Intimacy is a sense of closeness to another person; a real sense of two-way empathy. When we’re emotionally intimate, we can share personal feelings, display affection, and not be dismissed or judged harshly. There is a sense of being heard and connected to the heart and soul of that other person. It creates a sense of well-being when we are heard. Not everyone needs to agree with everything you say, yet we all yearn for the heart to heart connection of being heard, respected and not judged.

We all love the idea that our true friends will love and support us no matter what. Yet when we open ourselves up with discussing issues we need to remember that often they are projecting their own ‘stuff’ on us which can be confusing. It is important to be mindful and aware of who you share any relationship issues with. This is sacred ground, keep it that way.

Many romantic partners describe their special person as their ‘best friend’, we are a ‘team’ – a perfect combination of physical and emotional intimacy. It is my opinion that all relationships that have longevity are built on spiritual friendship first. Emotional intimacy can exist between friends, family relations, and lovers. Some people even feel emotional intimacy with their pet. There’s no doubt that a sense of shared intimacy is important for both mental and physical health. It connects us to the natural state of the soul which is peace, balance and happiness!

How would you define emotional intimacy? Are your relationships flowing in a manner that is spontaneous, natural, and trusting? Do you feel safe sharing thoughts and feelings? Do you feel a connection beyond the physical body? Do you want more?

Think back to a time when you felt really close and connected with your partner — a time when you felt emotionally intimate with him or her. Think about a time when you felt light and playful with your partner, or a time when laughter flowed easily, or a time when you felt you could tell your partner your deepest secret and it would be accepted.

We all yearn for that deep connection with someone, yet few couples seem to be able to maintain emotional intimacy for very long. We often have it at the very beginning of relationships, before the conflicts start. How can we maintain that wonderful intimacy in a long-term relationship?

The deep and wonderful feeling of intimacy flourishes in an atmosphere of safety. We open up when we feel safe. We take risks when we feel safe. The challenge is, how do we create this safety?

Most of the time people feel safe when they are with someone who is very accepting, caring and compassionate. The problem is that no one is completely reliable when it comes to these qualities. Most people have bad days when they may be irritable or grumpy. What happens to safety when the other person’s acceptance and caring goes away?

Our sense of safety needs to come from within as well as from without. We need to become the person who is consistently accepting, caring and compassionate with ourselves. We need to become strong enough within to not take another’s bad day personally. We need to become centered enough within to stand up for ourselves, and take loving care of our feelings when another gets angry or blaming. We need to become powerful enough within to stay openhearted in the face of fear and conflict.

Creating a safe enough environment for intimacy to flourish means that each person needs to take responsibility for creating safety within themselves, as well as safety within the relationship. We do this by practicing acceptance and compassion for ourselves, which will then naturally extend to others.

However, the moment we are triggered into fear — fear of rejection, of domination, of abandonment, of losing ourselves or losing the other — we often do anything but behave in a way that creates inner and relationship safety. We abandon ourselves and become reactive — getting angry, complying, withdrawing, resisting, blaming, defending, explaining, attacking and so on. None of these behaviors create inner safety, nor do they contribute to relationship safety.

How do we learn to stay connected, openhearted and non-reactive in the face of fear and conflict? The key is to practice staying connected with a source of spiritual guidance (whatever that is for you) during peaceful times, so that when the fear and conflicts arise, you have that source available to you and can bring that comfort to your painful feelings. None of us can stay open by ourselves. David Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., in his book entitled simply “I,” states that, “The strength of the ego is such that it can be overcome only by spiritual power.” When our ego — our wounded self — is activated by fear and conflict, we must be able to turn to a source of spiritual power for the strength to not react with our learned defenses, and the strength to bring compassion to our painful feelings.

The more we practice staying connected with our spiritual guidance and our own feelings, the more we create inner and relationship safety. The safer we feel within ourselves and with our partner, the freer we feel to share our joy and pain with each other, which is what leads to connection and intimacy.

The question then becomes — what creates safety? Here are six ways to increase the emotional intimacy in your most significant relationships.

When each person takes responsibility for their own feelings and needs, then no one fears getting blamed for the other person’s struggles. We feel safe when we know that we are not going to be attacked if we say something or do something that another person doesn't like.

We feel safe when we know we have an open arena in which to discuss any problems that might come up. If we’re afraid to bring up a problem because the other person might get angry, defensive, resistant, or withdrawn, emotional intimacy can’t survive.

We trust that our partner, family members, or close friends would never intentionally hurt us, so we know that if we feel hurt by them, it's not deliberate. This makes it easy to ask about it and try to understand it within ourselves and with each other.

One of the quickest ways of undermining intimacy is to be judgmental. When we fear another's judgment, we feel tense rather than safe, open, or connected with that person.

Consciously and consistently choosing kindness and compassion with each other — as well as with ourselves — creates the environment of safety that allows intimacy to flourish. We need to be able to rely on each other’s caring in order to feel the safety necessary for emotional intimacy.

Presence is essential for emotional intimacy to flourish. Presence means that we are present in our bodies — in our hearts and souls — rather than just focused in our heads.

While we can connect with each other intellectually from our heads, we need to be present in our hearts and souls to connect emotionally. We connect emotionally through our feelings way more than through our thoughts. In order to connect through our feelings, we need to be present and willing to share them. While sharing feelings might feel vulnerable, vulnerability is essential for emotional connection.

We need to be able to trust each other in order to be open and vulnerable. We trust that we are devoted to being honest with each other, even when it's hard.

We need to know that integrity is important to each of us. Having integrity means not behaving in ways that go against our essence — our conscience. When we are true to our essential goodness, we become trustworthy.

It takes time to build the kind of trust that leads to emotional intimacy. We need to experience many different situations with each other to build the trust necessary for enduring emotional intimacy.

In a committed relationship, these are the ingredients necessary for both emotional and sexual intimacy. Emotional intimacy leads to sexual intimacy between partners, which is why there is frequently more passion at the beginning of a relationship than after many years.

Before partners build their walls against getting hurt, they are often open, kind, and present with each other — which facilitates passionate sexual intimacy. Many times, this is temporary, because the deeper trust isn't yet there, and people often close down when their fears are activated.

But when people in long-term, committed relationships learn to take responsibility for their feelings, staying open to learning with each other; believe in their partner’s essential goodness; be present, kind, caring, compassionate, honest, and trustworthy with themselves and each other, both their emotional intimacy and their sexual intimacy will continue to deepen.

The range of responses I received was wide and varied. I asked both men and women, different ages, some in relationships and some not. Most people had to stop for a moment to really think about and put into words what intimacy meant to them. As I looked more deeply at the topic, I found that there seem to be four types of intimacy we engage in in our relationships.

The people I asked generally started describing the most common of the four types of intimacy: Sexual. This wasn’t too much of a surprise, as sexual intimacy is probably the most stereotypical and most familiar definition of the word in modern society. Having sex, however, often has less to do with intimacy and more to do with a physical act between people. As it ended up, the people I spoke with desired more than just the physical act of sex, they wanted depth. They wanted to feel safe being vulnerable, wanted to be seen by their partner. That makes sense, as this form of intimacy also includes a wide range of sensuous activity and sensual expression, so it’s much more than having intercourse.

It is interesting that the word intercourse is actually defined as “connection between persons or groups” and as an “exchange especially of thoughts or feelings.” Curious to explore why intimacy is challenging to people in their relationships, I continued to look further.

Emotional intimacy occurs when two people feel comfortable sharing their feelings with each other or when we’re able to empathize with the feelings of another person. The goal of emotional intimacy is to be aware of and understand another person’s internal experience. My guess is that women have an easier time with this, but I’d like to believe that men too are becoming more comfortable experiencing emotional intimacy. Emotional intimacy is a healthy part of the exchange in all relationships, whether female or male. But not everyone is comfortable with it.

Margaret Paul, Ph.D, refers to the fears people have in relation to emotional intimacy. She says that, “Many people have two major fears that may cause them to avoid intimacy: the fear of rejection (of losing the other person), and the fear of engulfment (of being invaded, controlled, and losing oneself).” This makes sense to me.

In this area of intimacy, people must act from their hearts and love unconditionally. As I talked about in my piece on what makes a good relationship, the heart of a spiritual partnership is love. Love is also at the core of emotional intimacy.

Intellectual intimacy is personally the face of intimacy I am most comfortable with. This one is all about communication, and as someone who lives and breathes words, it’s extremely familiar to me. Intellectual intimacy happens when two people share ideas and explore the similarities and differences in their personal opinions. The ability to do this in an open and comfortable way can lead to a very intimate relationship indeed. As someone who engages in this type of interaction all the time, I can say that it has offered me a wonderful and fulfilling form of connection with people I care about. I think this may be my strongest area of intimacy.

Experiential intimacy is the intimacy of activity, and it happens every time we get together with a group to create art in a silent process. This type of intimacy is all about letting the art unfold and working together in co-operation. This form of intimacy is not about a verbal sharing of thoughts or feelings, but more about the activity and feeling that emerges from this involvement. I recently experienced this at a Contact Improv jam with a complete stranger. I interacted with a young man, letting our body energy lead the dance, with no eye contact and no words, just movement in a sensual and open, if not dramatic, dance. I was somewhat surprised to learn that experiential intimacy actually is in my intimacy vocabulary.

According to Rick Hanson, Ph.D, to have intimacy in our life, we must have a natural balance of two great themes — joining and separation — which are in fact central to human life. Almost everyone wants both of them, to varying degrees. He goes on to say that “individuality and relationship, autonomy and intimacy, separation and joining… are often seen at odds with each other, but this is so not the case!” This also made perfect sense to me. Yin and yang. Light and dark. All the polarities we live in life, lead to abalance.

My understanding and curiosity about intimacy were greatly expanded by asking others about what intimacy means to them. I  believe that when we establish balance in the four faces of intimacy, we find a deeper connection and understanding in all the relationships of our life. I also fully recognize that we all have different definitions of intimacy. Are men and women’s definitions dramatically different? A fascinating conversation to continue to explore.

I recently received a daily Gaping Void email by Hugh MacLeod with the subject: Has your soul been seen lately? Synchronistically, the topic was intimacy. What followed was a beautiful way to end my piece: