The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved (21 page)

Conversely, there is something wonderfully liberating about being able to say, “You know, I am having a miserable day today. I don’t know why, I just feel miserable.” Sometimes it is very healthy just to accept our feelings for what they are, rather than analyzing them endlessly. Feelings don’t always need a reason.

These simple exchanges can tell the people we love so much about who we are and what is going on inside us. It is a world that the people who love us desperately want to explore, but they can only do so if we allow them to. We allow the people we love into our inner world through communication. They cannot read a book about your inner life and they can’t take a tour. You have to tell them about it.

Imagine taking a blind person to an art gallery and trying to describe each work of art. You couldn’t just say, “This one is a Picasso”—that wouldn’t convey anything of its appearance. You’d have to describe the height, the width. Is the piece a painting, a sculpture, a print, a photo? You could describe the colors, but that won’t help someone who’s always been blind. You must describe the art in ways a blind person can understand. Is it warm or cold? What is the texture, rough or smooth?

In the same way, we need to describe our inner world to the people with whom we are in a relationship. Don’t assume that they understand what you are talking about. When it comes to each other’s inner worlds, most of us are like the blind person you just took to the art gallery.

Sharing our feelings with another person can be a powerful release. Sometimes you will feel a physical weight lift from your shoulders. When the heart and the mind suffer, the body cries out. Sharing how we feel and the reasons we feel that way, or sharing how we feel even though we don’t know why we feel that way, is very healthy physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.

I cannot help but marvel at the way we are all unique and independent, and at the same time, in our quest for happiness and intimacy, we could not be more interdependent. How is it that being able to say to someone we love, “I am so happy today,” increases our happiness? Why is it that being able to say to someone who cares, “I feel so lonely since my father died,” decreases our loneliness? I do not know and it does not matter. What is important is that whenever I can help increase another person’s happiness or decrease another person’s loneliness, I do.

Most of our feelings are fleeting and we know that in the grand scheme of things they are virtually insignificant; ten years from now, a specific feeling experienced at a specific time probably won’t even be a blip on the screen of our relationships. But consistently being able to express these feelings
will
matter. Expressing how we feel helps those around us to know us. It is this knowledge of each other, gathered in the tiniest portions along the way, that gives rise to intimacy: to knowing and being known.

D
IALOGUES OF THE
D
EAF

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onversations today are, for the most part, dialogues of the deaf. Everybody has something to say, but nobody is willing to listen. We observe this between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, parents and children, employees and employers, and we also observe it between nations. There can be no intimacy in a world where nobody is willing to listen.

When people meet someone famous whom they admire, they will report something like, “I met Mother Teresa; it was amazing. I told her about what we are doing in Connecticut,” or “I met the Dalai Lama and I told him about…,” or “I met the Pope and I told him…,” or “I met the President and I told him…,” or “I met Nelson Mandela and I told him…”

I always like to ask, “What did he say to you?” Usually the narrator cannot tell, either because he didn’t give the famous person a chance to say anything, or because he was so consumed with what he himself was going to say that he was not listening.

If I had thirty seconds, or three minutes, with Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, the Pope, the President, Nelson Mandela, or any number of world leaders past and present, I wouldn’t waste that time telling them anything. I would want to know what they had to tell me. Even if I disagreed considerably with some of their views or disapproved of their way of life, I have no doubt that I could learn from their extraordinary experiences. Have we become so small and selfish that even the towering figures of our age can say nothing that we think worth listening to? The truth, of course, is that every person we know, every person who crosses our path, has a wealth of experience. Learning to tap into that wealth of experience transforms conversations from exchanges of trivialities into life-changing moments.

I am also continually amazed that everyone who meets a person of considerable fame or stature, and especially a great spiritual leader, comes away saying, “It was as if nothing else in the world existed, just the two of us.” In some cases, I think, this phenomenon takes place because the famous person actually has such intense focus; in other cases, I think it results because nothing else exists for
us
in that moment.

But regardless of what causes it, we all like this feeling. When was the last time you made someone feel that way? When was the last time you made your significant other (or your child) feel as if nothing else existed, just the two of you? Learning to listen will give you the power to make people feel that way.

Listening has become a lost art. We have all had this experience: we come to someone we love and trust, and we say, “I need to talk through a couple of things.” Then we begin to explain our predicament, but we are interrupted within a couple of minutes by the other person saying, “What you need to do is…” or “Have you considered doing…” or “Why didn’t you…”

The other person has assumed the role of problem solver. But chances are we don’t need a problem solver. We just need someone to listen to us. In many cases, we already know what we need to do. We just needed to talk it through with someone.

The first step toward becoming a good listener revolves around the question: Why is this person saying what he or she is saying? Usually, we think becoming a good listener means focusing on what the person is saying. But
why
she is speaking is often much more important to the communication than the content of what she says. And until we know why a person is speaking, we should simply remain silent and listen. If they want you to say something, most people will ask you a question such as “So, what do you think?”

The next secret of being a great listener is to get value from your listening. I like to listen, because I never learn anything when I am speaking. I do a lot of speaking in my professional life, and in my personal life I like to do a lot of listening. It is listening that feeds and nourishes my mind, gives me new ideas, and helps me to continue to grow and change, becoming a-better-version-of-myself.

In every situation there is great value in listening, not only for the person we are listening to, but also for ourselves. And yet, the value can vary greatly from situation to situation. Take, for example, a man who goes down into a diamond mine. He knows the diamonds are there and he knows the diamonds have market value. He is searching for something of known value.

On the other hand, imagine a woman walking along the beach early one morning looking for a shell. It is the last day of a wonderful vacation, during which she and her husband have reassessed their hopes and dreams for the future, and she is searching for the perfect shell as a memento of this time together. She is not looking for something of “known value”; rather, she “finds value” in the unusual shape of the shell. If she chooses a small shell, it may make a nice pendant on a necklace, and if she chooses a larger shell it may make an elegant paperweight. Either way, she finds value.

Our listening is a very similar adventure. On the one hand, you may spend three days of your life and thousands of dollars to attend a conference where experts speak about future trends in your profession. In this case, you would be akin to the man searching for the diamond. On the other hand, you may spend an afternoon with your teenage daughter, listening to what is going on in her life. Here, you would be akin to the woman searching the beach for the shell.

There is value in everything people say, especially when the words come from someone we love and care about. Even when we disagree, there is an intrinsic value in listening. And the more we can hone the ability to listen, the more intimacy we will experience.

Being a great listener is a skill, one that we can all learn. The greatest obstacle, for most of us, is our impatience. In a world of instant messaging, online ordering, overnight delivery, and cell phones, we quickly become impatient with systems that are slower than usual, and impatient with people, who by their very nature are slower than the speed-of-light technology that surrounds us.

Earlier, I pointed out the value of virtue in relationships by explaining that two virtuous people will always have a better relationship than two unvirtuous people. Here, we unveil one of the very practical implications of that idea. Two patient people will necessarily have a better relationship than two impatient people, because their ability to listen to each other will be exponentially greater than that of their impatient counterparts. Two patient people will therefore almost certainly experience more intimacy than two impatient people.

The important thing to remember is that nobody is born patient. At birth, we are all impatient for our mother’s breast and for whatever other forms of gratification we need or crave. Patience, like any other virtue, is acquired through practice.

Listening is an art that is concerned with the details. When you are listening to someone, you must move from the general to the specific. By all means, listen to the gist of what they are saying and the broad ideas they are expressing, but learn to listen, too, for the words they use. And when they use adjectives, take particular note. Adjectives are usually subjective. Adjectives will take you beyond the ideas a person is sharing and reveal how he is feeling. When someone says, “The trip was boring,” he is telling you more about his feelings than about the trip. The trip was likely a wonderful opportunity, but he may have made the same trip before. Feelings are subjective, and adjectives very often reveal the feelings that lay behind the objective facts. Learn to listen for adjectives.

Other powerful tools in the art of listening include repeating back, asking questions, and asking for more information.

Repeating back to the speaker what you think he or she is saying can be a very useful tool. It shows that you have been listening, that you are interested, that you care enough to want to get it right, and that you have understood. If you have not heard the speaker correctly, it also gives her the opportunity to give further clarification.

We repeat back in order to affirm and clarify, using phrases such as “What I hear you saying is…” or “I think I heard you say that…” or “Are you saying that…” or “Did I understand you to say that…” or “Is the point you are trying to make…”

Questions are also an integral part of listening. They demonstrate the listener’s attentiveness and interest, while allowing for clarification and further exploration of certain points.

Finally, when you are listening to someone, look at that person. When I am on the phone at home or in my office, I often find it useful to close my eyes so that I can concentrate on the conversation and not be distracted by everything around me. But eye contact is important when you are with a person. Like repeating back and asking questions, it shows that you are paying attention and that you are interested. Don’t just look interested. Be interested, and as night follows day, you will look interested.

The ability to listen and the enjoyment of listening are key parts of developing intimacy. Listening is not waiting impatiently until it is your turn to speak. It is in listening that we come to know people’s history, the story of their lives, their values and expectations, their opinions, their hopes and dreams. Perhaps most important, by listening we get to know how people feel and why they feel it.

Everyone loves a good listener. I know I wish I had a few more in my life.

Are you a good listener?

F
EELINGS
A
RE
R
EACTIONS

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eelings are a wonderful part of the human person. As our relationships grow in intimacy and we begin to form the collective ego of a team, we tend to focus more and more on positive feelings that create unity, rather than on negative feelings that create separation and isolation. Intimacy leads us to focus more on trust than on distrust, more on gratitude than on entitlement, more on appreciation than on anger.

The fifth level of intimacy is about getting comfortable with our own feelings and learning to express them to the people we love. The level of feelings is also very much about learning to listen to others, but it is also about learning to listen to ourselves, which prepares us for the seventh level of intimacy.

Feelings are extraordinary, and it is fascinating to observe how the same event can provoke such a variety of feelings in different people. Feelings often play a large role in our opinions, our values, and our choices—in many cases, a dangerously large role. Feelings can be profound and insightful, as in the case of a mother’s intuition. But feelings can also be blinding and tremendously limiting, as in the case of people who are afraid of flying and refuse to take airplanes because they once saw a movie whose plot included a plane crash.

The important thing to remember about feelings is that they are a reaction. We all react differently, but it is important to know these reactions have been conditioned in us by past experience, the beliefs of friends and parents, and the general fear of change that besets the human person. Knowing that our feelings are reactions, we can train ourselves to react differently. This is no easy task, of course, but people do it every day.