experiencing. The deeper I investigate, the more profound the misunderstandings. (In fact, it is somewhat of a fun joke/ride for me to notice when a particularly profound "experience of connection" has reached its nadir, then stop and ask the other person what they were experiencing. The difference between what I was experiencing, what I thought they were experiencing, and what they actually were experiencing typically makes me laugh.)

This is the beauty of language. It is also the danger of it. On the one hand, it allows the opportunity to verify and investigate another's experience with some degree of facility, allowing for profound increases in precision and mutual understanding. However, it is so impoverished that it can create its own misunderstandings. When we use a word a particular way and the other "thinks" they understand and build their interpretation on that misunderstanding...Yikes! I find one piece that can adds dozens of dimensions and loads more accuracy is a dramatic "acting out" (vs articulating in precise and well-modulated language/voice-tones...) where we embody what we were experiencing like actors on a stage. (I tend to be silly about this, but hey, I tend to be silly about a lot of things...)

Like most of us, I trust the non-verbal communication more than the verbal, because I have found through time that it gives me more important information about the "whole" experience of an "other." In this sense, the "energy" between people is often a communication that is far superior to language in building intimacy.

AND, it is also far more ripe for delusion. When we don't investigate to make sure the experience is shared, we often build powerful unconscious expectations that come back to bite us in the ass. I can't count the number of clients have come through my office having "assumed" that their partner had the same understandings they did, building their plans/actions on top of that illusory foundation, and then had their world collapse around them when they discovered that it wasn't the case.

Of course, an additional challenge is that (as described below), we both don't always know the truth about our own experience, and don't always communicate it as clearly as we can (we don't want to spoil the moment - or undermine the illusions, or trigger off fears that will lead to misunderstandings...)...when we foster illusions, we are planting the seeds of disillusionment.

In my mind, this is why "true" love is so precious. When we really investigate and learn that someone really sees an important part of us in a way that matches our own experience, it is a rare and beautiful thing.

In my model, I have 3 spheres overlapping.

The Yellow sphere I call "objective reality", which I typically define as "the sound our body makes as it goes splat on the pavement when we jump off the roof of a 20 story building." (gruesome, but I believe it makes the point!)

The Blue sphere I call "the I Reality" or "personal reality" which I define as "my experience/beliefs about reality"

The Red Sphere I call "others' personal reality" and can represent a person, an organization, a culture, and everything in between.

Where the spheres overlap, each color becomes a reference point for some helpful distinctions related to how personal and objective realities interact.

The green is where my personal reality overlaps (is consistent with) objective reality. I call this "power." In this space, my representation of the world is consistent enough with the world that my actions have their intended effects. I can plan, act on those plans, and the results I get basically match the results my plans call for. The more consistent and precise the overlap, the more "power" I have to shape the world I inherit in the next moment or next year. In physics, I can build a bridge/skyscraper. In business, I can penetrate a particular market or make a consistent profit. In relationships, I can build greater intimacy. Etc.

The blue is where my ideas/understandings of reality are relatively inaccurate/illusory. For example, I mistakenly think a wood bridge can handle the weight of traffic, or a market will purchase a particular product and a profitable price, or a lover will understand my sharing of something vulnerable and accept my goodness as a human being...only to have the plans I had made "fall apart all around me" when objective reality responds according to its nature not our fantasy. Illusions lead to disillusionment.

The Orange is another person's/group's power.

The Red is another person's/group's illusions.

The Purple and White are what I refer to as "Shared reality." They are places where my personal reality is consistent with an "other's" personal reality. However, they are otherwise very different.

The purple is what I call Pseudo Intimacy or shared delusion. It is where I agree with an "other" about the nature of some aspect of reality (my capacities, the "right" political stance/principle, the "wrongness" of another person's actions), but our shared experience is inaccurate/illusory. This is particularly dangerous, because we can support one another in misunderstanding/misinterpreting the feedback/results we get in reality. We can use each other to prop up our illusions. This is dangerous because the more we build our lives around these illusions, the more pain and disillusionment is predictable when reality has its day, as it always does. Shared ideals, and projects/relationships built on them, are particularly vulnerable to this kind of illusion/disillusionment.

The White is what I call Intimacy/Community/Social Power, or strangely enough Shared Objective Reality. It comes from sharing, being understood, and being accepted. Here our ideas/understandings of some aspect of reality are both shared and accurate (consistent with reality). This allows us to build plans and structures that can handle the weight of our deepest values through time. We can create solid foundations on which we can build intricate and lasting works of art and architecture for our souls to express themselves in and through. We create RelationDances that support our vulnerabilities and encourage mutual celebration of our victories and mutual grief at our losses.

Because only time and experience can give us feedback to help us differentiate between Purple and White, and only communication can help us discover what an "other" is really experiencing, I personally think that inquiring into our "shared realities" to discover 1) what parts are truly shared, and 2) what parts are consistent with reality. The only way I know not to foster illusions is to inquire into the "space" of relationship to ongoingly discover what it is. I like to approach this as a Game, perhaps even a Game For Intimacy.

Intimacy is a dangerous enterprise, because the more vulnerable we become, the more misunderstandings/illusions "hurt" when they come to light.  At the same time, the more we share our innermost experiences, the more challenging it is to communicate them and be truly understood.

And this is what makes it worthwhile.  It is the perils of intimacy that make its promise so sweet.  It is the challenge of creating true intimacy that makes its rare flavor so precious.  As Nietzsche said, "Live Dangerously!"  It is just the type of danger that intimacy represents that he would have found worthy of pursuing.

Live your life by Choice, not Chance.  Life By Design. 

Mark Michael Lewis