Transforming Communication to Emotional Intimacy

When we understand where our ineffective behaviors arise, we may be in a position to change some of them. A key feature of healing the family is understanding emotional intimacy and the different levels that exist to help us understand and grow with each other. Too often, our conversations lack the depth to be meaningful. It is impossible, and somewhat unhealthy, to try and have the deepest level of intimacy in every relationship, but many of our families live from day to day on the most superficial levels. Simply put, our children are starving for more of us, but if we can’t, or won’t, allow them to access those parts of ourselves that lie deep within, they will search for more with others, sometimes in unhealthy ways.

Every child longs for safe people with whom we can express our deepest desires. Tragically, however, some families have a very superficial way of interacting with each other and have very surface levels of intimacy. In order to combat this, we need to look at things that may have wounded us, have made us afraid to express the deepest desires of our heart to those in our family. For some families, this is a quick process, for others it takes a long time. But if we are willing to challenge ourselves, we can take low levels of communication and intentionally move them into deeper levels of emotional intimacy, especially within our family.

A change can take place when members of the family intentionally change their communication styles to reflect deeper levels of intimacy. In healing the family, we walk with our clients through the process of learning new communication skills and techniques so that we can demonstrate our desire to reach the deepest level of emotional intimacy.